Trending 2008 into cool towns

Where is the market headed for 2008? While those who read this website often aren’t tracking such knowledge since they’re the trendsetters, a valued resource in discovering what trends they’re setting is through Trendwatching and their report, 8 important consumer trends for 2008. Here’s a look at each one and how they apply to cool towns:

1. Status Spheres - “a variety of lifestyles, activities and persuasions, which can be mixed and matched by consumers

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If you’re looking for color inspiration when it comes to home interior design, it’ll be tough to find a better source than the annual Apartment Therapy Fall Colors 2007 contest.  Apartment Therapy itself is one of the best daily resources for apartment design.

This year’s winner hails from a couple in Chinatown, Los Angeles. See a full range of rather stellar photos here. From the home owners, “We have never seen white as the starting point to develop a color scheme…in our apartment, which is

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When you can’t get enough outdoor dining

Especially for cities with great weather all year round, restaurants often find themselves with fully occupied seating areas outside, and empty tables inside. So, like the open air cinemas of Athens, some restaurants have adapted by turning their interior spaces toward the outdoors.

Notice that much of the interior ground floor of this restaurant in Buenos Aires has a patio feeling, while the equivalent amount on the second floor is open to the sky.

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The neighborhood center for creatives in ‘BAires’

With the rise of creatives and design in ‘BAires’ (the edgy name for Buenos Aires), especially in the neighborhood of Palermo, as described in the previous post, it would seem fitting that good design would inspire a central, identifiable gathering place to inspire creative discussion. That would be Serrano Square (pictured).

Surrounding the rather intimate square are no less than twenty restaurants, bars and clubs, all with outdoor

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The rise of design in Buenos Aires

Here’s one way to transform an industrial city like Buenos Aires, Argentina into a mecca for design and creativity, though this is definitely doing it the hard way…

Take one economic crash in 2001 where the peso’s (Argentian’s dollar) is devalued from 1:1 with every U.S. dollar to 1:3 with every U.S. dollar. Suddenly companies had to shed workforces in order to stay in business, forcing people out of secure jobs and without a means of finding new ones

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Monocle Magazine’s international cool cities guide

Shouldn’t there be a multimedia magazine by now that captures cool culture, business and design from around the world? As of earlier this year, there is now a contender to take on that role, Monacle Magazine. They’ve teamed up with the International Herald Tribune to provide an for compelling, creative places to check out.

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The outdoor cinemas of Greece

What happens when you combine great weather with a return to inner cities, you get the rising popularity of the open air cinema (therina) in Athens, Greece, where a hundred of them now thrive.

Another reason for the return of the outdoor theaters (there used to be thousands in Greece) is that digital technology is allowing just about any film to be shown, anytime, anywhere. Thus, even cold weather cities are taking advantage, like “Living Room Theaters in

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If you’re visiting Munich and drink beer, you probably already know about the Hofbrauhaus (brew court house) downtown.

Wilhelm V., Duke of Bavaria, was dissatisfied with the beer brewed in Munich, so in 1589 he established his own brewery, the Hofbrauhaus (brew court house) to serve only his royal court (talk about an elitist brewery). It wasn’t until 1828 that it became open to the public.

The main attraction of the Hofbrauhaus is multifold, and a great lesson for microbreweries.  Of course

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Pictur- esque infill

Every once in a while it’s important to show a bit of beauty in an urban infill development, even though it might not be attainably priced. The ultimate goal of course, is to combine beauty with attainability.

One of the development partners, the I’on Group, specializes in building beautiful homes. The other development partner, Civic Square, builds beautiful public spaces into their projects, “that contribute to the ideal of a more successful public realm, whether in

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The Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year is ‘locavore’

Locavore - local resident who tries to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius.

At first blush, the reaction may be ‘who cares’? But if attracting job-producing progressive, creative, entrepreneurial people to your city is important it may be worth noting…

- Fewer companies have created more jobs in a shorter period of time than Google. So what do they name their 4000-employee cafeteria? 150, representing that its

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Crowdfunding is what happens when $ are applied to crowdsourcing, such as when fans raise money to record the first CD for an unknown band. It’s a matter of time before people are allowed to formally crowdsource either the buildings they live in, or buildings in their neighborhood they believe in.

One major step in that direction is Crowdfunder, started by a pair of Boulder, Colorado entrepreneurs who formed the company simply based on what they felt was one of the biggest needs in the

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I don’t know what it is, but this seems to be the year of the bicycle…

Based on criteria (see below, which are very U.S. oriented, thus skewing the rankings significantly) provided by the League of American Bicyclists, Virgin Vacations presents the 11 most bike friendly cities in the world:

1. Amsterdam, Netherlands - You have to check out the video on the site - amazing, though it may help to ignore the rather nerdy-sounding narrative. 40% of all trips are by bikes, and there are more

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How can you tell a city really cares about bicyclists? By spending the money to design and install the world’s first and presently only bike lift to encourage biking to popular, but difficult to reach places. In this case, it’s a steep hill between the city’s main university and its downtown.

Built in 1993, the ‘Trampe’ (bike lift) has been averaging 46 uses/day since. Cities today can build one for $450-$550 foot, or as the company website says, “the same building costs as an ordinary

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A model within a model of sustainability

Sweden’s Bo01 development, aka City of Tomorrow, is designed to be a model urban village of sustainability for 1000 residents.** The 27-unit Tango (pictured) was designed to set a standard for the rest of the development.

The centerpiece of Tango is a courtyard (see oval) surrounded by a series of transparent buildings. At night, the buildings resemble a collection of colorful internally lit lanterns, providing a warm, inviting atmosphere and a

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Self expression at its residential best

In the industrial age people had a choice of either a mass-produced suburban home or a mass-produced apartment. In the knowledge age where

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The stackable city car - revisited

Almost two years ago we profiled the wildly innovative, stackable, electric City Car, designed via the MIT Smart Cities program.

Think of it as a cross between car sharing and bike sharing, where you have the access to a dual-passenger car, but parked in a space not much larger than a bicycle.

It was pretty difficult for people to understand the concept based on images, so the folks at MIT finally produced a video to show how it works.

Considering most

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Don’t have a coworking site? Adopt a cafe

CooperBricolage (CooBric) is a coworking site company without a coworking site. They’re working on finding one, they say, but in the meantime they’re in the same dilemma as a lot of other entrepreneurs, free agents and home-workers who want a shared workplace to share ideas and conversation, but don’t have a common place to meet.

So CooBric found a cafe to serve as their interim coworking site, at Gramstand in Manhattan. Of course, it has to meet

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Ani DiFranco and her church-turned-concert hall

Recording artist Ani DiFranco wanted to energize the downtown of her hometown of Buffalo with some creative spirit. So she did what any other person would have done - transforming a doomed 19th century church into a 21st century destination that houses a concert hall (pictured), a record studio, an art gallery and bar/lounge.

The city slated the 1871-built church for demolition in 1995, and within a year DiFranco and her record company

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Who are the creatives?

Many of you in the know have heard about the Creative Class, the Cultural Creatives, and now, the Renaissance Generation. What is the difference between these groups, and if there is, how are they interrelated and what do they have to do with cool towns?

Cultural Creatives - 50 million in the U.S., aka the New Progressives, introduced by author Paul Ray in his book, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World. These are the people who care,

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It is happening in our cities now, and it rivals the Renaissance of the 1300s, according to author Patricia Martin in her new book, Rengen: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer - and What It Means to Your Business.

Who are the Rengens? Patricia says it’s more of a mindset than a specific demographic - “a thirty year swath of individuals who are living comtemporaneously”, fueled by a large group of boomers and a very large group of 16-28 year olds.

Why is there a renaissance happening now? At

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