Must see TV: PBS broadcast the first of two 2-hour parts of Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance. If you’re looking for some inspiration (minus the medieval bloodshed) to attract the kinds of creatives that can manifest a renaissance in your town, this is good watching.
The Medici were a rather humble family that rose to power in Florence through a matter of luck, relationship building and business acumen. The Renaissance literally began when Cosimo Medici befriended and hired a raging
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This is a more specific question related to job creation, asking how a city can attract the large companies that bring in hundreds or thousands of jobs in one shot.
Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said it best, “Keep your tax incentives and highway interchanges, we will go where the highly-skilled people are.”
Think about it, if you’re the CEO of a company that’s based on innovation (Research & Development), you’d conclude that you need to go where the innovation-minded people are… and
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Posted by Neil Takemoto in
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Economic Gardening |
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As a civic/community-building practitioner, I often observe a disconnect in how communities approach initiatives to create vibrant places. For instance, the popular place-based initiatives… with new urbanist designs often overlook the necessary visioning work on ‘softer’ issues, viewing (instead) the physical changes as the essential ingredients in community transformation. How will CoolTown integrate civic/community-building aspects within its conceptual approach? Joel Mills, Herndon
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Here’s a new CoolTown blog feature: As CoolTown Network members were sending in questions, I thought it’d be beneficial to more people if I answered them here. It’d be even better if others provided their own suggestions and answers at the comment link below the blog …
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Posted by Neil Takemoto in
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Community Building |
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This is one of my favorite images from Siena, Italy. Along the street illustrated in yesterday’s blog, this rather striking image is a model for a number of inspiring, yet uncommon storefront principles:
1. As blog regular Silus Grok commented yesterday, pointing light down saves energy…
2. Not only that, by using task lighting (subject specific) instead of general lighting, only the most appealing features are highlighted - in this case the merchandise, the window and the entryway.
3. The
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Other than the exquisite architecture of Siena, Italy, one subconscious reason why people continously gush over its beauty is its lighting.
Notice that with incandescent lighting you can tell that the lady’s coat is actually
red. The light fixtures (art pieces unto themselves) are just a few feet above eye level, better illuminating the street. Acting as spotlights, the textures of the buildings are richly illustrated.
Beauty has a price in Siena. The city uses high quality incandescent
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Posted by Neil Takemoto in
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PlaceMaking |
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Whether you’re walking through downtown San Francisco, New Orleans, Paris or Rome, there just seems to be a level of comfort and security that you just don’t get in most cities. Some people will say…
“It’s gotta be the windows”.
Just as we subconsciously gauge our comfort level by whether we’re surrounded by friendly faces and welcoming eyes, the buildings have a human character all their own… and the bottom line is, the more humanistic they are, the warmer we feel.
The windows are the
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Posted by Neil Takemoto in
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Design |
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This is one of my favorite third places in Rome, the Piazza Di Spagna, or the Spanish Square. The area is most commonly known as the Spanish Steps (the actual steps are to the right, off picture), as highlighted in yesterday’s entry.
Notice the amount of street life even at 40 degrees F. The Piazza Di Spagna’s grand stairs, the neighborhood-sized piazza shown here, and another more intimate one facing it provide a vibrant stage for city life. Then there’s this view facing the stairs - a
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Posted by Neil Takemoto in
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Third Places |
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That’s what a neighborhood or town center should be - a center for people, not cars or monuments or overdone design and landscape architecture. The best towns have dozens and dozens of them.
That usually means architects need to leave the talent to the people who will inhabit these spaces, as inherently counter-intuitive as it is for them. In other words, imagine how impossible it would be to perform on a stage that was already completely filled with someone else’s props.
That’s the key to
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Posted by Neil Takemoto in
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Third Places |
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