What do potato chips and cool towns have in common?

Answer: You can co-design your own.

Regulars to this site are familiar with the beta community process that’s still primarily conceptual, but here’s how it’s currently being implemented by the folks at Kettle Foods:

As the story goes, in Spring 2004, Kettle execs were reminded of the vast opinions by its chips’ fans.  That Summer collected 16,000 official suggestions for what its next flavor should be, as long as it fit the criteria of

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‘America’s Best Places for Artists’

We all pretty much know that wherever the artists go, the risk-averse with the money will soon follow, gentrifying the place and thereby forcing the artists to move out to find the next ‘hot spot.‘ BusinessWeek is the latest to cover this well-known trend, in Bohemian Today, High-Rent Tomorrow.

Here’s their top ten list based on these criteria: Art establishments per 100,000 people, percentage of population age 25-34; Arts & Culture Index; Diversity

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Youngstown, Ohio a lesson in “Change or Die”

The knowledge economy moved on without Youngstown, Ohio, whose heyday was in the midst the steel industry and the industrial economy, peaking in 1962 with a population of 162,000, more than twice today’s 82,000.

Pressed with the question, “Change or die,“ Youngstown’s mayoral candidates were unconsciously choosing death for their city. When local leaders established an initiative, Youngstown 2010 to acknowledge Youngstown’s shrinking population,

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$2000 reward for living near your work

If you live in Baltimore MD, work for one of these companies and buy a home nearby, you’ll be rewarded $2000 via the Baltimore City Live Near Your Work Program.

That’s $1000 from the City, and $1000 from the employer.  The State used to contribute $1000 as well - don’t know what happened to that.  What’s in it for the City?  Less expense on public roads and transit.  What’s in it for the employer?  Happier, more productive employees who don’t waste

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They’re back! ...and people are glad to see them again, for the country had a love affair with them before the infamous streetcar funeral pyres in the early 20th century via GM’s relentless agenda to replace them with their buses.  But they’re not back for the reasons people may think - nostalgia.  No siree, for believe it or not, cities are bringing back these lovable people movers because they make economic sense, and a lot of it as well.

Read more in this USA Today article, and check out

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Based on yesterday’s entry identifying the uneven distribution of extreme entrepreneurship and job growth in a few fortunate places that take advantage of innovation that is ubiquitous and portable, how can cities become more like one of those few fortunate places?

The answer, according to the Council on Competiveness in their comprehensive report, Where America Stands:
Entrepreneurship, all of which are adopted by successful regions:

1. Creating Angel Networks. It not only starts with

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Cities are constantly trying to get companies to move to their region, but what about growing their own (aka economic gardening) and supporting you? Here’s some compelling evidence on why that’s an increasingly popular trend:

A recent Small Business Administration study found that the most entrepreneurial regions in the U.S. had:

- 125% more employment growth
- 58% more wage growth
- 109% higher productivity than the least entrepreneurial regions
- spent 54% more on R&D and had 67% more

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How to recognize independent businesses that will thrive

Don’t shoot the messenger because I can’t disagree more, but this is one chain-oriented retail consultant’s take on why real estate developers choose chains over independent businesses: small retailers are lazy, will not work evenings and weekends, do not pay their rent on time, whine all the time, blame others for their failures, offer poor service, have low sales, do not update, clean or maintain their store interiors, and thus

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Should rural universities even think about going urban?  In our customer-driven economy based on you, that question may be best answered by the students themselves, such as Cleo Szmygiel, a University of Connecticut freshman, “This would make it easier for them to attract students.”

That’s a quote from a NY Times article on how students who want a more urban vibe when going to a university ‘in the middle of nowhere’ are finally getting what they want. Just listen to these University

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Region looks to gain jobs with ‘third place work centers’

The Grand Rapids, MI area lost 27,000 jobs between 2000 and 2004, but is it looking to regain them by ‘stealing companies from other cities’ like most economic development programs prioritize?

Not so. In BusinessWeek’s Towns Chasing Workers, Not Just Jobs, Greg Northrup, president of the West Michigan Strategic Alliance states, “The old model, where you used to chase people to invest in real estate [ie office parks] might not be the

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The story behind Boulder’s open source development (2 of 2)

So how did Boulder Housing Partners (BHP) bring together seven different developers to work together on a common vision for the Holiday Neighborhood in Boulder?  Mind you, developers rarely partner with other developers, much less six others.

The key is that BHP had a very clear vision for the 27-acre former drive-in theater site, one that resulted from extensive citizen participation. The vision’s focus on people and community

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The story behind Boulder’s open source development (1 of 2)

If you’re familiar with the open-source form of business development that’s becoming the standard for the fastest growing companies, and read the entry introducing the Holiday Neighborhood’s application of such in Boulder, CO, you may be interested in the story behind it all.

Here’s a brief timeline, with a more detailed summary in the American Planning Association article, They’re Bolder in Boulder:

- 1969-1989: Drive-in theater

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Pittsburgh investing heavily in a creative identity

How important is Pittsburgh’s creative future?  $460 million worth, in what is
billed as the nation’s first master-planned,

, mixed-use neighborhood, referred to as the Cultural District Riverfront Development.

You know the times are changing when the following words are spoken by a state governor (Ed Rendell):

“Working together, we’re funding projects that will draw people back downtown to live, work and play. It’s the same

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Neighborhoods can now also receive green-certification

Buildings have long been third-party certifiable as green/sustainable via the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards administered by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), but what about neighborhoods?

Given that more than a third of greenhouse gases are generated by buildings (primarily heating and cooling them) and another third is generated transporting people and goods to and from those buildings, the

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As you know, each succeeding generation of products and services is increasingly co-designed by you, and the internet is the primary tool. However, what are the tools to use when it comes to co-designing your next home, workplace, building, block, community…?

Enter Google Sketch-Up - and yes, the downloadable program is free. Check out the demonstration video here - it’s easy to use, and certainly for pro-amateurs (people who know how to teach themselves skills via the internet).

How could

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Buyers once again preferring homes, buildings with human proportions

Walk around those popular historic districts of the 1920s - notice how most of the buildings are taller than they are wide?

They proceeded to go flat in the mid-20th century that followed, bringing a fascination with all things mechanical and mass-produced… “Mass production also led to a standard for low ceilings. The architect Le Corbusier saw houses as machines for living, with all the stripped-down functionality that

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Living room theaters - you knew it was coming

You have to admit you saw this was inevitable, it was just a matter of when.

Movie theaters provide the thrill of a large screen, a first-run movie, the buzz of a live audience and the satisfaction that you ‘went out and did something’. Home theaters now have terrific picture and sound (how many of you traveled out to watch the Superbowl on your friends’ HDTV?), with the comfort of more sophisticated food and drink during the movie.  It was too

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‘What about color?‘

What provides the greatest return on investment when developing destinations or revitalizing neighborhoods?  The answer is easy by far - color.

However, developers and cities mistakenly associate that with the word paint, and that’s simply not true. More importantly, it involves investing in the expertise of choosing the right paints - that attract your target market most effectively, in the largest numbers, with the strongest emotional connections.

The best investment

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Truly ‘triple bottom line’ urban village coming to the Bronx

One of the most concrete ways of providing sustainable/green, affordable living in NYC is to develop such a benchmark community for others to be inspired by.  That’s certainly the case with the New Housing NY Legacy Project Competition that sought triple bottom line development team to build such a place on a 40,000 s.f. site in the South Bronx.

The sustainable, affordable development competition is part of Mayor Bloomberg’s New

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