What does well-being have to do with the economy have to do with the creative industries? For the purposes of this entry, let’s use Gallup’s well-being that measures life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behavior, work environment and basic access (definitions of each here); GDP for the economy; and the creative class for the creative industries.

Thanks to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, cities are now measured for happiness, with the San Jose, Washington DC, Raleigh Minneapolis, and San Francisco metropolitan areas taking the top 5 (see top 10, bottom 10 hhere). The Creative Class Group led by Richard Florida then produced a series of graphs linking that index to GDP, illustrating a positive correlation between well-being and GDP. Income and wage level had even higher correlations to well-being, respectively.

Richard’s team also charted the creative industries with well-being (see graph below), showing a positive correlation between well-being and the creative industries as well. Thus further validates the link between creative industries and the economy from previous studies. The highest positive correlation was between well-being and human capital (measured by Richard’s team as higher education, or those with a B.A. and above).

Another more unsettling finding was a negative correlation (-.34) between well-being and the working class. However this is more of a reflection in income disparity in a U.S. economy that is shifting from an industrial to an information/knowledge/creative economy, since studies show the working class in other countries having much higher levels of happiness. It’s not that the working class is not important, but that they’re not happy.

This is precisely why cities like Detroit are investing in programs like its New Economy Initiative to improve workforce training in emerging industries… though their website is dead at the moment. Change is hard.

This is in the Cooltown Top 20.

Since the vision of this site is ‘crowdsourcing places for creatives’, it may be beneficial to further clarify what the word ‘creatives’ means, as it relates to this site.

What is this site’s definition of creatives?
It’s stated in detail here, but it is essentially the cultural creatives, creative class and the renaissance generation (rengens), all of which have their own self-titled books. In a nutshell, it includes anyone willing to invest in making a difference (cultural creatives) and/or anyone in the creative industries (creative class), acknowledging we live in a period of (ie tremendous opportunity for change)(rengens).

Why the creatives distinction at all?
Because change is hard, and you can’t do it without change agents leading the way. Not everyone can lead, but following or supporting doesn’t mean you’re excluded either. Supporting is a collective form of leadership, and its extraordinary effectiveness is witnessed by crowdsourcing. You need both.

Given the shift to more pedestrian-oriented built environments, what kind of transportation can we expect to see? We know the Segway isn’t going to be a model for transportation - too heavy, clunky and where do you park the thing? Stackable cars are pretty nifty, but a decade away at the soonest. So then, how about the YikeBike?

Think of it as a cleaner, smaller, lighter, quieter, more portable moped

It’s a little ahead of it’s time (in other words, it has a $4450 price tag), though it’s something you can just see dropping in price the more popular they get. It also doesn’t make a great replacement for the bicycle as far as getting exercise with zero carbon output, two benefits the U.S. could use more of. However, for those looking for another reason not to drive, it’s a heck of an option, especially if you consider ‘Yike sharing’. Think of it as a cleaner, smaller, lighter, quieter, more portable moped. At 22 lbs with its foldability (15 seconds to get it 2 feet x 2 feet), there’s really no place you can’t take it, and with its electric motor, you’re never far from its 20-minute recharge.

Designed in Christchurch New Zealand, it’ll be available mid-2010 starting only in Europe. It’s by no means affordable, but can you imagine a bunch of YikeBikes available for rent at $1/hour? The key question is will it result in less people biking or driving?

For other key specs, check out the YikeBike FAQ.

In related news, it’ll at least be easier to find places to ride to now that Google Maps provides bike lanes as an option (thanks to Christian MacAuley of Fab Apps for the reference).

Onno Sminia and Louis Pierre Geerinckx represent what we need more of. The two Dutch industrial designers simply felt there was a better way to move within their urban neighborhood without having to depend on their parents, renting a moving truck and/or finding parking, much less do it on any kind of regular basis. So they innovated and built their own solution.

The solution? A ‘moving bike’, small enough to traverse most any place a bike can, yet big enough to haul a couch. They then formed a new company around it, Vrachfiets, which means ‘cargo bike’ in Dutch. How’s that for problem solving? Two pedalers provide the added power needed for heavier loads, while the next version will have solar-powered electrical assist the up the towing capacity even more.

They already have their first interested customer, the City of Delft, in the Netherlands.

Slowly but surely, the emerging generations are creating their own pedestrian-only/carfree world.

Now if anyone can help translate what they’re saying in the video above, that’d be great!

What happens when a virtual world becomes real? What happens when a digital community becomes a physical one? In yet another sign of things to come, that’s what happened to the online realm of Instructables, “a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others,“... it became the Instructables Restaurant. Or in this site’s terms, the Instructables crowd is the beta community for crowdsourcing their own restaurant.

What makes this ‘the world’s first open source restaurant’, according to its founders? The recipe for every item on the menu (image below), the construction of the furniture, even the instructions for developing the restaurant itself are provided on the Instructables website, which sources creations by anyone from around the world.

The restaurant is currently only experienced in pop-up retail format at events throughout Amsterdam, meaning that its locations are temporary. Thus, it looks temporary, such as the one pictured above that existed for only three days at Picnic 2010, a quirky cross-discipline festival for creative conversation and collaboration. However, stay tuned for a permanent location…

Many of Google’s HQ employees in Mountain View, Silicon Valley, California fit the creatives vibe. So it’s encouraging, though probably not surprising, that the company is prompting the City to invest in sustainable development and a vibrant community in the area surrounding its campus. In other words, Google is looking out for its employees beyond the workplace, and it’s not only smart, it’s a sign of the times. Goodbye office park, hello urban village.

Check out the following letter excerpt from Google to the city:

“Our goals for Google’s HQ are to provide a future redevelopment that is nurturing and regenerative to the environment provide a vibrant community and worklife balance for all and efficiently manage transportation and pedestrian access needs. This must include mixed uses office retail and residential along with the kind of land use development described in the Final Report by the Mountain View Environmental Sustainability Task Force. We encourage you to be the model Silicon Valley community leading the way with visionary development opportunities to create the most efficient sustainable and fiscally supportive plan to the community of Mountain View and the North Bayshore area.“

The good news is they don’t have to look far regarding models for urban living, where Mountain View’s Castro Street (pictured) in the downtown is well known for being an urban design, social and retail success, and San Francisco is just several miles to the North.

Read more in TechCrunch.

Photo of downtown Mountain View by neighborhoods.org

If a cell is defined as the smallest structural and functional unit of an organism, if a building were an organism, its rooms would probably be its cells (‘cellula’ is Latin for a small room). For a city though, it may be more helpful to associate cells with its blocks, fitting perhaps since a cell is often described as the building blocks of life. From the air, a city’s blocks resemble cell structure more than its buildings.

Anyway, accepting this analogy to make a point, this is what makes the Living City Block in Denver, Colorado such an important project, defining the ideal ‘cell structure’ for a healthy city in the 21st century. It’s mission? “To create a replicable, scalable and economically viable framework for the resource efficient regeneration of existing cities.“

Scheduled to launch in Summer 2010, two adjacent city blocks (one street block) in LoDo (Lower Downtown) Denver will become a live demonstration and model for environmentally-conscious business and economic development, and livability. How so?

- Focusing on retrofitting and renovating existing buildings.
- Having buy-in from 80% of the building owners to uphold the mission.
- Benefitting from a diversity of active non-profit, educational, business and government partners.
- Providing an opportunity to pioneer features such as buildings producing more energy than they use, “last mile’ mobility solutions, energy capturing sidewalks, green leases, charging stations for plug-in vehicles, large-scale solar installation, urban agriculture/living roofs, vertical gardens, onsite renewables, co-generation, home metering, IT driven consumer behavioral change… all in one place, all on one block.r
- Attracting workers and entrepreneurs to such a progressive destination, spurring job creation.
- Linking it with the inauguration of the Biennial of the Americas, a month long “cultural celebration of innovation, imagination and the artistic achievement of the Western Hemisphere”, starting July 2010.

Thanks to Suzanne Hunt of HuntGreen for the reference.

If you think it’d be cool to live in a building like this, you’re probably not alone. The building plays music through its instrumental drainpipes when it rains, and is part of the a series of whimsical courtyard buildings in Dresden, Germany known as the KunsthofPassage.

However, why don’t we see more creative, humanistic buildings like this, and what can we do about it?

First, the short term bad news. The vast majority of real estate investment dollars won’t touch this kind of project because it’s too small, because the money is in the big head and not the long tail. The long term good news is this will change in 10-20 years when investment management evolves to invest in the more lucrative ‘long tail’.

Second, the short term good news:

1. Crowdsourcing investment models (ie crowdfunding) that allow people to collectively invest in such developments themselves.

2. Emerging generations of real estate developers that understand crowdsourcing and how to invest in the culture of the rising creative economy, such as Kevin Cavenaugh with the Burnside Rocket, Rick Destito with the Gear Factory (the rendering of the proposed 5-story building redevelopment for creatives does not do it justice) and Jamal Williams/Vance Gragg with an upcoming development in DC.

If you live in DC, join in as we’re experimenting with a new web app to allow people to submit their ideas for creative inspiration, the most popular of which will be considered for investment, at RemixDC.com (the site/URL will change to remixdc.com soon).

It’s official, as Mayor Bloomberg of New York City announced on February 11, 2010 that Times Square (and Herald Square) are permanently car free, almost a year after first announcing the plan. See the press release here.

Mayor Bloomberg, “In this day and age if you go around the world, all the other great cities have already tried to reduce the number of cars on their streets and convert some of the open spaces into space for other people.“

“Three-fourths (76%) of New Yorkers surveyed think the area has improved, so do two-thirds (68%) of people in the region, and 60% of Times Square workers, 60% of property owners and building executives, and 70% of local retail managers.“ Also, a 63% reduction in injuries to motorists and passengers and a 35% reduction in pedestrian injuries.

Dan Biederman, President of the director of the 34th Street Partnership, “This is a 21st century idea. The 20th century idea was three lanes of noisy, annoying traffic, going right past all these great institutions and stores. The 21st century idea is seating and pedestrian life dominating, and traffic being subsidiary.“

What are the city’s largest retailers saying? “In the year that a new Broadway has become a reality, we’ve seen a new vibrancy in the Herald Square area. More people are taking the time to enjoy the area and experience first-hand the exciting opportunities that exist on one of the world’s most famous streets. We applaud the Mayor and the City of New York for their vision of the City’s future,” Macy’s Senior VP of External Affairs Ed Goldberg.

What’s next for Times Square? “We will now design a world-class public space that’s a new center stage for the greatest city in the world,” Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

What’s next for New York City? “Incidentally, there are other parts of the city where we’re getting lots of call from merchants in other parts of the city who want the same thing,“ Mayor Bloomberg.

Read more in the NY Times and Streetsblog

What would a car free city be like? DC residents got a taste of that when the city experienced record snowfalls in early February of nearly five feet, the most since 1898. Just about the only thing shut down were the cars. Instead, the city was alive with people in the streets like no other day.

As you can see below, the local coffeehouse was packed, and the buzz of conversation was a few notches higher than usual. Now you may be wondering, what about other cities that have significant snowfall all the time? Well, cars and drivers in DC aren’t equipped for such weather, nor is the City, so the overall consensus was simply to allow the roads to be uncleared for a day or two.

Streets normally filled with cars and traffic were replaced by streams of people, and not only that, there was a sense of winter wonderland euphoria in the air. Big smiles, spontaneous high fives with strangers, impromptu laughter - is this what a city would be like with no traffic? Well, the truth is, that’s what Washington DC was for a day or so, and people were in a great mood.

Check out the video below to get a sense of the festive spirit in the air…

Look way down in the distance in the photo below - see all the people…