Investing in the CoolTown ‘resort’

Resort: A place frequented by people for relaxation or recreation
Recreation: Refreshment of one’s mind or body after work through activity that amuses or stimulates; play

So, what if a visionary financial group invested in places that people specifically visited to play in, to refresh their minds?  Now what if that same group invested in places that people lived in to play, and continually refresh their minds?  That’s the notion of a cool town.  Thus, a

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The CoolTown ‘workplace resort village’

The image above is a hint at what a CoolTown workplace resort village could look like.  This Fast Company magazine article of an Italian internet village for mobile professionals explains what such a place could be like, if it were isolated.

Now, take those two visions, mix thoroughly and blend into an urban fabric just waiting to be transformed into a 24-hour arts, entertainment and entrepreneur district.  Suddenly, you’d have the brightest business

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Learning from resort main streets

Look ma, no cars!  See yesterday’s blog to better understand why.

Look ma, no chains!  Well, mostly no chains.  Real estate journals publish that main streets should have at least 70% Mom & Pops.  Why?  Simply because Mom & Pops do better financially.  Why?  See yesterday’s blog.

...then there’s not learning from resort main streets.

OK, so there’s little diversity in these residential resort towns - everyone kind of looks the same and the cars you do see

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Why are resort towns so pedestrian- oriented, so cool?

To answer that, it may be best to ask one of the pioneers of progressive town planning, Andres Duany of DPZ & Company.  Here’s his response just today:

Resort towns have the responsibility of being better than daily towns. People will not go on holiday unless the experience is better, more like their ideal than their regular places. Resorts are the most interesting experimental sites. We can always push the envelope further as people

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CoolTowns have two unlikely sources of inspiration.  One is Italy, home of the Renaissance and whose language is based on poetry.  The other is the resort, where people escape to live in a place as close to utopia as they can find.  Think of road rage, full schedules and late-night worries, then wake up from your nightmare and think of…

Portofino, regarded as Italy’s most beautiful, picturesque and romantic town.  No cars, outdoor dining with artistic views,

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The Charter: The Block, the Street and the Building

Today the blog focuses on the last of three key components of the charter as it relates to job growth.

The Block, the Street and the Building:

This is where it typically applies to tenants, to the employers. Streets, public areas and buildings that encourage human interaction best serve the high level of human networking needed for prosperous communities.

“A primary task of all urban architecture and landscape design is the physical

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The Charter: The Neighborhood

Today the blog focuses on the second of three key components of the charter as it relates to job growth.

The neighborhood, the district, and the corridor:

The neighborhood is at the heart of the charter’s principles.  It also covers the ‘district’ and the ‘corridor’, but mainly to be comprehensive. “Neighborhoods should be compact, pedestrian-friendly, and mixed-use.“ “Many activities of daily living (and working) should occur within walking distance.“ “Within

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The Charter: The Region

Today the blog focuses on the first of three key components of the charter as it relates to job growth.

The Region: Metropolis, City and Town:

Metropolitan regions are shaped by natural features, and are “made of multiple centers that are cities, towns, and villages, each with its own identifiable center and edges…“ based on a transportation system that emphasizes “mobility throughout the region while reducing dependence upon the automobile.“ The preservation of

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The Charter of the New Urbanism

The Charter for the New Urbanism is essentially an executive summary followed by three sections focusing on urban design principles for the region, the neighborhood and the block. It is too long to completely list here, so I’ll highlight its main points through this week and relate that to job growth.

The Executive Summary:

“We stand for the restoration of existing urban centers and towns within coherent metropolitan regions, the reconfiguration of sprawling

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What does Smart Growth have to do with job growth?

A lot!  Unfortunately, you wouldn’t know it by reading the mainstream press.  Hopefully by the end of this blog’s week you’ll have a resource to point to.  But first, we need to define Smart Growth.

There’s the Smart Growth Network’s definition, representing a consortium of the most influential public and private sector organizations that can influence Smart Growth.  However, because they are sponsored by a federal body (EPA), they can’t

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Grocery shopping - something for everyone

Three key attributes of CoolTowns are choice, convenience and diversity.  That’s certainly the case when grocery shopping, and I’ll use Adams Morgan as an example, all within walking distance from my home.

As you discovered this week, there’s no shortage of large-scale supermarkets, with a Whole Foods and two Safeways  There’s also a small, discrete Safeway.

Going clockwise from top left in the image, there’s a late-night grocery that’s a popular

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More super- market surprises

As mentioned in Tuesday’s blog, since chain stores rule the supermarket business, it takes some creativity to maintain a little local neighborhood identity.

There are three Safeways within walking distance from where I live, and all of them have something in common that may surprise suburbanites: Zero parking....and yes, they’re full of customers.  I guess having three nearby is also somewhat surprising (wait until tomorrow’s blog!), and the neat thing about

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This is a Safeway?

Since just about every large-scale supermarket in today’s ultra-competitive grocery world is a chain, Safeway took it upon themselves to truly fit in… they took their name off the store!

“Townhouse” is the only sign outside the store.  There isn’t even a logo in the window.  This is a good strategy for how locals can help retain the identity of their own neighborhood without being awash in a me-too assembly line of chains, especially when the only choice is a

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The ‘good neighbor supermarket’

Typically when a large-scale supermarket moves into a neighborhood it brings with it a large-scale parking lot in front.  The great thing about close-knit neighborhoods is that the residents would never stand for it.

Take this example of a brand new Whole Foods that opened in Dupont Circle/Logan Circle in Washington DC - all the parking is underground or above the store and completely out of view.  The only evidence of parking is the car entryway to the right

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OK, so there’s grand visions of what future CoolTown schools could be, and existing models of how they could be today.

How will they be paid for?

‘Facilities’ (physical construction) is the biggest expense that often derails the best laid plans, and land is the largest expense within that (especially in urban areas).  Thus, the best place to start when financing a new school is to find a land donor, and some of the more progressive investment groups are committed to partnering up with

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What if every sixth grader had a laptop?  What if every seventh grader knew they had college paid for?  What if every K-12 student could walk to school and back home?

It’s happening here and there, and hopefully it’ll all come together at one school.

- The state of Michigan is seeking a contract to provide all 130,000 of its sixth graders with laptops to be used in classrooms with wireless internet by January 1, 2004.

- The Department of Education is establishing a national program to

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What better way to get a community involved in its schools, than to transform its schools into community centers.  Here are some examples across the country:

-The K-5 Tenderloin Community School in San Francisco has medical and dental facilities, counseling rooms, adult education facilities, a family resource center, and a community garden and kitchen.
-High school academies in Michigan and Arizona are built within museums that provide real-world applications.
-The Big Lake Public School

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While kids love people-oriented*, walkable, entertainment-rich towns, their “bosses” (parents) won’t have any of it if the schools are sub-par.

CoolTown prosperity revolves around lasting community building bulit through relationships (e.g. guilds, third places), and good schools are no different.  Just as guilds focus on groups of people with common interests, so are the “academies” at Edison Schools, where groups of kids are taught by the same four-six teachers over two-three years in

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Can a town designed by and for creatives, gen xers/yers and knowledge workers be any good for kids?  Actually, very much so.  Not only is this audience ready to have kids on their own, they were kids themselves not too long ago, and the following guidelines for children can apply to them as well.

Given a fair start, kids above all need to be able to freely explore their environment and learn how to spontaneously relate to other people of all ages in order to develop happily and healthily,

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Investing in local retail

If you’ve been tracking the local vs. national retail economic impact numbers, you may want to know just how to bring in the best local retailers that outshine even the top-performing nationals.

You need to start with the best talent...and they can be found with the right talent agents.  Here are a few that these progressive CoolTown investors are looking to form a collaborative work team with:

National Main Street Center:  No organization is more involved in

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Better than Target?

Target is easily the department store of choice by urbanites and creatives (who endearingly pronounce it tar-ZHAY) simply because it combines two of their favorite qualities - affordability and classy talent-over-big-name design.

Still, if such a national chain is still sending most of a community’s dollars out of town, is there any viable alternative?

How about a department store that stocked what you wanted, say, because you owned it?

Residents of Plentywood, Montana

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Selling music - locally

The next generation of music buyers won’t be shopping at Wal-mart and Best Buy, they’ll be visiting their local music store or staying at home.

Local music stores
What if you could walk into your local neighborhood music store and listen to the hottest new local area artists - live?  What if that music store turned into a live band juke box?  That’s the idea behind the fast-growing trend of independent music alliances, typically about 30-40 non-competing small music

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