Investing in a healthy town

Here are the health-oriented town features that investors are implementing in the CoolTown model.

1. Genuine walkability.  I mean ‘genuine’ in that people will actually want to walk to destinations, rather than it being a theoretical possibility.  I see the word often abused as such.  Few people enjoy walking across parking lots, especially at night.
2. Enough fast food joints!  If you read the book Fast Food Nation you may never eat at one again.  You’ll see

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What are CoolTown-oriented shoes?

What’s a typical week in a health-oriented town?There really is such a thing, in my opinion.  Once I got ‘urban dress/walking shoes’, I found myself getting twice as much exercise.

Go to Nike and look up “prestos”.  My shoe expert of a friend recommended I get these when I asked him if there was such a thing as shoes I could go to a meeting with, and run in.  Well, for my sake, these shoes are just that!  Not only do I wear these to business meetings, but

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What’s a typical week in a health-oriented town?

How do you know you’re in a healthy town?  Just walk around and look.  For some reason, the people at suburban Walmarts just don’t seem nearly as fit as those strolling through city downtowns.

Here’s my list of choices in a typical week:  Less than one block away:  Pick-up basketball games, throwing a frisbee, running up and down stairs, jogging to the grocery or drugstore.  Just a few blocks away:  Walking to the subway, yoga, salsa

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Investing in Community

This week The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is sponsoring The Shape We’re In, focusing on why nearly two-thirds of Americans are out of shape.

The series kicks off with Experts plotting America’s new diet: Less sprawl, less fat, less frenzy. From the article:  “Right now, 75 percent of all trips less than a mile are taken by car. About 25 percent of people are physically active. Another 50 percent do a little activity. And 25 percent do virtually

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Investing in Community

For regular blog viewers, you may notice that I end the weekly theme on Fridays with a blog on how investors plan on implementing these visions in a real town, a CoolTown.  Here’s how the group plans on helping enable a sense of community:

1. Focus on a target audience - in this case it’s the cultural creatives.  Learn as much as possible about the things they like to do, experience and prioritize.  Learn about their sub-groups as well, like the Posted by Neil Takemoto in • Community Building • Investment | Link |

Community: A group of people living in the same locality; a group of people having common interests
Clique: A small exclusive group of friends or associates.

When we think of ‘friends’, we often think of them as cliques - people we regularly hang out with.  However, being exclusive by definition, cliques also include country clubs and gangs.  Either way, they typically aren’t very diverse.

I believe a CoolTown will be more about community than cliques.  Rather than asking the people in

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Actually, the verdict isn’t in yet, but the way I’m hoping to help catalyze a stronger sense of community at my workplace is using the same approach as where I live (see yesterday’s blog).  Just today I used the listserv to pick dates for our first happy hour, and half the entrepreneur tenants (eleven) are a go.  June 3rd’s our first happy hour, so I’ll let you know then how it went.  Update: How it went!

As far as a common place that everyone can naturally gather, that’s a strength of where

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There are seventy or so people who live in my building (image below), but for the first three or four years I hardly knew a soul.  Today I know more than half of them by first name, and that all happened within a matter of months.

Here’s my recipe to get to know your neighbors:

1. As painful as it is for some of us, you’re going to have to go out of your way to get to know at least three or four of them.  This forms the ‘neighborhood core’.
2a. Plan an event like a happy hour in the most

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Where is that elusive sense of community?

It’s something many of us secretly ask ourselves, and there’s even a book written about it.  Is it possible to create a sense of community where none existed?  History says yes, and hopefully we can use that to build better communities in the very near future.

This week I’ll present places I’ve experienced that are known to have a strong sense of community, and how we plan to integrate that into CoolTowns.  I’ll start with Hawaii, since it’s

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Investing in A&E CoolTowns

Here’s the experience arts & entertainment vision an investment collaborative will be implementing in a few lucky cities around the country.

1. To have an onsite residency of artists, musicians, video producers, entertainers and entrepreneurs, they will ensure a substantial amount of affordable, well-designed housing and workspace (see last week’s blogs.)
2. To catalyze ongoing performances, practices, dances and major live events, they will provide ‘stages’ via

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The economy of an A&E CoolTown

As usual, business-related decisions come down to money and economics.  So how do we create an economically sustainable environment for artists & entertainers?

Increase their revenue: Provide multiple places for them to perform or display their talent regularly, establish the first ever neighborhood-branded ‘one-click’ online store for their work in digital format, offer collaborative educational courses at permanent classrooms, form a local guild to market

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A wise man* once told me that the key to building a community is getting the tenants committed first, as in before design, permitting, capital raising, construction, etc.

So, the first step in the implementation of a great arts & entertainment (A&E) town would mean building a virtual community of artists and entertainers.  That was crystalized to me tonight when I stopped by a hosted reception of those practicing in and supportive of A&E .  Not only did they already have a virtual

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In my opinion, this is one of the most important elements in building a place that cultural creatives will be attracted to.  At least one economically successful city swears by it.

The easiest way to realize the power of music is to understand history.  For instance, in the book Capitol Rock, the author describes Washington DC’s Georgetown renaissance in the 1960’s, when Beatlemania with its wake of local rock & roll bands and bohemian crowds sparked the transformation of a “bleak

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How important is arts & entertainment in a CoolTown?

It’s like peanut butter & jelly in a PB&J sandwich - what you see on the outside is the ‘bread’ (the city’s buildings, streets), but it’s what’s inside that makes it great - just like the people at this film festival ‘in between’ the buildings of Switzerland.

This week I’ll cover specifically how some visionary investors plan on adding the best in arts & entertainment (A&E) to the CoolTown model.  In the meantime, I’ll recap what the blog

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Yes, CoolTown transportation is very affordable

Since the price of shoes today is typically over $100, maybe not (unless you know someone who works at Footlocker like I do).  There’s even CoolTown shoes for walking commuters, which I’ll cover down the road.

For regular readers of the blog or those familiar with the concept, you’re probably more than aware of the walkable theme.  Cars in CoolTowns are often actually more hindrance than help, and when they’re truly needed, ownership can be

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CoolTowns have lots of free entertainment venues

I always held the opinion that the best forms of entertainment were free, and CoolTowns have plenty of it.  Here’s a few reasons why:

1. Plenty of outdoor ‘stages’.  Entertainers need stages, and piazzas, squares, plazas, courtyards and amphitheaters provide these with ready-made audiences.  We simply need more of these natural stages.
2. Indoor stages, aka third places.  Outdoor stages are third places as well, but because they’re not

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How to create affordable office space in a CoolTown

1. Preserve old buildings and walkable neighborhoods (less parking costs).  Outdated, inflated parking requirements is easily the #1 reason why investors ignore cities and town centers.
2. Build office interiors with an open floor plan system (few or no walls, just like the new home trend) and exposed ceilings.  Not only does this reduce costs, but it also creates a greater sense of space and creativity.
3. For entrepreneurs and artists,

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How do ‘starving artists’ live in the most expensive cities?

It is fundamental to understand that cities often prosper because of artists.  Artists can also be more broadly defined as the creative class.  Here’s how they thrive in the midst of city neighborhoods with million dollar homes:

1. Artists look for better-designed homes that are not so big, which means more light, an open floor plan/less compartmentalization and maybe higher ceilings.
2. Artists would trade off expensive front

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Want a prosperous town fast?

Combine affordability and great design.  Prosperity comes from jobs.  Jobs come from job creators, the most prolific being entrepreneurs.  Entrepreneurs, when they’re cash-strapped before their business ideas hit it big, need affordable housing (lofts, shared living), affordable office space (unfinished, open floor plan), affordable transportation (walkability, mass transit), and affordable entertainment (parks, piazzas, bars, dancing, casual dining).  The trick

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The CoolTown water test

Take one city model, pour water over it, tilt slightly.  How much water is left?  Use the same principle for people.

The mark of a truly great city is that it not only has great third places indoors, but outdoors as well.  This was easy to provide in pedetrian-oriented cities, but difficult in auto-oriented cities where much of the outdoor space was already taken up by roads and parking lots.

In the Nolli Plan of Rome below (one of the most famous plans in

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Is there a true piazza in the United States?

No.  There will be one day, but right now there really isn’t anything close.  A true piazza is an urban square enclosed on all four sides by buildings to make a grand outdoor ballroom of sorts.

The closest new development resembling a piazza is Pentagon Row by Post Properties, image below.  It’s much better than what’s been developed over the last 50 years.  However, they’re calling it a piazza, and here’s why it’s not:

1. It’s only enclosed on

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