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January 4, 2008

Crowdsourcing a NOLA network to a team to a building to a coffeehouse...

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

A few months ago NOLA's (New Orleans, LA) young urban rebuilding professionals (YURP) established a social network for the purpose of building a sustainable New Orleans, now at 1688 members.

Within a couple of months, a hundred of them established a beta community to identify development opportunities they could crowdsource into a model of what New Orleans could be, known as the NOLA Yurp Beta Community. Less than one month after their first meeting on September 26, 2007 they identified an interested building owner, Lee Stafford, located in the economically-challenged neighborhood of O.C. Haley near downtown).

On November 14, 2007 they held the first beta community meeting to rebuild 1618 O.C. Haley (pictured, center building) into a community-oriented, green, socially-conscious coffeehouse that will feature local talent, art and music, and in December launched the online beta community groupsite, aka Rebrew Orleans, which grew from 28 to 65 members this past week as design, environmental, branding and events teams began to form.

The energy continues to rise... there's now a motivated effort to establish a coworking site above the coffeehouse, and another building owner across the street has already proclaimed, "I'm next!"

Keep track of all the CoolTown beta communities here.

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January 3, 2008

"Affordable housing doesn't have to be ugly"

That's 'ugly' in terms of design and craftsmanship, not so much style, which I'm sure many of you may be partial to.

When nonprofit developer Mercy Housing completed its 96-unit SRO (single-room occupancy) building for very low income residents in the Near North neighborhood of Chicago, president Richard Banks reiterated the group's vision that the building would be "a statement that affordable housing doesn't have to be ugly or look like a warehouse."

Essentially, if very low income (subsidized) housing can have this quality of design and craftsmanship (completely separate from style, which is wholly subjective), then market-rate housing for those that don't need government assistance should have no excuses whatsoever of expecting any less.

The Schiff Residences opened in 2007 and not only are they affordable, but proudly display functional as well as beautiful green design features, including
- solar panels and rooftop wind turbine that generate about 15% of the building's power;
- gray water system that filters water from sinks and showers to flush toilets;
- 10,000-gallon storage tank that collects rainwater for use on the landscaping;
- All energy-saving features save 22% on utility costs.

Check out some fun animated diagrams of its green design elements here.

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January 2, 2008

Music scenes a sign of economic rise

What does a thriving music scene have to do with a city's economic growth? According to economist Richard Florida in his recent study, "It signals the rise of regional ecosystems that are not only open to new sounds and new ideas, but have the size, scale and commercial oomph to retain key talent and turn their ideas into global commercial successes. Once music scenes of this scale get going, they produce a logic and momentum of their own and signal that more entrepreneurship is on the way."

Based on Richard's study, three clear trends tracked over 31 key music scenes in the United States from 1970 to 2004 are:

1. Increasing concentration and specialization in music. More musicians today are living in these music scenes (63.5%) than in 1970 (52.5%). The poster child for this shift is Nashville, now the national leader with nearly four times the U.S. average of musicians per capita, of course spurred by its country music scene.

2. Decline of crossroads scenes. Artists in music pioneers like New Orleans (jazz), Memphis (blues) and Detroit (Motown, rock) are continuing to leave because...

3. Smaller, more specialized music scenes are flourishing. College towns and high-tech meccas are becoming the next generation of music scenes, like San Francisco, Seattle, Austin (pictured), Portland OR, Raleigh NC, Omaha NE, Athens GA...

As Richard states, "Music combines with technology and business trends to put these places on the map. It reflects their openness to new ideas, new people and new sounds. If you really want to see entrepreneurs in action, go talk to local musicians."

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