No one in their creative right mind (no pun intended) would wear a tourist souvenir t-shirt displaying their city name, but what if you really did want to display your love for your own unique, authentic neighborhood? If you live in Queens, New York, the answer for many is to buy a shirt from local artist Ciara Elend’s Queensbound collection. Think of it as when you wear your ol’ college alma mater, except it’s in real time and anything but generic.

What inspired Ciara to create the

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First, the definition of bilingual - communicating in two languages fluently, or to further define language, communicating in two different methods of exchanging information fluently. Second, the definition of social network - is the organic gathering of individuals into specific groups; or from wikipedia, “a social structure made of nodes (generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas...” This can be

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First of all, what’s a viral loop? Viral comes from viral marketing - using pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or sales. A loop occurs when a person is invited to a social network, accepts the invitation, then either:
1. invites others themselves or;
2. creates their own social network.

Pictured above is a series of these viral loops, called a viral loop network. Viral loops and their networks have long been happening in the physical world (e.g.

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Having fun connecting with people over food, play and making an impact

There are many of us who feel that food, play and contributing to a cause can start to get routine-like. Thankfully, the innovation-tracking folks at Springwise have spotted some new ways to spice things up in those areas of our lives.

Group dining: You know there are people in your social or work circle that want to try out new restaurants or return to old favorites, but which friends, and which restaurants? Crazymenu

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How does your city stack up among ‘America’s Most Romantic’?

Some cities have that intangible quality that sets them apart. I think a large factor in creating that essence is how much romance it inspires. The folks at Tango Magazine: Smart Talk About Love via Reader’s Digest spent a compelling amount of time looking into this in their write-up, America’s Most Romantic Cities.

They singled out New York, Miami, New Orleans, San Francisco as the most romantic, but better yet, they provided

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Posted by Neil Takemoto in • Community Building | (2) Comments | (0) Trackbacks | Link |

Last week’s entries on the importance of local investment is covered extensively on Trendwatching.com this month. The report, (Still) Made Here, documents “the comeback of all things local, all things with a sense of place, and how they’re surfacing in a world dominated by globalization… where a growing number of consumers are seeking out the local, and thereby the authentic, the

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Deep Economy by Bill McKibben, here are some interesting perspectives:

- From a study measuring happiness, increases in incomes produce large hedonic gains in developing countries, small variable gains in Europe, and negative gains in the U.S., while companionship

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The Top Ten Ways to Kill a Community, from the infinitely resourceful work-life blog, Lifehack.org.

Local investment
- Support economic gardening where cities invest economic development dollars in growing their own companies vs stealing them from other cities.
- Invest in local lenders that care and know how to assist in the

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Face-face social networking on the rise in condos

We all know emerging populations are migrating to social networking websites by the millions, so it was a matter of time before this manifested in the built environment, as hinted at in an earlier entry here.

Based on the recent NY Times article, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, new condos in the city come with bricks-and-mortar social networking amenities as standard equipment. Instead of virtual chat lounges, discussion boards and

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Last night, 14 people - Lisa, Angela, Christian, Mike, Sarah, Joey, Justin, Ayari, Raj, Ritu, Heather, Robert, myself and business owner/VIBE Linda - met over pizza, beer and wine to discuss, as a beta community, what Washington DC’s next cafe/bar/coffeehouse should be. It was the first ever VIBE beta community, as well as DC’s first beta community. Two hours later we had laid out the foundation for what very well may be the coolest, most innovative venue in Washington DC.

You’d actually

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Reader Q&A: “Can you give sources for your photos? I always love ‘em and want to follow up.”

Let’s do one better. Why don’t we all pool our most inspiring photos, the ones that inspire us to say, “Wow, I wish that was in my neighborhood!”. There’s no better source for this of course than Flickr, and coincidentally, we’ve just set up a group photo pool called Cool Places right here.

If you’re not a Flickr user, it’s quick, free and painless to sign up.  If you are a Flickr member, just

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Beta community designs a neighborhood their way in Germany

We recently answered the question How can a City establish a ‘beta community’ to attract the creative class? with an outlined process. We follow that with a living example, Vauban in Freiburg, Germany..

In the 1970s the City of Freiburg in Germany became known for its progressive mindset, much like Berkelely, CA. With that kind of creative foundation, when a 94-acre army base closed in 1991 it was a natural step for the surrounding

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There’s a key neighborhood street block in your downtown that could be the catalyst and benchmark for inspired urban design and investment to attract the next generation of downtown residents and tenants.  Is there a way then, that these emerging populations in your could city get together to design and develop their own neighborhood, buildings, workplaces, third places and homes at attainable prices?  They can via a beta community (evolved from crowdsourcing), a progressive community of

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A little help establishing a sense of community where there is little

It’s not uncommon for many of the residents of a neighborhood not to know one another, much less do anything together.  However, what if they’d like to change that?  Not through homeowner associations, which focus more on what you can’t do than what you can.  Think nonprofit organization - this New Urban News article looks at the Seaside Institute’s New Institutes Program which helps communities establish a nonprofit to do

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The bad news is, once a place is on an irreversible track towards being uncool, you can bet the creatives will flee.  The good news is, it works vice versa.

We all know the familiar pattern of risk-taking artists moving into an undesirable neighborhood, attracting the cool risk-taking indie venues, coffeehouses, restaurants and workplaces and infusing it with desire, which then attracts the risk-averse executive-types who then attract the risk-averse chains (ie Starbucks, McD’s, Gap, etc.)

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That’s the official sign you’ll see in sixty-eight cities across 28 states (and counting).  Why?

Based in part on economist Richard Florida’s research documenting how diversity generates jobs, isolated smaller cities and towns are realizing they need to work harder than metropolitan areas in attracting a diverse talent pool.

From the sponsoring organization, “The Partnership for Working Toward Inclusive Communities, an effort led by the National League of Cities, unites city leaders who

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Building community among main street business owners

Few elements define the character of a neighborhood better than the main street downtown.  The architecture; percentage of independents vs chains; entertainment; emphasis on culture and art say a lot about the what the neighborhood and people are about.  For one, it’s a reason why they’ve moved there, or haven’t moved away from.

One major ingredient for a successful downtown, especially a lasting one with a strong sense of community, is

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The physics of relationships… in cooltowns

I’m delving into sensitive material here, but since the heart of community and business is fundamentally made up of one-one relationships between people…

An Oxford graduate, Richard Ecob conducted a study that modeled a community of daters to a ‘community of atoms’, since they exhibited similar physics (hey, don’t shoot the messenger.) If you’ve seen What The #$*! Do We Know?!, it wouldn’t seem too far-fetched.

The study’s final word if you want

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New Orleans’ French Quarter spared

Considered one of the most beautiful (and active, being a focal point for Mardi Gras) neighborhoods in the country, many feared the destruction of the historic French Quarter after Katrina.  Thankfully sitting on the highest ground in New Orleans, the community rose above the flooding.

As covered in this popular AP story, the neighborhoods’ residents, many of whom are the working poor living above the restaurants and bars that cater to the more affluent,

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Redefining communal living

Communal living to the previous generation meant that you had to take turns cooking for all the residents in your community every Sunday at a common hall.  The fact that you had to do anything in the name of community kind of melted the concept in my book.

The folks at Youth Intelligence, a market research firm focusing on Gen X and Y trends, has noticed a few real estate trends that are redefining what communal living is:

- At The Orion in NYC, the laundry

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You know there’s a strong sense of community when...

...the walls at the neighborhood supermarket are plastered with personal classified ads and event flyers for local events.  This is one of the best examples I’ve seen, at the Hunger Mountain Co-op in Montpelier, VT.  The fact that it’s a co-op is another tell-tale sign of a strong sense of community.

One thing that surprises me is that while there’s a number of online classified ad services and event listings for cities and towns, it

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Some people in Detroit got tired of seeing more strip malls, subdivisions and parking.  So, they formed their own group to voice their opinions and establish a new vision and direction for their future in Detroit.  Now with the help of CoolTown Studios, they’re establishing a beta community to help design, build and live in their own urban village!  Their motto?  Say it. Build it. Live it.

This is an image of the site where they’re going to craft their vision, and the process begins next

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Want to grow your local businesses?  Print your own money

Want to build a stronger sense of community?  Print your own money.

That’s what the people in Burlington, Vermont, and 4000 other communities worldwide (not so sure how accurate that is) are doing.  Yes, Burlington Bread is a legal currency, called slices instead of dollars, and in $1, $5, $10, and $20 denominations.  Even the City of Burlington is involved in its growth.

Circulation began in 1998, and merchant membership is

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Why does Athens have such a strong sense of community?

The business manager of Athens Weekly News, a popular local political paper, answered this question last week while in a focus group of the community’s creative leaders - “Because nobody’s trying to get rich at this table.” The group also agreed that many of them participate in no less than 5-7 nonprofits each, and get to know one another through those organizations’ meetings and events.

Indeed, there is no shortage of things to do in

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