Main street mall - oxymoron?

There’s been a heated discussion lately in at the urbanism watering hole, and that’s, “Is there a difference between a main street and a shopping street?  The answer is yes and no.

Yes, there’s a difference: Main streets are typically known to serve a neighborhood.  Shopping streets, which include outdoor malls, cater to an entire region.  Main streets have neighborhood-oriented venues like a coffeeshop, hair stylist, deli, pub, etc., many of which are

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Big, healthy street trees - not that hard

Just remember - ‘big and alive with five by five’.  We’ll get back to that shortly.

You ever notice that the most expensive homes are simply the ones on streets with the biggest trees?  Or that the trees on most streets rarely seem to grow, and when they do, they eventually fall over in a major storm?  You would too if someone tied your ankles together.

Here’s two things that don’t add up:

1. A trees roots naturally extend as far apart as its

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The world’s most creative people put together what has become the world’s best operating system (Linux) for many.  The same concept lies behind our approach of catalyzing a beta community for building next generation places that can perhaps exceed expectations. Maybe we can apply this energy to writing a book.

Just as you have several dozen ideas of what your very own ideal community would be, but don’t have the means to develop one, here’s an opportunity to let the world know what they

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A village of third places - in one block

The name says it all for this destination in Munich, Germany: CityQuartier F�nf H�fe, Town Center of Five Courtyards - a portal for year-round social interaction, concerts (pictured) and relaxing, rain or shine, summer or winter.

Right in the historic center of the city, this is Germany’s version of a downtown shopping mall, though with some radical differences from those found in the U.S.  In addition to the 168,000 retail s.f. of shopping

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Evidence shows walkable towns healthier

In a recent large-scale study* of 16 pairs of neighborhoods, one that has a typical main street and a mix of apartments and houses has a proportion of people with BMI (body mass index) over 25 (considered a healthy level) at 35% of the population, but in areas of single-family homes with ‘poorly connected streets and a shopping center on its edge with a big parking lot’, BMI over 25 matched the national average of 60%.�

Michigan governor Jennifer

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Where are the top women business builders living?

If your city needs job growth, it needs fast-growing businesses.  From 1997 to 2004, women-owned businesses grew twice as fast as all businesses in the U.S.  One in 18 women is a business owner, producing $2.5 trillion in annual sales, employing 20 million people.  What can your city do to attract the most successful of these women?  When Fast Company magazine profiled the top 25 female business builders, they may have helped answer that

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‘The projects’ - 2005

Everyone knows what ‘the projects’ are - ugly, federal-government-financed, high-rise stand-alone buildings surrounded by parking lots in neglected regions of the city, or low-rise concentration-camp-looking complexes.  No defined public or private spaces, just leftover space in between the structures.

Thank goodness for evolution.  This is an image of Bradenton Village, a $70 million ‘garden urban village’ replacing failed federal government projects (the origin of

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Why some cities prosper more than others

It’s quite simple really.  Cities prosper when companies create jobs.  Companies create jobs when they provide a far better service or product than any other in the world.  To do that, they need the best talent in the world.  The companies and cities (and countries) that ‘get this’ will be the eventual leaders, both economically and socially.  For instance, the most successful major league baseball teams attract talent from all over the world, while

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Developing a community for their peers

Ben, Naomi and Josh knew their town of Oberlin, OH was lacking the kind of housing and businesses that kept their university peers from leaving after graduation. Not only did they stay, they formed Sustainable Community Associates and rather spontaneously began to develop the kind of place that would excite their friends about staying as well. One of their biggest assets as developers was that no one knew the market better than they did.

Through a

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Forbes’ best place to work: Boise

Looking to start your business or career?  Low business costs (low cost of living, office rent), access to talent (a major university presence, knowledge, networking) and a high quality of life (ie nightlife, recreation) are what you need, and are the basis for some* of the key criteria for the Forbes Best Places For Business And Careers list. Carlos’s question

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Interview with a ‘CoolTown’ developer (part 2)

Continuing yesterday’s interview with urban pioneer Larry Warshaw… How did you come to choosing this development type for the creative class?

“In our designs we put our money into the structural components of the buildings � great structure, great windows, long-lasting roofs, concrete floors, and we expose as much of the interior structure as the city code will allow.  The rest is very simple with as few walls as necessary and interior

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Interview with a ‘CoolTown’ developer

While true CoolTown/creative class real estate developers represent the next generation of real estate developers, they’re still a rarity.  I was fortunate to come across one of them, Larry Warshaw of Austin, Texas, developer of the Saltillo Lofts (pictured).  Here’s what he had to say…

Why are you targeting the ‘creative class’?

“We started targeting the creative class a little over three years ago with the Pedernales project because we knew that

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What urban type are you?

Here’s an abridged quiz to ‘discover your true urban style’, found on the back cover of a highly acclaimed book on downtown life: Get Urban! The Complete Guide to City Living by Kyle Ezell, who’s also a speaker (I hope you appreciate the spontaneous plug Kyle).

If you have Post-Industrial style, you…
- Find beauty in hard-core, edgy urban environments.
- Are drawn to basic building materials such as steel, glass and concrete.
- Insist on stunning downtown skyline

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Maintaining great retail entertainment downtowns

What are the primary trends, positive and negative, in creating and maintaining vibrant, safe downtown entertainment districts?  The Responsible Hospitality Institute, which focuses on these very issues, conducted extensive research to arrive at the following:

Split-use districts: In cities that have achieved a 24/7 nightlife, the demographics often change rather dramatically at 10 pm, between people who are going home and people who are

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4 days of cool new attitudes for old main streets

“Showcasing historic buildings and innovative ideas that bring new businesses, new people, new uses, and new life to their traditional commercial areas of all types and sizes.“

That’s this year’s Cool Cities theme featured next week Sunday through Wednesday when the 2005 National Main Streets Conference strolls through Baltimore, MD.

While the annual event focuses on general techniques for managing historic main streets, it does indeed

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An abstract depiction of a proposed place can often capture its emotion, mood and life more effectively than any computer rendering, or even an existing place compared to a photo.

In this piece, Beaver Street at Twilight by City Art Studio Gallery president and curator, Brenda Wintermyer, York, PA, one may get a vibrant sense of warmth, that this is a place for people, with musicians, sidewalk vendors, bicyclists, shoppers, artists and casual strollers a part of the everyday scene, with an

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Here they are as presented by one of the top town planning firms in the country, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company.  The diagram shows an auto-oriented sprawl infrastructure in the lower half - notice how each major destination leads to a ‘collector road’ - a major source of traffic congestion.  The pedestrian-oriented layout in the upper half (aka traditional neighborhood development (TND), aka ‘good suburban development’) shows how traffic is distributed evenly with multiple choices of travel,

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A treasure trove of public spaces

Looking for a singular resource of great public spaces, especially with photos?  Look no further than Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit that’s been supporting the best of public placemaking and third places for 30 years.

One of their best resources is a series of online case studies based on the following four areas:

Great public markets: Whether indoors or out, these festival, fresh food, art and farmers markets date back to ancient times, and still

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