Strong Towns Q&A with Lancaster City Council member John Hursh (left) beside Strong Towns members Grant Elledge and Brandon Basom
With a series of planned community Q&As, local group Strong Towns Harrisburg is hoping to inspire positive change in the area.
“We’re focused on educating and activating residents of Harrisburg for the sake of the good of the city,” explained Grant Elledge, Strong Towns Harrisburg cofounder.
Elledge was one of three members who established Harrisburg’s chapter of the local Strong Towns movement in 2022. The national nonprofit has more than 290 chapters across the country, dedicated to growing towns with smart infrastructure decisions.
On Wednesday, he will moderate a discussion with Dauphin County Commission Chairman and U.S. congressional candidate Justin Douglas alongside two other Strong Towns members, who are taking questions from community members ahead of the event.
The event will take place on Wednesday, March 11 at 7 p.m. at Pursuit Coworking. The Democrat will speak to Harrisburg community members about working within bureaucratic systems to create change.
“We all interact with this kind of broader bureaucracy,” Elledge explained. “And a lot of people have experienced—and this isn’t unique to Harrisburg by any means—some frustration of just, ‘I want to see this thing change, but how would I even start going about figuring out how to do that?’”
This Q&A will mark Strong Town’s third speaker in the series. The group designed the series to engage people with elected representatives and other community stakeholders using hopeful, positive conversation.
It previously hosted then City Councilman-elect Rob Lawson and Lancaster City Council member John Hursh as guests.
Justin Douglas
For Wednesday’s event, Elledge said that the group is excited to host Douglas because he has the background to discuss the government at different levels.
He is informed both by his role chairing the Dauphin County Commission and his current candidacy in this year’s congressional election, running to unseat Rep. Scott Perry (R-10).
“He definitely has a unique vantage point,” said Elledge.
Elledge and other Strong Towns members are hoping the conversation will serve as a catalyst.
“We are hoping that people will feel the power to be able to pick up a particular project or a thing that they’re concerned about—whether that’s through the context of Strong Towns or totally unrelated to the rest of the group—and be able to get some traction,” he said.
Future Strong Towns Q&A panels are already planned for May and July.
They will feature Lawrance Binda, publisher of TheBurg, and Richard Farr, executive director of regional public transit provider rabbittransit.
Strong Towns is a national organization that encourages residents’ engagement with their towns for systemic change. To learn more about Strong HBG, visit its Facebook page.
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