Rule #1. It has little to do with intentionally creating a music scene, especially genre-oriented. Musicians are fiercely independent - they’ll go where they’re personally inspired, not where city bureaucrats are trying to engineer it. Besides, once they’re successful they no doubt enjoy being big fish in little ponds (ie REM in Athens, GA) rather than vice versa, so don’t expect them to move to the equivalent of a Hollywood for musicians. There really isn’t any, and they’re on tour half the

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If you’re trying to convince city and business leaders in your city to plan a more creative, people-oriented destination for current and future generations, it sure wouldn’t hurt to have them watch Contested Streets, a new film produced by Transportation Alternatives.

You can watch a few minutes of the 57-minute production here on YouTube, and I must say that the one second of footage at the 2:54 mark is almost surreal - why can’t more cities have scenes like that.  It should be no surprise

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The current financial model for real estate investment is pretty depressing for the creative-minded, where an overwhelming majority of real estate investment capital is reserved for object-oriented buildings at least a block in scale (ie office parks, strip malls, towers, subdivisions…)

However, just as YouTube is slowly redefining television and wikipedia has rendered encyclopedias obsolete via crowdsourcing, just wait until $ are applied to this customer-driven phenomenon then used in real

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...live in Copenhagen, Denmark, say the polls. Continuing our series of looking at European cities as resources for cool, here are more things about this Danish city you may not be aware of:

- As stated previously, 62.5% of its employees are in knowledge-based jobs, the highest in Europe.
- 32.5% of its residents have an academic degree, more than 80% speak English (and speak it well!).
- It is known as Europe’s leading biotech and medical research location, with a new Biotech Research

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Succeeding generations really do want more pedestrian-oriented downtowns, and cities are starting to recognize that, such as London with its auto congestion pricing.

In 2003, Mayor Ken Livingstone enacted a congestion charge of $10 per day for auto usage within the central city. Congestion is down 25%, and so is air pollution. After an initial drop of 7% in retail sales, it has since not affected the city’s economy, and its popularity has increased to the point of allowing it to be raised to

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Where?!!! That’s probably a fairly common reaction. Located south of Finland and bordering west of Russia, this fast-growing city of 400,000 enjoy life on the fast lane as far as the internet goes, but it’s key to success is being able to maintain life its enviable slow city, slow food culture.

Summarizing Tallinn’s profile in Spiegel as part of its Coolest Cities story:

The internet is essentially free throughout what is known as the most-wired country in Eastern Europe, with the government

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First of all, authentic trendiness is practically an oxymoron, which is why you probably never heard the term. While authentic refers to being true to one self, trendy tends to follow what others think is hot. However, one pop-up retail store in Manhattan (surprise) actually intertwines the two quite effectively - at the 350 s.f. Grand Opening.

Since trendy stores by nature go out of fashion sooner or later, Grand Opening has taken it upon itself to take that trendiness in a truly authentic

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In continuing our previous story on the authentic value of microbreweries, thanks to the producers of the documentary, America Beer, here’s a list of 38 of the U.S.‘s top microbreweries that they visited in 40 days, followed by their abridged notes on what made each of them unique:

1. Brooklyn Brewery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY - Black Chocolate Stout
2. McNeill’s Brewery, Brattleboro, VT - In a former firehouse and police station
3. Long Trail Brewing Co., Bridgewater Corners, VT - Visitor

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You can’t really have a true third place for the creative class without serving beer, and it’s not authentic unless it’s brewed right on the spot. So here’s to the full-flavored beers of the microbreweries that have thrived “in the face of the fizzy yellow stuff” that have dominated the mainstream and every national supermarket.

Things looked bleak by the end of the 1970s for local craft brewers, when corporate consolidation left the U.S. with less than 50 breweries. Even now, only three

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