Is this not common sense? We’ve been doing this for ages around here.
Human Scale
The concept of "human scale" is most known in urban design and architecture, but it provides a good framework to think about a lot of different aspects of our lives.
This community can be the place in this hyper-connected world to display and cherish the things that are not.
What is "here"? Because the majority of North America pretty much still believes that more policing == more safety.
Yep.
Cities build traffic-calming infrastructure, make streets non-contiguous to dis-incentivize thru-traffic,etc.
The strong towns effort has the same blinders as many other "well intentioned" groups - they see the world as intentionally designed rather than it's organic reality.
Towns and cities change more like organic systems - an issue arises and today's council/politicians/businesses/civil groups address it according to their goals and pressures.
Trying to plan beyond that assumes knowledge of tomorrow, which is naive at best, and flat-out hubris at the worst.