What will the next generation third place look like? Architect Magazine asked five architectural firms to provide their unique answers which are presented in the article, The Next Starbucks. Clockwise from top left, there’s a definite coffee bar theme:

BARbucks by designLAB, Boston - Coffee served bartender style like at a bar for people that want a more social solo experience. This is how coffee is served in Italian espresso bars. designLAB also presents AUTObucks, the equivalent of the

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There are a slew of ‘most walkable city’ rankings, but the one by Walk Score (profiled previously) is as scientific and practical as they get.  Walk Score is a web-based service that scores the walkability of an address on a scale of 1 to 100 based on access to amenities, groceries, transportation, etc., so it wasn’t difficult for them to map out every single address and display it graphically (the more green, the more walkable, red being the least).

The Walk Score rankings:

1. San

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Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s main street, is pedestrian-only on four Saturdays from July 19th to August 9th, 2008, noon to 7 pm. Check it out at Wiliamsburg Walks. Those in the know are aware this is a NYC DOT led effort through their streets to plazas program, though heavily supported by the local businesses and residents - some quotes:

“It feels a lot more peaceful, people are spread across the sidewalk and road, vs everyone crammed onto the sidewalk.“

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Up until recently, crowdsourced placemaking only made it to the front page of this website. Sunday, July 27, 2008, was a seminal moment as it hit the front page of the fifth largest newspaper in the U.S., the Washington Post in the article Online, a Community Gathers to Concoct A Neighborhood Eatery. The story, written by food writer Jane Black, is focused on the crowdsourcing of a green, healthy, education and community-oriented restaurant in Washington DC called Elements, which has been

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How do you top Maryland’s first pedestrian-only street in several decades and its first pedestrian-only mixed-use lane? Easy, its first real piazza, which we profiled while in the planning stages here.

The $360 million, 15-acre Rockville Town Square has literally become the city’s center stage overnight, hosting concerts, movies, a farmer’s market and even a rock climbing wall. Being in the space feels right - it’s like an outdoor room, enclosed on four sides, filled with outdoor dining

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Maryland’s first pedestrian-only street in several decades, Ellsworth Drive, was profiled in the previous entry, but it’s not the only one.  In Bethesda, a town at the edge of Washington DC, Bethesda Lane opened in June 2008. If Ellsworth Drive reminds people of Downtown Disney, then Bethesda Lane conjures up Universal Studios. It features 44,000 s.f. of retail distributed through 16 shops and restaurants, mostly chains and luxury items, topped with 180 luxury apartments.

It obviously does

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Ok, so those who’ve been down Silver Spring’s Ellsworth Drive in Downtown Silver Spring feel like they’re in Downtown Disney, but the takeaway here is that this is Maryland’s first successful pedestrian-only district (on weekends) in decades.

Ellsworth is the lone pedestrian-only street in the 22-acre mixed-use Downtown Silver Spring redevelopment, including 440,000 s.f. of retail. It’s more of a suburban shopping mall with its large-scale national retailers, but it does have a triangular

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Why are large organizations so focused on maintaining their bureaucracy rather than providing what’s needed when it’s needed? That’s what Clay Shirky answers in his new book on crowdsourcing, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, and his Smart City Radio interview focuses especially on cities. Some valuable lessons:

- It’s easy to create a new bureaucracy, and very hard to dismantle it.

- The first stage of crowdsourcing is sharing ideas. The second is doing

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A popular item on many a creatives‘ wishlist is to see a car-dominated commercial street transformed into a pedestrian-only plaza brimming with outdoor diners. Some fortunate residents in NYC may not have to wait much longer.

Following a rather astounding recent track record in prioritizing pedestrians over cars, the NYC DOT (Department of Transportation) presented its latest and greatest, the NYC Plaza Program. When was the last time a Department of Transportation issued a statement like

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There are ‘green festivals’, then there’s San Francisco’s second annual Bicycle Music Festival, a one day, 15 band, 7 festival stop, free music festival that uses zero cars, trucks or even electricity. How?

- The bands all carry their equipment via bicycle trailers.
- The audience arrives via bike, skate and foot. They then travel sequentially to each of the seven festival stops in different parts of the city.
- The 600-watt P/A system is pedal-powered, developed by Rock the Bike in

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Many of us are now familiar with crowdsourcing, but the most often asked question is how it’s applied in the real world. Writer and web community creator Josh Catone explains the three categories of crowdsourcing, though I took the liberty of clarifying it further, followed by how it applies in the world of cool towns:

Creation: Developing a new product or business. Examples include Wikipedia and tools for creating new projects like Cambrian House and CrowdSpirit. This is the basis for

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If you’re wondering where creatives stay in the city known as the home of the happiest people in the world (Copenhagen, Denmark), it’d be Hotel Fox, no doubt.

In a rather bizarre venture with Volkswagen, an aging hotel was brought back to glorious life by commissioning 21 artists, illustrators, graphic designers, graffiti artists that decorated its 61 rooms in anything from Japanese Manga to neo-Baroque to Pop Art. The rooms come in T-shirt sizes (S, M, L, XL), and savvy guests choose rooms

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Manhattan is on a roll - first there’s Summer Streets where major streets are being closed to cars on August Saturdays, then talk of a bike sharing program, and now the rather mundane announcement that they’re turning two of four lanes on Broadway in Midtown into a pedestrian and bicycle zone - to be completed in mid-August 2008, permanently.

To be known as Broadway Boulevard between West 42nd and West 35th Street, the project will feature a Euro-style designated bicycle lane and a host of

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If you’re a creative in Washington DC, then CreativesDC is just for you: “A beta community of free agents, entrepreneurs and creatives in DC, crowdsourcing places, events and scenes that inspire conversation.“

CreativesDC launched July 11, 2008 and its founding dozen members have already invited 100 of their fellow creatives (assume a 10% conversion rate) - that’s the power of community focused on a vision. By the end of July 15, the invite list will hit a thousand (again, a 10% conversion

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There really is no better model than Europe for walkable neighborhoods, so it should be of special note when Europeans recognize the top urban developments of the last 25 years! The International jury of the 2008 Philippe Rotthier European Prize presents their ten winners via this A Vision of Europe website and forthcoming book.

Here are the true benchmarks of walkable urbanism (note the European flavor in the descriptions), and remember, these are recognized as the best within the last 25

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Next time you’re in London seeking local, independent businesses, or if you’re looking for inspiration supporting such destinations, make sure to peruse the Unchained Guide. The coolest part of this online directory is how you can search for businesses based on the following characterizations: Arty, Buzzy, Classic, Contemporary, Designer, Eclectic, Ethical, Ethnic, Green, Indulgent, Posh, Preppy, Quaint, Quirky, Romantic, Sophisticated, Sporty, Street, Techy, Traditional, Trendy. You’ll find

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Buying an attainably-priced green home is a no brainer for most creatives given the option, however finding one is comparable to a needle in a haystack. So, in the District of Columbia the GreenHomes DC program is launching an opportunity for prospective home buyers (and renters) to crowdsource their own affordable green place to live.

In partnership with a sponsoring developer per specific project, GreenHomes DC is a joint venture between Green DC Realty and CoolTown Beta Communities. 

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In response to a time when commuters are looking at alternatives to spending hundreds more each month in gas, Forbes presents their America’s Most Fuel-Efficient Neighborhoods list.

Owning a home in a walkable neighborhood saves residents $300 to $400 a month, according to research by the Congress for the New Urbanism, compared to exurban neighborhoods where costs top out at $1000/month. The list below, with costs ranging from $600-$800/month assumes you still have an auto-oriented commute of

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Is there a third place you’d like to see in your neighborhood? Wish there were affordable green loft residences in your city? Think it’d be cool to have a pedestrian-only district brimming with outdoor dining? In the industrial economy there was little we could do about it. However, in our current knowledge economy, that feeling of helplessness is gone - the power to realize our collective intelligence manifested via inspired built places is now.

Here are a few resources to get informed, in

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How do you breathe new life into a city waterfront? Check out San Francisco’s Ferry Building Marketplace.

Built in 1898, San Francisco’s landmark clock tower was the West Coast’s Ellis Island, but by the mid-20th century had become obsolete. After decades of mundane office use, it reopened in April 2003 as a cosmopolitan marketplace, with its Farmer’s Market attendance doubling and merchants consistently exceeding sales goals.

It’s lessons for success? The San Francisco Chronicle lays it

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You know the questions visitors ask, “Where are the city’s hot spots?“  Then there are the resident questions, “Where are the hot spots tonight?“  Ideally, one ideal ‘superpower’ would be to visit every single venue in a city simultaneously to see what’s worth checking out.  Citysense was invented for us mere mortals.

Built by Sense Networks for Blackberries and soon iPhones, the free application is based on the company’s Macrosense technology which analyzes existing data (e.g. demographics,

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Yes, it’s yet another city ranking. But considering that aesthetics matters most to U.S. citizens, it might be worth a look at BusinessWeek’s Top 10 Cities for Design in America (with a population over 500,000) conducted by RMJM Architects.

10 design-related categories include number of historic buildings, the public transit system, number of green buildings, size of the creative population/economy, architectural and design awards won, and interviews with over 1000 residents. So, the

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