Upper Rock District Plan #2

Here’s the other master plan proposal for the Upper Rock District.  While it has the same level of affordability and job creation opportunities, the entertainment experience has a few subtle differences:

This has a more traditional grid layout, maintaining the fabric of the adjacent King Farm community, so it’s a little more car-oriented.  The urban plaza (the CoolTown piazza) isn’t as well defined as in plan #1 - it only has buildings fronting two sides of it

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Upper Rock District Plan #1

The newly planned Upper Rock District, covered in the blog this week, came with two alternative master plans.  Here’s the first one.

Affordability:The highlight, as described yesterday, is the entreprenerial marketplace, designed for ‘starving entrepreneurs’.  The urban plaza terminating one end of it provides a stage for free entertainment.  The majority of lofts comprising the project are open floor plan with little finishings to keep costs low.

Job

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Charrette result: Upper Rock District

Here’s the result of the ‘entrepreneurial village’ charrette being covered since the beginning of this week (scroll down to blog entries below): The new Upper Rock District.

The highlight of the proposed project is a two-story entrepreneurial marketplace designed for the utmost in affordability (buildings on right side of leftmost image).  Simple in design with an open floor plan to save costs, and positioned as a cultural amenity by the developer to

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Charrette results from tonight to be posted.

Stay tuned to see the results of the week-long charrette to design an entrepreneurial village.  It will be revealed at a formal presentation tonight, images posted here soon after.  You can also keep track on the charrette web site here.

In the meantime, this week’s poll asks if you’d live in an entrepreneurial village.

Click here to vote, add your own suggestions or view results. You need to register (just once!) to vote.

Image: That’s

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Designing an entrepreneurial village in a week

Welcome to the cool way to plan a town - the charrette - designing an entire community (complete with prospective engineering drawings and housing floor plans) in one intensive, collaborative week.

I happened by one of these today, but this is no ordinary charrette.  It was being designed by one of the world’s preeminent town planners, DPZ & Company, and ‘produced’ by a development team with no less than the following vision, in their own

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“I’ll have one of those”

This is a common response by real estate developers today who see a place they like in one town, hoping to copy its success in another.  When the local market and culture are blended with the spirit of the original, it’s often a winner.  Otherwise, as is usually the case, it’s mainly transplanted and a failure.

Unfortunately, city leaders often think the same way, as Michael Young of Stepner Design Group has witnessed:

“I can attest to the problems of

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Do women support CoolTowns?

Yes, as this blog has aluded to here and here, referring to the North End in Boston (popular with women) as an example.

Since financial attainability is fundamental to CoolTowns, they often have their earliest beginnings in the up and coming creative, artsy, edgy, entrepreneurial urban areas (what the upper class refers to as economically ‘distressed’ before they find themselves moving there in droves).  Thus, the following women’s group position is key to

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Poll: Which food venue is missing in your neighborhood?

We all have our favorite eating establishment, the place where we depend on as our second dining room… or for many of us, as our primary dining room. What’s yours? Or, if it doesn’t exist in your neighborhood, what would it be?

Click here to vote, add your own suggestions or view results. You need to register (just once!) to vote.  Results will be used by visionary institutional investors to design and build future CoolTowns.

See

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Slow Food Nation

If suburbia and sprawl are about fast food, then what are CoolTowns about?  Slow Food USA, part of a vastly growing international movement, put it best:

“People have responded to the growing movement, because they have become tired of buying the same things, eating the same foods and living the same lives. With these interests in mind, our mission is to create a robust, active movement that protects taste, culture and the environment as universal social values. Slow Food

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Every town needs a Jane Jacobs

People who know view her as a hero.  People who haven’t heard of her need only read her classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, to understand why.

The book helped government officials and residents alike understand for the first time why some places felt safe and vibrant, while others were neglected and abandoned.  The lessons still ring very true today, which explains why the book is still in print since 1961.

She recently Posted by Neil Takemoto in • Media & Resources | Link |

Up-ending the real estate industry - really!

The reason why over 90% of new homes are built as sprawl is simply because it’s much easier for developers to do so - they can mass produce them.  It’s no coincidence the neighborhoods end up resembling an assembly line.  Soon enough, its residents start behaving like products on an assembly line - talking the same language, doing the same things, driving the same cars to the same places… Keep an eye out for the movie The Stepford Wives, coming

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Speaking of surveys...

75% of home buyers want the option of walking or biking to work or to shops, according to a survey by American Lives, an innovative market research firm.

A Belden, Russonello and Stewart national focus group study suggests renters with no children and empty nesters are more likely to choose a smaller lot in a livable community area where they can walk to stores, etc.

A Fannie Mae survey found that people believe a great neighborhood is more important than a great

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Introducing the CoolTown polls!

The entire premise of building a CoolTown is based on what its future tenants, as a community, think it should be.  Thus, it’s about time we started learning about you all as potential CoolTown tenants, as a community, via CoolTown polls.

We’ll start posting polls here once a week, and you’ll not only be able to view the archive of results, but discuss it at length as well.  Since the example in the image is one of where you spend your money, let’s start

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More third places - coffee shops

Third places are easy to remember and return to, but very difficult to find.  So, when my good friend and devout New Urbanist, John Massengale began collecting a list of such places (specifically, coffee/tea hangouts), it was my duty to let you all know!

Keep up with his ongoing list here.

Just so you know, John’s a single boomer and renowned urban designer/author living in Manhattan, and has a good eye for the “this place is so cool I’m coming back…

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Great live/work neighborhoods are about choice

What time shall I wake up for work tomorrow?  Shall I walk or drive to work today - should I go into the main or satellite office?  Which route do I feel like taking - the one with the grocery store on the way to pick up some orange juice, or the one through the park?  Do I even want to go to work today and just finish up this evening instead?

Do I go to the corner market to buy a few things, or drive to the supermarket to load up for a

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The most innovative charter schools study the principles of informal learning to teach their kids.  Lucky them.  It sure beats the daily grind of structured learning I hated so much as a youngster.

Since lack of good schools are the main reason why people with children are repelled by the city, here’s a quick look at how to reverse that trend - the 10 Characteristics of Successful Charter Schools, by Sarah B. Cunningham, Director, Education Assessment and Charter School Accreditation, The

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Creating places for informal learning

As highlighted in yesterday’s blog, informal learning is crucial for productivity and job creation, not to mention quality of life.  However, how does one foster informal learning, since there is no formal structure?

Third places.  That is, venues where people tend to spontaneously gather, converse and hang out.  My place of work is a great third place, with examples this page, which is also a

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CoolTowns are about informal learning

Formal learning learning as defined by a Dept. of Labor study, is planned in advance and has a structured format and defined curriculum. Informal learning is unstructured, unplanned and easily adapted to situations and individuals, or alternately, “any learning in which the learning process isn’t determined or designed by the organization.”

How do you suppose business partners first meet?  Company founders come across the idea for their companies? 

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Even Baby Boomers seek CoolTowns

BOBOs (bourgeois bohemian boomers) and Nexers (empty nester boomers) are as keen on CoolTowns as Xers and Yers.  Why?  The National Association of Home Builders and market researchers have concluded:

Nexers will keep working to stay mentally active or stay solvent.  In other words, no retirement communities.  In fact, ‘active adult communities’ turn nexers off.  “They wouldn’t want their friends or children to know they were living in this type of

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A rather lofty supermarket

Many of us shop at large supermarkets, whether it’s Whole Foods, Safeway or Piggly Wiggly.  However, just about all of them are ugly one-story flat boxes.  Thanks to technology, the times they are a changin’.

Structural, energy-efficiency and venting advancements are making it increasingly commonplace to allow people to live above such large, open plan buildings.  That basically means more housing where there typically wasn’t any, and that’s good for affordability

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