« March 30, 2008 - April 5, 2008 | Main | April 13, 2008 - April 19, 2008 »

April 11, 2008

The medical value of social interaction, social places

One way to understand the health benefits of community and human interaction is to look at the health risks of isolation. Isolation defined here is not the same as solitude where people live on their own and prefer seeing few friends contently, but rather when they feel they are cut off from people and don't easily have someone to turn to.

A 1987 report in Science stated, "Isolation is as significant to mortality rates as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and lack of physical exercise." For instance, smoking increases mortality risk by 1.6, while social isolation does so by a factor of 2.0. Some other findings:

- Isolated men are at greater risk than isolated men;
- Isolated men were 2-3 times more likely to die as men with close social ties;
- Isolated women were 1.5 times more likely to die as women with close social ties;

According to the best seller Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, the source of this entry, this men-women difference may be explained by evidence that women are more effective at building social relationships than men.

Which brings us to the value of creating places that facilitate social interaction, such as via third places, events and scenes, and an extraordinarily social interactive means of seeing these come to fruition; via crowdsourcing.

Read about more cool town health benefits here.

Image source: Long Street, South Africa by cliffsdepot.

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack

La Rambla - one of the world's greatest pedestrian streets

La Rambla, which translates to 'intermittent water flow', is the iconic hub of Barcelona, a predominantly pedestrian-only plaza stretching nearly a mile through the historic center of the Spanish city.

The central area is filled with outdoor dining areas, merchant kiosks and countless strollers, bordered on either side by traffic-calmed two-lane roads for cars, which are then fronted with restaurants, stores and residences. Servers (pictured) cross the traffic lanes to cater to customers in the plaza.

What makes it one of the world's greatest pedestrian streets? Not only is it one of the longest pedestrian streets anywhere (three quarters of a mile), but it maintains an intense vibrancy all the way through. Most cities have difficulty even considering the idea for a single block.

In fact, even when La Rambla ends, the streets beyond it are packed with outdoor diners - its energy extends beyond, as most inspiring places do.

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 10, 2008

NYC 'Taking Back the Streets'

Anyone familiar with New York City, especially Manhattan knows that there simply isn't enough room for the pedestrians. The NY Times takes a look at ten progressive pedestrian-oriented solutions that the city's urban leaders are suggesting:

The Woonerf - Popular in the Netherlands (translates to 'living street'), it's a primarily residential street that does not distinguish between a sidewalk and road, designed to look and feel like an outdoor living room.

Play Streets - Not only are streets temporarily closed to allow kids to play in them, but there's talk of closing some of them permanently for this purpose.

Bike Boulevards - More bike lanes to up the less than 1% of New Yorkers who commute by bike (mainly because there are too many cars).

Pavement Hierarchy - Rather than allowing every single street access to cars, have some of them reserved strictly for parks and plazas.

Green Grid - Establish a pedestrian-only zone like Temple Bar, Dublin, or a pedestrian-only boulevard like La Rambla in Barcelona, Spain.

Mental Speed Bumps - Provide social activities alongside streets (ie BBQs, micro-parks, etc.) that subconsciously slow down drivers. In other words, making something good out of rubber necking.

Swaled Streets - Landscape street edges which collect stormwater, reducing runoff by 99%.

Lanescapes - A great example of taking it up a notch, 'lanescapes' are the application of ongoing events and scenes to a 'green grid'.

Gentle Congestion - Urban micro-cars that flock like sheep using sophisticated sensors and navigation systems, even bumping one another slightly, thus the name, or even stackable cars.

Urban Acupuncture - Honestly, I don't quite understand what the NY Times is specifically talking about here in terms of practical examples, but the idea is to inject the city with green pedestrian-oriented spaces throughout its 'body'.

Image source: Chinatown by .mchung

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 9, 2008

Bike sharing finally making it to the U.S.

While cities across Europe were growing their bike sharing programs, especially in Paris with 20,000 bikes and nearly a thousand stations, U.S. cities had yet to initiate even one. However, that's about to change May 2008 when Washington DC becomes the first U.S. city to establish a bike sharing program.

Clear Channel Outdoor and the DC Department of Transportation are launching Smartbike DC, a modest but important introduction to bike sharing in the U.S. - with 100 bikes and 10 stations. Clear Channel, an outdoor advertising company, provides the bike sharing system in exchange for advertising on 800 bus shelters. Their most successful program to date is in Barcelona (pictured), with 6000 bicycles and 400 stations.

It operates very similar to the widely known Paris system, with electronic locking, recognition and payment. The Smartbike website provides a step by step guide, FAQ and reveals a $40/year subscription, but no word yet on hourly rates. In Paris, the first half hour is free and you can leave it at any station with no extra charge.

San Francisco and Chicago bike sharing systems are next, and NYC experimented. More at MSNBC.

Thanks to Barbara Forlini for the reference.

Image source: Spacing Magazine

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 8, 2008

At last, a site guide to this website's categories

1300+ entries later (all archived for free here or via the Archives link to the right), let me for the first time provide an update on what the Categories to the right mean:

Attainability: All things related to living and working affordably.
Beta Communities: These are the crowdsourcing teams that literally make places happen.
Community Building: What brings people together?
Cool Developers: Creative triple bottom line developers.
Cool Places: Accounts of cities and neighborhoods.
Creatives: All about the people that read this website and crowdsourcing great places.
Crowdsourcing: Defining the first word in the CoolTown tagline above.
Downtown Migration: Evidence of the urban shift.
Economic Gardening: Growing local businesses vs stealing companies from other cities
Entertainment & Arts: Events, happenings, venues that evoke creativity
Government Innovation: Progressive cities and their policies
Green Development: Ecological cities, neighborhoods and buildings
Heath & Fitness: The increasingly fundamental draw for people to cool places
Housing & Lofts: If it's about inspiring buildings and rooms to live in, it's here
Investment: The financial world supporting creative cities
Invisible Technology: Technology is that much more welcome when it's seamless or unseen
Market Development: The trends pointing to more creative cities
Mass Customization: The business system allowing individuality, choice and uniqueness
Media & Resources: Whatever doesn't fit in the other categories, like this entry
Mixed-Use Developments: Cool buildings
Mobility: Related to transportation, but mobility implies people and walking too
PlaceMaking: The design of places - soon to have 'Pedestrian-Only' break out of this
Public Safety: What makes a place feel safe
Reader Experiences: My favorite - please send in your profiles of inspiring places you've been to
Retail Entertainment Districts: Innovative main streets and commercial districts
Retail Venue Development: Great examples of compelling shops and restaurants
Third Places: That hangout away from home and work
University Towns: Urban villages spawned from higher education
Workplaces: Workplaces that make you want to work there instead
Youth & Education: Because each succeeding generation wants it better

Image source: Adams Morgan panography compiled by Mike McCaffrey.

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 7, 2008

A shift from mass branding to individual stories

People are changing their status quo preference of keeping up with the Joneses to wanting to be unique, largely because now we can - the emergence of the knowledge economy and mass customization are enabling a shift to individualized, one-of-a-kind products and services. Thus, as national brands are increasingly unable to tell a one-size-fits-all story to the masses, it is then up to the customer to tell those stories to sell that brand - think Mini Cooper.

Trendwatching.com calls these personal accounts status stories. Their official definition: "As more brands go niche and therefore tell stories that aren't known to the masses, and as experiences expenditures take over from physical (and more visible) status symbols, consumers will increasingly have to tell each other stories to achieve a status dividend from their purchases. Expect a shift from brands telling a story, to brands helping consumers tell status-yielding stories to other consumers."

Now, understanding that this CoolTown website and its implementation arm, CoolTown Beta Communities are all about crowdsourcing cool places for creatives, this model can also be explained as a mass collaboration of status stories for a product/service that doesn't exist, but should. Instead, these stories are used to build a brand or identity, which is then manifested via the building of a physical place and loyal following that authentically represents it.

Image source: Le Poulbot cafe, Montmarte, Paris by eklectic.

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack