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August 18, 2006

Dublin, Ireland street

'$ Angelic crowdsourcing $'

The last two entries covered crowdsourcing 101. Are you ready for crowdsourcing 201? This is for when you're ready to invest $ collectively as a future community of tenants to develop a common product, such as that affordable, green-built, downtown loft building with roof deck and indie ground-floor coffeehouse and restaurant - or even better, a whole block of them (pictured).

The term used to describe this team development methodology is angelic crowdsourcing* (combining angel investing with crowdsourcing), with precedents in producing an album, specialty foods, a movie and even an eco-village on a remote island.

Based on their experience, the crowdsourced movie's producers took the time to lay out some angelic crowdsourcing guidelines**, which are here applied to cooltowns:

Increase the barriers to entry
Involve only those who are actually considering buying/renting/leasing in the building/community - the beta community.

Elevate the level of debate
Keep discussion at a high level by focusing on the beta community. Provide inspiring examples/photos of places that raise their expectations.

Gather diverse people for a balanced [community]
Monitor and balance the growth of the community to ensure there is a diversity of people, if for no other reason than diversity is one of the most appealing characteristics sought by the creative class.

Target existing online communities and interests
Tap into creative, entrepreneurial, downtown-oriented groups who already have this kind of development on their objectives list.

Don’t overpromote or overbuild
Once the beta community is established, there is little need to promote the development - "you are overpromoting a project that isn’t tangible enough for larger audiences. Targeted promotion to those who already share common values with the project is more effective and appropriate."

*Definition courtesy of Springwise, one of the coolest trend websites around.
**The term 'gated community' in the UK is used in the virtual sense, unlike the negativity (and ubiquity) associated with those in the U.S.'s physical world

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August 17, 2006

Driving poll

Crowdsourcing a trend into a community

Based on this chart spanning the last 15 years, the increasing % of Americans who now consider driving a chore is equivalent to 20 million more people, in addition to the 40 million who already find it a chore, on top of the 90 million who don't/can't even drive. Since crowdsourcing was defined in yesterday's entry, here's a way to apply the means (crowdsourcing) to the end (driving less/walking more).

First, crowdsourcing is an excellent tool to communicate a vision. For instance, have you ever seen the movie Office Space? (It's explained nicely on Wikipedia, a crowdsourced encyclopedia.) The opening scene shows a commuter stuck in traffic while an elderly man with a walker advances faster than his car. In fact, wouldn't it be easier to just show you the scene? Thanks to YouTube, a crowdsourced library of videos, you can watch that scene right here. In urban planning, crowdsourcing a vision is manifested via a charrette (again, thank you wikipedia).

Second, find your city's share of the 150 million who are fed up with or don't drive (half the population) and as described yesterday, crowdsource them into a beta community to design, develop and move into the coolest darn pedestrian-oriented urban village ever seen (or walked).

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August 16, 2006

Cool housing in Amsterdam

The 'crowd- sourcing' economy

This website mentions customer-driven and mass customization as key to economic growth and quality of life, essentially a trend towards authenticity and uniqueness. The most relevant of this movement however, is crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing - "a business model akin to outsourcing. The difference is that instead of professional vendors, crowdsourcing relies upon mass volunteer participation and self-organization to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R&D"

Thus, crowdsourcing is the industry term to describe how cooltowns will be built, and the specific version of crowdsourcing to building cooltowns is what we've long described as the beta community - allowing the group of tenants (residential and commercial) to be involved in the design and development (and by default, the investing**) of their future buildings in the neighborhoods of their choice.

**See August 18, 2006 entry.

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August 15, 2006

Hillcrest, San Diego

Hillcrest, SD - an inclusive community that doesn't need a sign

While towns and cities are putting up official signs (see yesterday's entry) to declare their inclusiveness of different people and cultures, one city neighborhood that hasn't needed one for a while is Hillcrest, San Diego, referred as the city's Greenwich Village.

According to urban designer and former City of San Diego planner Howard Blackson, "Hillcrest is a Richard Florida prototype. The gay community found a home here in the late 80's as it had cheaper rents (artist, designers, fashion). It had a quality stock of buildings to reinvigorate and the people simply made it happen. The rise of Hillcrest led to the revitalization of several older streetcar neighborhoods."

Howard also provides some placemaking insight as to why the historic 5th Avenue retail street (above image) is so much more active with people than the new Village Hillcrest development (image below), even though it's architecturally attractive:

Village Hillcrest is corporate-run, chain-driven, and devoid of both housing and a diversity of unique, local restaurants with outdoor seating facing either the street or interior courtyard. Meanwhile, the 5th Avenue retail district is a collection of local, authentic, independent restaurants and shops, with a rich array of neighborhood housing, dining, drinking and entertainment choices.

Which one would you rather hang out in?

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August 14, 2006

Hillcrest, San Diego

"Welcome, we are building an inclusive community"

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 are working to support such issues as racial justice and inclusionary zoning as well as those who celebrate the diversity of race, religions and cultures in order to build communities that are accepting and representative of the differences among its citizens."

Cities joining the effort sign a proclamation that they will support inclusion, receiving the aforementioned signage, formal listing, and assistance with developing inclusionary programs.

The definition of inclusion is purposely left open for interpretation by each city, ranging from ethnicity, income, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion to culture. Hopefully all.

Image: Above, Tempe, AZ; below, Bluffton, IN, both recognized as inclusive communities

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