What’s happening in Bristol, Connecticut (pop. 61,000), home of ESPN, is pretty representative of small cities and towns across the country, with a vacant downtown surrounded by auto-oriented sprawl of national chains, isolated office buildings and subdivisions. What’s about to happen in Bristol however, may be a redefining of the American Dream, and a model for these same cities to follow.

Currently, Bristol’s economic retail analysis shows that the largest ‘retail leak’ by far, that is, net

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Most every major city has car sharing, but it’s currently not like bike sharing, where you can pick up a bike in one location and return it to another. Well, car sharing in 2011 isn’t just going to match that service, but take it one step further.

First, Paris is building on the success of its Velib bike sharing system and rolling out Autolib (introduced in 2008 here) in 2011. You’ll be able to borrow one of 3000 all-electric cars for $20 a month, plus an additional $7 for every half hour.

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You hear it all the time - small businesses are the engine of the economy. However, when it comes to economic development programs in each city, the focus is on uprooting other cities’ large companies. Since small businesses are essentially local businesses, maybe we’re just missing some local economic development principles.

How about cutting right to the chase and establishing something like this:

Local Economic Development Principles

As it relates to the community:
- Invest in natural

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The vast majority of large-scale mixed-use development projects in the past have been predominantly national-chain retail. With the rise of the conscious consumer however, that rigid investment formula is beginning to crack, such as with The Piazza in Philadelphia and now with The Triangle in Austin, Texas, a 22-acre mixed-use urban infill development of 529 apartments, 150 condos and 120,000 s.f. of retail.

Not surprisingly, it was initially planned as a typical shopping center with national

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What better to talk about on a site that’s committed to crowdsourced placemaking than an actual project committed to crowdsourced placemaking.

As of October 1st, 2010, real estate developer Renaissance Downtowns will begin a crowdsourced placemaking program to establish a vibrant downtown destination neighborhood on a 17-acre former shopping mall site in the not-so-big city of Bristol, Connecticut (pop. 61,000), 20 miles southwest of Hartford, “Renaissance intends to address the needs of the

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That’s literally the case when it comes to Detroit. Let me say that again… Detroit.

Quicken Loans moved 1700 of their employees to downtown Detroit in August, 2010. It’s no surprise the company located its workplace next to the city’s premiere active public space, Campus Martius, which recently received an award as the most outstanding example of a public open space that has catalyzed the transformation of the surrounding community. It also should be no surprise then, that Quicken Loans was

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What are the latest signs of a growing market for developing neighborhoods that focus on living rather than transporting?

- Gen Yers are giving cars a pass according to a Kiplinger article. Drivers aged 21 to 30 now account for 14% of miles driven, down from 21% in 1995, choosing mass transit, Zipcar and smartphones instead.

- The rise of mixed-use development means less car use, according to a report by the Journal of the American Planning Association, “The best way to minimize driving

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What’s the key to revitalizing a downtown and/or neighborhood via urban development?

First off, a couple of definitions.

- Small urban infill in real estate development typically refers to mixed-use urban infill ‘far fewer than 100 housing units and 10,000 s.f. of commercial space on less than an acre.‘
- Natural cultural districts are the kinds of neighborhoods creatives desire.

Based on Ten Principles for Small-Size Infill in the article Little Infill by Sam Newberg in Urban Land

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Since local independent retailers don’t have the financial capacity of their national/international chain competitors, they need to look at alternative means of establishing and growing their customer base, especially in an increasingly web-centric knowledge economy.

The Fast Company article, Four Keys to Surviving the Future of Retail largely focuses on national chains, but they can be applied to local independents. Here’s how the four keys:
1. Think Like an Editor
2. Learn From the

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It’s a simple idea and the demand is certainly there, but why aren’t there any car-free neighborhoods in the U.S… yet?

First, overcoming either of these two reasons would have resulted in a car-free neighborhood:

1. No developer has the guts. Honestly, it really does only take one person with money to make it happen. It’s amazing, but no one in the last 80 years has stepped up. Until Joe Mellett of Bicycle City in Columbia, South Carolina. He’ll soon receive recognition for being one of the

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