The signs are there:
- In a CoolTown retail study, 44% of the downtown businesses in five of the most progressive college towns are restaurants.
- According to the article,
Restaurants popular as a draw for shopping centers, 20 years ago restaurants made up 10 to 15% of the tenancy in Dallas commercial centers, but today that number is closer to 25 to 50%, with restaurants now often serving as the anchor.
- The first two of four phases for neighborhood revitalization today starts with restaurants, as stated by retail expert Steven Gartner. The four phases are outlined here.
- The National Restaurant Association has projected U.S. restaurant sales to increase 4.4% this year from 2007, even as much of the retail sector contracts. The association also reports on the following two areas:

Hot trends:
- Small is in. Bite-size desserts and small plates/tapas/mezze;
- ‘Alternative-source ingredients’. Locally grown produce, organics, sustainable seafood, grass-fed and free-range items, and alternative red meats (ie buffalo);
- Ethnic cuisines and flavors;
- Specialty alcohol;
- Unique experiences + food rather than just food.

Noteworthy stats:
- Americans currently buy a meal or a snack from a restaurant 5.8 times/week;
- Annual spending on food away from home is $1078/person;
- Consumers now spending 48 percent of their food budget in restaurants.

In other words, if your downtown is struggling, there probably aren’t too many successful restaurants in existence, if any at all.

The median home price in San Francisco is $749,000, so being able to buy anything new at a third of that price is noteworthy, especially if it’s in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city.

Enter Cubix Yerba Buena in SoMa (South of Massachusetts), an eight-story building of 98 condos starting at $279,000. The key to affordability is not in government subsidies, but in size - each of the condominiums range from 250 to 350 s.f. It’s the U.S. version of the UK’s iPad, or the housing version of the Smart car. It’s features include:

- 9 foot ceilings with floor to ceiling windows - high ceilings and large windows are standard features in lofts that provide a larger sense of space;
- Kitchen with mini sink, two-burner electric cooktop, half fridge and microwave-convection oven, all stainless steel, with synthetic brown stone countertop - quality over quantity;
- Sofa-bed, and a wardrobe with no closets.

The city government played a huge role in allowing the condos to be classified as SROs (single-room occupancy), in that they weren’t treated like standard residences. What’s the big deal? Limited parking requirements and relaxed restrictions on the total number of units - two fundamental elements of building attainably-priced housing. That’s a big deal indeed.

The destination’s tagline: “It’s your small piece of the big city.”

Read more in the SF Chronicle article, Home small home: 250 square feet in SoMa.

Project for Public Spaces presents its Top 12 public squares in the U.S. and Canada, listed below with a personal critique:

1. Jackson Square, New Orleans, LA (lower image) - You can’t go wrong if you’re an urban square in the middle of one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the U.S., the French Quarter.
2. Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY - Manhattan’s (and some say the U.S.’s) central square, and probably the most featured plaza in movies, continues to get bigger and more pedestrian-oriented.
3. Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, OR (upper image) - One of the most beloved modern squares in the country, ‘Portland’s living room’ is constantly filled with people, spontaneous activity and planned events.
4. Campus Martius, Detroit, MI - (profiled here) - Former Mayor Dennis Archer set a goal of creating the best public space in the world to celebrate the city’s 300th anniversary in 2001, and did well.
5. Union Square Park and Greenmarket, New York, NY - The massive success Greenmarket farmers market spurred a major renovation of the square it’s was held in.
6. Bryant Park, New York, NY - A favorite of creatives from around the world, featuring outdoor tables surrounding an expansive lawn amid free wi-fi.
7. Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA - One of the most beautiful, neighborly squares around, with an urban forest of mature trees surrounded by resplendent historic rowhouses.
8. Portsmouth Square and 9. Washington Square, San Francisco - Portsmouth Square is the neighborhood urban center of activity for Chinatown, and Washington Square is the central park for North Beach.
10. Square St. Louis, Montreal, Quebec - If you’re looking for a European square in North America, this French Canadian gathering spot is it.
11. Squares of Savannah, GA - Featured in Forest Gump, there is no better series of squares in North America which are evenly distributed throughout the entire downtown and located in the middle of the main streets.
12. Washington Square Park, New York, NY - The bohemian, progressive center of New York with a dynamic music scene and fame for protests, attracting people of all ages, genders in groups or as individuals, in a range of activities in all parts of the park at any hours on all days.

It’s pretty safe to say this is the video preview of the crowdsourcing book, considering the author is Jeff Howe, the person who coined the term crowdsourcing in the first place - via this 2006 article in Wired Magazine. Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business premieres on Tuesday, August 26, 2008.

Jeff’s definition: “Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”… ‘undefined’ meaning that you never know who is really going to end up being the most significant contributor, and the means by allowing those people to emerge is through an ‘open call’.

One of his key quotes in the short video, “It forces companies to approach us as potential partners. That’s much more interesting and exciting. We participate more meaningfully in the process by which those products are created. What we see with the successful forms of crowdsourcing is that they came up organically by the people formerly known as customers...” He goes on to say that web-based communities are becoming the fundamental building blocks of the economy, the equivalent of the industrial era corporation.

So, the next time someone asks you to define crowdsourcing in a couple of minutes, tell them to check out this video as well, the trailer for the upcoming book We-think.

As they say, the more things change the more they stay the same. Streetcars ruled downtowns in the early 20th century. Then cars happened. Then a backlash against suburbia happened. Then rising gas prices happened. Now here we are with 40 U.S. cities looking to streetcars once again as a compelling economic development strategy, nicely reported in the NY Times’ Downtowns Across the U.S. See Streetcars in Their Future.

You can read about their myriad economic benefits in a past entry, Romance with streetcars reviving, including the cost advantages over light rail. One significant reason why streetcars are so desirable (no pun intended) is that they’re designed to pass the 5-minute rule, as in, wait any longer than that and it quickly becomes a drag. Three advantages streetcars have over buses? They’re a lot quieter, infinitely smoother, and have shorter stops since people can board on both sides.

A brief snapshot of where streetcars stand:
Up and running: Boston, Portland, Seattle, Tampa FL, San Francisco, Charlotte NC, Tucson AZ, New Orleans, Kenosha WI, Little Rock AR, St. Louis…
Just getting underway: Denver, Houston, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, NC, Tucson, Birmingham AL, Miami, Trenton NJ…
Strongly considering: Cincinatti, Columbus, Ohio Denver, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Boulder…

For a comprehensive list, click on the Vote/Comment link below!

Image: The modern streetcar system in the creative Pearl District of Portland, Oregon, which spurred 10,000 residential units and $3.5 billion in development. Photo by SP8254.

In the 1960s Holladay (within the Salt Lake City metropolitan area) made dubious history by being the first city in Utah to build a shopping mall. In 2008 it’s making history again, albeit a bit more noble, by transforming the mall into a walkable neighborhood.

Not only is the developer, General Growth Properties, redeveloping the 57-acre Cottonwood Mall site into a neighborhood, but as a focal point, gathering place and town center for the Holladay community of 14,000. To be known as Cottonwood, the development will consist of shops, residences, offices, riverside trails, and a grand public plaza that will be the stage for civic life. Specifically, the commercial components of the site include retail shopping, cafes, restaurants, a specialty grocery, cinema, and office space, while the residential is a mix of condominiums, townhouses, cottages, and single family homes. Parking decks are hidden behind buildings.

While this is a model for walkability and public realms, it’s not designed to attract creatives per se. As is typical with new developments, much of the housing, retail and office space has an upscale market in mind, and one can expect a significant number of national and regional chains. What is important though, is to learn from the positives.

$4/gallon has had quite a snowball effect, and one of the rewards for pedestrians outside of car-free days and cities going glorious bonkers to build bike lanes is Google has finally offered walking directions as an option.

The maps above show the same starting and arriving points, but the one on the left is for driving directions and since July 22, 2008 there’s one on the right for walking directions. It’s almost amusing how logical the path becomes. Google says they’ll try to find you a route that’s direct, flat, and uses pedestrian pathways when they know about them, though only if you’re going less than 10 km/6.2 miles. I just found out I’ve been taking the ‘long way’ to my workplace 0.4 miles away.

I actually don’t see Public Transit as an option, which Google says they’ll now give step-by-step walking directions for the portion of your trip on foot. However, they do have public transit directions for mobile devices, and that’s best explained via their YouTube video.

Get an overall demonstration from their YouTube video - it’s worth the two minutes. You’ll notice that in more populated cities you can even view street-level photos of where you are at each turn.

Continuing our look at the best cities that are remixing, reinventing themselves, according to Best Towns 2008 from Outside magazine, here are five more, plus a number of honorable mentions:

Ithaca, New York - Conscientious innovation isn’t far off when you have Cornell University and Ithaca College as residents, and a median age of 22. The town is experiencing a green movement spearheaded by a new ecovillage, and the downtown is finally legitimizing the pedestrian-only district laid out a few decades ago.
Louisville, Kentucky - Much of the positive change in Louisville is being experienced by bicyclists, with new bikeways and bike lanes announced. The downtown is still not quite a creative hangout, anchored by a corporate entertainment center, though nearby Bardstown a couple of miles away definitely is.
Eureka, California - It has become the quintessential wilderness arts town in the middle of nowhere, gathering the community of 27,000 around a new five-block boardwalk.
Columbia, Missouri - First came an indie film house, then a film festival, then artist lofts, studios and cafes, combined with over 200 miles of bike trails, have made Columbia a southern outdoor activist’s haven.

Honorable Mentions:

Oxford, Mississippi - Fueled by its university, Ole Miss and a renowned Double Decker Arts Festival, held each spring and a mayor who runs a local indie biz.
Oakland, California - Oakland’s mayor in 1999, Jerry Brown, is making good on his promise to attract 10,000 new residents downtown.
Sacramento, California - A 240-acre redeveloping brownfield will nearly double the downtown district with 12,000 new homes, and a new 197-room boutique hotel, the Citizen, was named by Sacramento citizens.
Corvallis, Oregon - The second U.S. city (after Moab) recognized as an EPA Green Power Community, with a focus on wind and geothermal power, with a new riverfront park.
Wilmington, North Carolina - The “Wilmywood” filmmaking economy, North Carolina’s Hollywood, has helped direct scenes of a vibrant riverwalk and a historic district over 230 blocks.
Seattle, Washington - Mayor Greg Nickels has signed more than 850 U.S. cities to his U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, higher than Kyoto Protocol objectives, and calling for car free Sundays in August.
Charlottesville, Virginia - Boasts one of the most successful, largest pedestrian-only streets in the country (pictured), and one of the most comprehensive GIS-based urban tree programs.
Brattleboro, Vermont - Home to one of the largest farmers’ markets in New England, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms, a predominance of locally-owned businesses, and resident-held nightly potluck dinners, Brattleboro is a sign of things to come.

Image source: Main Street, Charlottesville, Virginia by gargola87.

We’ve seen endless list of best places to live, work, walkable etc. etc., but here’s one that looks at the best cities that are remixing, reinventing themselves - Best Towns 2008 from Outside magazine.

Washington DC - Recently revitalized Adams Morgan, U Street, and Chinatown are attracting creatives in droves, recent mayors have brought strong leadership, and DC just introduced the first bike sharing system in the U.S. Plus the newly formed CreativesDC social network!
Chattanooga, TN - The city rebranded itself as an outdoors destination, investing $120 million in the waterfront, a Renaissance Park, adding 2000 downtown trees and their own Greenspaces green building program. For a big city, Chattanooga has a rare sense of collaborative spirit.
New Orleans, LA - No where in the world is their more grassroots initiative, resulting in inspiring projects from the musician’s village to a celebrity chef Edible Schoolyard program to the Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals and their upcoming CoolTown-assisted beta community focused on a specific neighborhood.
Ogden, UT - In 2000, 38-year-old mayor Matthew Godfrey committed to transform Ogden into the adventure-sports capital of America and the rest is history, which now includes kayak parks; a paved trail network; a rec center with climbing wall; vertical wind tunnel; standing surf wave; holographic ice tower; aquatic centers and a velodrome. Now that’s making good on your word.
Portsmouth, NH - This tiny town of 20,000 between Boston and Portland, Maine is a model creatives destination, attracting emerging musicians and artists via eight indie theaters; a film fest; a slow-food movement; microbreweries; fast-growing young companies (gazelles) and a vibrant live music scene. Yet another story dispelling the myth that small towns can’t attract creatives.
Tacoma, WA - A new University of Washington extension provided the rejuvenation of 1920s theaters followed by new museums and a redeveloping waterfront into what is now a well-known arts town. There really is no better talent pool than a university.

More on the rest of the list in the next entry.

Check out Outdoor’s interactive map and past winners.

Images from Outdoor (clockwise from top left): Ogden, Washington DC, New Orleans, Chattanooga

For a city with such a reputation for bureaucracy, it’s perhaps a sign of the new times that Washington DC is the first city in the U.S. to have a modern, city-wide bike sharing program, open for use as of August 13, 2008. It’s the same system used in Barcelona, and inspired by the 20,000 bike/1400-station phenomenon in Paris.

Ok, so the SmartBikeDC program at 120 bikes and 10 stations pales by comparison to Paris, but that’s 120 bikes/10 stations more than any other bike sharing system in the country. The annual fee is $40 for unlimited use as long as you return the bike after 3 hours, being able to rent a bike immediately after. It’s a better deal than the one in Paris where only the first half hour is free. However, be sure to return it within 24 hours otherwise you’ll be stuck with a $550 invoice.

One question you may want to ask is why are the bikes arguably so darn ugly? Well, who wants to steal an ugly bike?

Check out the Washington Post article, DC Bike Sharing Kicks Into High Gear.

Image source: Trishswishs