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September 26, 2003
Phase II: Building the Physical Community
Continuing this week's focus on the CoolTown Program...
Phase II: Building the Physical Community
Successful talent attraction comes down to providing three key elements: Entertainment, jobs and affordability, in that order. Fulfilling just one, or even two elements won’t make it happen. All three must be brought together, and that requires building a CoolTown.
Why is entertainment (& arts) first? Most young professionals won’t take a dream job if it were in a small farm town, while the exorbitant rents of Manhattan and San Francisco don’t stop dreamy-eyed actors and drifters from becoming permanent residents. Besides, they subconsciously know that jobs follow entertainment (e.g. dating opportunities, nightlife, music, recreation) because companies follow talent. Affordability is the secret ingredient that unbuckles the restraints on unparalleled economic growth.
1. Entertainment!
As we evolve from a service economy to an experience economy, entertainment with the arts becomes the unique selling point, from the dynamic (night-life, music, recreation) to the mundane (residence, workplace). Today’s creatives expect more than a home and job, they want a neighborhood experience and a workplace performance. This 24-hour arts & entertainment experience (Experience A&E) in one’s daily home and work life is the secret driving force behind the traditional night/weekend scene that baby boomers associate with A&E. See the program for implementation principles.
2. Jobs!
Work knows cool. Corporate workplaces are moving back to the city, office parks are reporting high vacancies and 47 million people telework to some degree. There are 33 million “free agents” in the workforce today, and among them are the next Bill Gates and Steve Jobs that can attract both creativity and economic prosperity to your city. See the program for implementation principles.
3. Affordability!
A Builder Magazine survey concluded that Gen Xers/Yers can’t spend more than $150,000 for a home. Creatives and entrepreneurs have similar budgets. It also stated that the demand overwhelmingly exceeds the supply in reaching this price point in the inner city, where the best entertainment is. Creatives prioritize smaller places with low maintenance, will move into riskier areas to save rent, and actually prefer not owning a car if jobs/amenities are convenient (e.g. NY, SF). Car debt subtracts about $50,000 from the amount of a home one can quality for. See the program for implementation principles.
Posted by Neil | Link to Article
September 25, 2003
Phase I: Building the Human Community
Continuing this week's focus on the CoolTown Program...
OK, we're committed to becoming a CoolTown. What are the next steps?
Phase I: Building the Human Community
The first phase is building the community of people that are not only going to lead the effort of becoming a CoolTown, but who will actually live, work and grow new businesses there. This CoolTown Market Creation program envisions a five-step process:
1. The CoolTown 100 - We'll establish a collaborative of the most influential entrepreneurial creatives; the CoolTown 100 (example), a local and national group of visionary business, civic and academic leaders. The group will craft a clear vision focusing on enhancing local industry and cultural strengths through a new/revitalized community.
2. The CoolTown Guild - The CoolTown 100 leads a series of interactive market research focus groups to understand the amenities, price points and living/working conditions needed to attract a creative talent base to the new community. Those who then commit to living and working in the new community become The CoolTown Guild, a local workforce group focused on fulfilling a specific economic development and market vision.
3. Let�s Build It! Action Plan � In conjunction with existing privaet and institutional investment partners, the CoolTown Guild and 100 work together to prepare a concise road map that highlights the specific actions to build the CoolTown and its local economy: land control, development team, capital/financing plan, technology, culture and public policy.
4. The CoolTown Planning Charrette - The Guild represents the economic and residential market in a master-plan charrette (an intensive week-long exercise where the entire town is planned) hosted by the City and the development team, taking a direct role in planning their own community and economic future.
5. Keeping It Cool � The Guild stays on as the �business improvement group", a self-financed local collaborative to ensure the right tenants, programs and services are in place to maintain the town as a creative destination.
Posted by Neil | Link to Article
September 24, 2003
Do businesses believe in CoolTowns?
Continuing this week's focus on the CoolTown Program...
Do businesses believe in CoolTowns? Absolutely, as long as CoolTowns attract creative talent. The world's largest companies understand this:
"Keep your tax incentives and highway interchanges, we will go where the highly-skilled people are" - Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in a presentation to the National Governors Association in 2002. It shouldn't be a coincidence that HP's slogan is "Invent", nor that HP has a tech-oriented cooltown program of their own.
- Smaller companies do as well: Charles Brewer, founder of Mindspring/Earthlink, desperately sought a CoolTown to relocate his 3000 employees before he had to settle for an office park.
- Finally, entrepreneurs, free agents, and small business owners seek creative places above all else, for they are the creative class.
OK, we're committed to becoming a CoolTown. What are the next steps?
Posted by Neil | Link to Article
September 23, 2003
Got Talent?
Continuing this week's focus on the CoolTown Program...
Why isn't my city attracting growth, excitement and prosperity like Austin?
Does your city produce and retain talent? Major universities produce talent. A creative city retains it. The tipping point to prosperity occurs when the two combine to form a formidable one-two punch:
1. Talent-Producing Universities
The SF Bay Area has Stanford; Cambridge has Harvard and MI; Austin has the 49,000 student University of Texas and Raleigh-Durham has UNC, Duke and NC State. All of these universities have partnerships with surrounding employers to help ensure jobs for its graduates, as well as talent for the companies.
2. Talent-Retaining CoolTowns
Say you have a prodigious talent-producing university, but what good is it if the students leave once they graduate, a phenomenon known as brain drain. It helps to think like a student - even the best job offer isn�t attractive if the town isn�t cool enough; if the dating prospects are less than stellar.
Ground-breaking research ties that cool factor to creativity. The nationally-respected Richard Florida Creativity Group released evidence that directly ties creativity (creative industries, diversity, patents, high tech) to city-wide economic performance (job and population growth, high-tech growth and changes in per capita income).
Understanding this then begs the question, �How do I attract creativity?�, or in other words, �How do I attract creative people?� This leads to the title of this program, �How do I make a CoolTown cool?�
Posted by Neil | Link to Article
September 22, 2003
The CoolTown Program
A great vision doesn't really matter if it can't be implemented. Implementation doesn't mean much if it no one cared for the vision.
The key to the CoolTown Program is to combine a great vision with the financial capacity to implement it. That means letting the people who will live/work in the community design it, and finding investors who will finance it.
The program summary, which is downloadable, begins:
"The San Francisco Bay Area, Denver and Charlotte made attracting young professionals a priority in the '90s. Now they're seeing higher sales tax revenues, prosperous new businesses and remarkable job growth. The City of Austin credits their quality of life (i.e. the live music capital of the world) for #1 rankings in net migration and Forbes' Best Places for Business and Careers. Cambridge, Mass. has long catered to retaining its university graduates, and now ranks as the 23rd largest economy in the world. Manhattan remains the capital of cool, evidenced by its being the most expensive (greatest in demand) place to live.
Why isn't my city attracting growth, excitement and prosperity like Austin?"
Posted by Neil | Link to Article
