There’s nothing more important to a great downtown/main street than the entrepreneurs who open that signature restaurant or venue that starts a chain reaction of quality venues behind it.

Warren Brown had dual degrees in law and public health from George Washington University, but hated his work as a lawyer for the federal government.  Meanwhile, friends and family loved anything he baked.  So he did what most lawyers do - quit his job and opened a bakery.

A few awards and an Oprah

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Is it a place full of cool, or clones?

The people at the New Economics Foundation, an economic think-tank in London, put together a great tool for finding out, and you can get the pdf survey via the link at the bottom right of their website.  It’s more or less giving 5 points for every town center shop/venue, 5 points for every clone (ie chain), 50 points for every independent, then dividing that total by the number of venues.

The five towns we analyzed on our CoolTown tour had a score of

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If you ever wanted a concise read on how biodiversity relates to urban diversity, read this article that relates the necessity of genetic diversity for our survival, to the need for a diversity in our downtowns (ie one less Starbucks, one more cool independent coffeehouse) for its own economic and cultural survival.

“Where loss of genetic diversity threatens the survival of species and leaves ecosystems vulnerable to collapse, clone shops and towns imperil local livelihoods, communities and

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That’s the advice of downtown consultant Susan Nigra Snyder of CivicVisions, in this so-titled article on the revitalization of a small college town main street.

“It’s how Madonna reinvents herself every few years,“ she says in the article. “You have to transform the way people see it and use it, so it gets connected to the contemporary buzz.“

That means think like an entrepreneur, and entrepreneurs focus on how to use their existing assets to provide something that people want today.  That

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In this edgy ChangeThis manifesto, Made In USA, the Paul Graham, the author of Hackers & Painters claims, “Americans make the best software and films, and the Japanese the best cars and consumer electronics. There’s a reason for this, and it goes far deeper than cultural differences or the quality of autoworkers, it has to do with who’s in charge.

...and it’s the people in charge and/or the prevailing culture that prioritizes design and craftsmanship that will produce the kinds of products

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There’s more to nightlife than restaurants and bars, and one of the fastest growing recreations that fit into that timeslot is dodgeball.  In fact, the International Dodgeball Federation (yes, there is such a thing) says the 25-35-year demographic is the fastest growing in the country.

Where do you find them?  In cities, even smaller ones like Richmond, VA, that cater to the creative class.  Here’s a rather interesting quote, “It has become an ‘in thing’ to play childhood sports again

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What are one of the benefits of being in a workplace full of entrepreneurial, creative people?  You get something entirely spontaneous like High Tea at the Lab.

Take one very creative person recently inspired by a trip to London (no coincidence that London is a compelling place to be), and watch them do the following:

Provide an announcement for “high tea” after work at 4 pm, and play some rather English-oriented music.  Then provide everyone with a menu for tea, sandwiches and pastries,

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Austin is already one of the coolest cities in the country, so it’s no surprise that it has some of the most progressive developers as well, such as Interurban Development, documented in this business article, Developers target ‘creative’ class with infill projects.

Their first two projects are Bel Air - ‘urban lofts on South Congress Avenue’; and SageBrush, ‘bungalows in the heart of Round Rock’.  What makes them especially cool is that they truly are affordable, in a world where ‘affordable

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Here’s the exact question someone just posed, “Can I invest small amounts of money in this fund or other New Urbanist projects? There don’t seem to be any ‘socially responsible’ mutual funds that screen out sprawl.“

The short answer is yes, but… The industry hasn’t matured enough to the point where large sums of money (ie billions in pension funds) can be trusted to be invested in what is considered a relatively new market, however, that does mean there are smaller sums of money (ie millions

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That’s the tagline of this article on why independent businesses rock, and Wal-mart, uh, doesn’t.
It notes that “in Iowa alone Wal-Mart wiped out 555 groceries, 298 hardware stores, 293 building supply stores, 161 variety stores, 158 women’s clothing stores, 153 shoe stores, 116 drug stores, and 111 men’s and boy’s clothing stores in 10 years.“  One of the premier business consultants in the world, C.K. Prahalad, states “The world’s largest company today, Wal-Mart, was created to serve poor

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