According to a new study of a thousand companies, The Resilience Report, ‘NO’.  The R&D investment vs. sales growth graph above shows no correlation whatsoever.

Perhaps this was true in the industrial world based on manufactured goods, but as we shift from services to experiences, innovation is no longer a ‘department’, but a more “robust business model and good cross-functional capabilities” throughout the company (eg Southwest), or city for that matter.  Today’s vastly increasing customer

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Taking affordability in housing to new levels

How can one afford own their own home and live in the most desirable neighborhood (ie expensive) without making anywhere near the requisite $100K/year?

Young architect Marianne Cusato is making waves with her Katrina Cottage.

Key statistics:
Size:  308 s.f.
Price:  Less than $30,000.

Granted, this is for housing in Katrina-ravaged neighborhoods, but what’s interesting is that once people experience the home ‘in person’, they found it a lot

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How do you breed innovators in your bohemia?

Well, it’ll take more than just pretty lights.  Assuming that there indeed is a bohemia in every city, there isn’t much economic benefit if there aren’t innovators creating and growing exciting new companies.  Also assuming that the neighborhood is ‘cool’, how can a city support these entrepreneurs?

Innovation Philadelphia, a 4-year old private-partnership dedicated to growing the global innovation economy of the Greater Philadelphia Region, is

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How did bohemia become a given in every town today?

Just a few decades ago if you were a bohemian, you’d have to travel to Haight Ashbury, San Francisco or Greenwich Village to feel at home.  Today, every town has its own ‘Greenwich Village’.  What happened?  That’s the underlying question that Vanderbilt professor Richard Lloyd answers in his new book, Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City.

The simple answer?  Because our evolving creative economy depends on it.  The

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Calling on cooltown-oriented developers

Each week I receive inquiries from cities that want to provide incentives to real estate developers that can attract the job-creating creative class.  At the same time, I work with investment funds that are seeking progressive real estate developers to invest in.  The question is, are there enough cooltown-oriented real estate development firms to match the opportunities?

Please contact me if you are (see email link in right column.)  The development

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BusinessWeek recognizes urban movement

The urban movement is indeed gaining momentum, yet it’s still not near where the true urban market wants it to be.  BusinessWeek just documented this in its recent article, Bringing Community to the City.  Their slide show (image above) of the coming vision is hopeful, yet still uninspiring.

The Good:
“Mixed Developments. Such town centers are truly picking up steam and will soon change the landscape of America. Nowhere is the trend more visible than

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I’ve covered live band karaoke at the workplace and dancing at an art show, so why not a rock band at a shoe store?

That’s what happened at this undisclosed* shoe store last Wednesday night to introduce a new product line.  The goal is to put on four of these events a year, and with free beer, chocolate-covered strawberries and a top notch band (Morningwood, reminded me of Garbage - the band), it’ll create quite the loyal following.  The point is, the successful retailers are no longer

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Lessons learned from a grassroots multi-merchant event

The U Street Shopper Social in MidCity, Washington DC, highlighted yesterday, has been running for a few years when such grassroots campaigns to attract new customers start to lose momentum.

Some keys to a successful promotion:

1. Shorter period of time.  The Shopper Social is only from 5-8 pm, so the crowds are more intense.  If it were any longer, the crowds would be dispersed to the point no one would feel like there’s something

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Merchants take matters into their own hands

Yesterday’s entry on how independent businesses can work together by forming strategic alliances.  However, the models presented are bureaucratic structures that can take years to establish, and even though they’re worth it, it’s not in the spirit of how an entrepreneurial independent business operates.

That’s why a group of merchants on U Street in MidCity, Washington DC formed their own ad hoc group and began a monthly tradition known as the U

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Independent businesses go interdependent to compete

How can independent businesses possibly compete with the marketing clout of the big regional malls or the national reach of big box chains?  Well, their best tactic is to build a community of commerce - a network of local businesses working together with a common purpose.  As they say, a rising tide floats all ships.

One of the most effective ways of accomplishing this is to legislate a Business Improvement District (BID) where businesses

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How to keep a successful independent venue from ‘retiring’

The tragic story no one wants to hear - your favorite, popular, neighborhood institution, the one that has the only ‘insert-unique-product/service-here’ in town and anchors the area’s history - is going out of business because the owner’s next of kin don’t want to carry it on and they can’t find anyone else.

What to do?  What to do?!

There are some city/neighborhood efforts to identify young entrepreneurs who want to continue the

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Mixed-use fast becoming the norm

It wasn’t too long ago that housing developers only built housing, retail developers only built retail, office developers only office.  Then the three began joint venturing to build them closer together, what was generally regarded as new urbanism/smart growth.

At last, real estate has evolved to where one developer not only constructs all three uses, but together in one building, and a complex of them at that.  What’s also significant is that it’s no

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Back to the future for our own health’s sake

From the late 1800s to early 1900s our public health was largely linked to our built environment.  People were dying from communicable and waterborne diseases tied to overcrowding, poor sanitation and polluted air.  As a result, cities began to feature more open spaces, advanced public works and cleaner transit options - a public health model.

In the mid to late 1900s, we shifted to what is known as the ‘medical model’ approach to public health,

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...it’s healthy for just about everyone else, and communities in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have been conducting such audits for 25 years.  The public health term for this is a health impact assessment (HIA), which measures the potential impacts of decisions on health (physical, emotional and mental), and identifies actions that can improve the results of those decisions”. 

According to Neal Kaufman, MD, MPH*, an HIA on our schools would result in:

- “Siting it where the

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Chicago developer’s lifetime investment in artist community

What did it take to revive a neglected neighborhood with historic buildings slated for demolition?  The Podmajersky’s, three generations of one family that played a primary role since 1914 in establishing what is now known as the Chicago Arts District, 12 square blocks on Chicago’s near Southwest side that has been home to over 1500 artists over the last four decades.

Artists, sculptors, ceramicists, photographers, performance

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More suburban home builders make the jump to urban

One of the greatest barriers to living downtown is that the scarcity of housing has often made it largely unaffordable.  Fortunately there are further signs that this will start to correct itself as more major home builders make the shift to cities, and not only that, but creating new urban divisions to do so.

National builder John Laing Homes established a new division, John Laing Urban, that “will focus on development of new communities

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Clipper Mill - From industrial mill to contemporary village

What to do with an abandoned mill founded in 1853 that used to employ thousands to manufacture sails for clipper ships?  Why, turns out it may provide the framework for what looks to be the most compelling, one-of-a-kind, modern new urban villages in Baltimore, MD.

Clipper Mill will feature 168 residences, 46,500 s.f. of office space, and 51,000 s.f. of creative light industry and studio space, as well as dining, grocery and

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Developing more humanistic buildings

I’m working with a number of developers that are in various stages of planning, and we’re investigating a strategy of developing buildings that are more anthropomorphic - taller than they are wide, just as is the rule for windows.  Verticality is more human-like, horizontality more machine-like (ie cars, ships, planes).

The factors in favor of smaller, vertical buildings, as far as value to the home buyer/resident:
1. People feel more like they own

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Yesterday I highlighted ‘those lucky Macromedia employees’, but they got nothing on those who work at the Affinity Lab, or should I say work and play… and rock…

The topmost images show the ‘Lab’ (as it is affectionately called) by day, with over a dozen or so entrepreneurs working on their own businesses at their own workspaces around a common ‘living room’ (with kitchen.)  ‘Lab members’ commonly collaborate on projects, and every so often they gather for birthdays, goodbyes, politically

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