“For too long we’ve been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution.“ Wired Magazine, The Long Tail, Oct. 2004.

Sound familiar when it comes to strip malls, subdivisions and office parks, which make up a vast majority of new real estate

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Many of us enjoy that college town feel of a pedestrian-oriented urban fabric, indie hang-outs and diversity mixed with enlightened conversation. Which cities do well in this regard, which don’t, and why?

Creative class economist Richard Florida provides some answers with his colleagues in their recently published, The University and the Creative Economy.

As far as statistics and rankings, the study introduces two new ones:
Brain Drain/Gain Index (BDGI) - measuring and ranking cities by the

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Need some inspiration for inner city job growth?  Want to know what the fastest growing inner city businesses are? Inc Magazine and Initiative for a Competitive Inner City provide an annual Inner City 100 list to answer just that. Inner cities here are defined as economically-challenged core urban areas excluding central business districts, and the candidates must be independent businesses.

The top ten, which seem to serve more than just the financial bottom line:

1. Commodity Sourcing

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The map above, from a Choices Magazine article, displays U.S. counties’ competitive share for college-educated population as a percent of total population over age 25 from 1970 to 2000 - in other words, brain gain vs. brain drain.

The accompanying study concluded, not surprisingly, that major metropolitan areas enjoyed a relatively large brain gain in every region while the nonmetropolitan, nonadjacent counties suffered brain drain. New England is an exception, with rural areas gaining

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Media economy - “an economy based on media, mass communication and services over mass-produced goods, no longer based on large, centralized companies. Instead, it flourishes amid a decentralized network of small businesses and entrepreneurs and the creative, urban places that support them.“

What better way to illustrate and understand how cities can compete in the information age than to co-publish a report with someone from the millennium generation, its emerging target market. CoolTown

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Food, shelter and clothing - our three basic needs. Notice however, how food comes first, but it’s rarely even on the list when it comes to building cities that attract people, or even specifically, the creative, entrepreneurial population that spurs job growth.

This graph, from CEOs for Cities’ City Vitals: New Measures of Success for Cities (full report for members here), is just a hint of innovative insight into understanding how food can, and should, play a much larger role in economic

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The table is from “Linking the New Economy to the Livable Community”, published by Collaborative Economics, sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation.

It clearly outlines how our one-size-fits-all mass production economy is evolving toward a customer-driven mass customization model based on choice, adaptability, distinctiveness, vital centers and quality of life, and even better, how communities will begin to reflect that.  You can also see why many of the unique, ‘customized’, human-scale

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It’s a simple question, and there are thousands of case studies.  One person who’s been researching the answers is Jasmin Aber, an architect leading research on culture-led regeneration with an international group of research specialists at the Institute of Urban Design & Regional Development at UC-Berkeley.

Why do cities shrink and grow?
Globalization.  Technological progress.  Educational progress. Aber states in a Smart City Radio interview, “At no other time in the history of capitalist

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It’s like jumping into a hot spring in the winter - not something you experience everyday, but when you do, how incredibly invigorating.

If it wants to grow economically, culturally and intelligently, some of its residents should at least know what it feels like.  Innovation overload is defined by the folks at Trendwatching as the “clever entrepreneurs, inventors, and marketers from all over who are coming up with so many innovative ideas, that even innovation blogs have a hard time keeping

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Rarely are they mentioned in the same sentence, but it’s when smart growth is strategically integrated with economic development do cities see effective results.

The International Economic Development Council took the smart growth bull by the horns and produced a landmark report: Economic and Development and Smart Growth: 8 Case Studies on the Connections Between Smart Growth Development and Jobs, Wealth, and Quality of Life in Communities.

Here are the eight case studies, not all of which

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