What are the real, personal financial benefits of going car-free?The friendly folks at the U.S. Dept. of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) have provided a collective body of research, Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse (RBC), the goal being to help build more affordable, pedestrian-oriented residences, especially in preparation for what they’ve been instructed will be an innovation-minded administration. The following statistical summaries are found within:

- Minimum parking requirements,

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So, what does a creative economy strategic report for a city look like? One example is Creative New York, now a few years old (December 2005), published by the Center for an Urban Future, a public policy organization focused on the well being of New York City’s low-income and working class.  Being that this is an implementation-oriented site, let’s cut right to their recommendations on what NYC should do to grow its creative sector.

Create a centralized coordinating body modeled after

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If you’re looking for a model of a government agency that’s looking out for creatives, your first stop should be New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT), as has been stated several times on this site. Behind every progressive organization there’s a leader, and that’s DOT Commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, who not surprisingly commutes to work by bike. Kudos to Streetfilms for providing this interview that every transportation decision-maker or advocate should watch.

There’s no

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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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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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Austin looks to keep their ‘Live Music Capital of the World’ reputation

How important is live music to the city of Austin? How many cities do you know of that have a Live Music Task Force? Not only that, the city-funded group won’t consist of the usual suspect government bureaucrats, but local musicians, music venue owners and regular music-loving Austin residents - all deciding how to spend the government’s money to keep Austin’s Live Music Capital of the World reputation thriving.

The

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State of Vermont gets in on creative cities

How serious is the commitment to building more vibrant cities? This whole creative city thing isn’t confined to just cities - entire states are taking such a proactive approach to modernizing their economies, from Michigan’s Cool Cities Initiative to now, Vermont’s Creative Communities Program (CCP):

“Communities apply to participate in the Creative Communities Program. Successful applicants receive technical assistance in the form of a community

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Cities making efforts to promote people over cars

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

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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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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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Cities prosper with open-source approach to development

Continuing yesterday’s entry, what happens when a city takes a more open-source approach to real estate development?

New Urban News features two such stories in one article, More developers, better results: A lesson in orchestration.

In each example, the city established an RFP competition for multiple sites, selecting multiple developers.  The primary reason?  Diversity and variety, which speaks to authenticity, which is paramount

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SF increasingly pro indie, NYC becoming pro chain?

According to the NY Times, the word on the street is that New Yorkers are worried that “it’s getting boring around here.” “The chain proliferation and the sameness they have brought to so many blocks has become a pet peeve for many New Yorkers, and the butt of jokes for others. On a recent episode of the NBC comedy “30 Rock,” a character sent to pick up a prescription was stymied by the presence of “Rite Drugs” outlets on all

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Small town of Renton smartly evolving from industrial to knowledge economy

The city of Renton, just south of Seattle, has long been synonymous with Boeing.  However, visit their website today and there’s not only no mention of the airline giant on their home page, but missing from their economic development and vision, mission, and business plan pages as well.  There’s just a picture of a jet on the business home page, but no mention of Boeing when listing the city’s assets.

Why? The City

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‘The Long Tail’ city - ‘Netflixing’ it into profitability (4 of 4)

As explained in the three previous entries, especially with this graph, The Long Tail represents the present and future of profitability in the internet age. But what about cities? Are they once again left out of the fun?

Cities are rarely mentioned as Long Tail examples, unlike Netflix, but they actually have the most potential to reap significant economic benefits via quality of life and job growth from this business

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How can a City establish a ‘beta community’ to attract the creative class?

A City can plan itself to death if it doesn’t attract real and significant private sector investment dollars resulting in compelling, vibrant buildings and places on behalf of it, not to mention the events, creative class and jobs that follow. I know for a fact that a lot of cities are going through this.

Based on the previous two entries on our evolution to a customer-led economy, the answer lies with the City’s

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The ‘projects’ - 2006

You’ve heard of stories of people who ‘escaped the projects’, but clamoring to get in them?  First a little history:  When suburbia was taking off post-WWII, the federal government’s urban renewal program built hundreds of public housing projects in the city that were so universally ill-designed (and probably purposely so) that they became known as the projects, synonymous with crime, vandalism and drugs.

It’s a good thing people evolve, because the project pictured

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Prolific downtown - Pasadena is thy name

Look at all those downtown development projects - who needs a study to prove people are moving downtown?

There’s something in the water in Pasadena.  They have one of the most successful new pedestrian malls in the country.  They have one of the most progressive new urban villages in the country.  85% of all building permits are going downtown, totaling 2500 new homes.  So I guess when the City’s Central District Specific Plan won a coveted annual

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Why great neighborhoods lose their character

You’ve all heard the story over and over again - creatives move into an undesirable neighborhood, it becomes cool, then they’re priced out of it as it becomes gentrified (before the chains move in.)

How does this happen?  Let’s take business owner Linda Welch, who owns Dogs By Day in MidCity, Washington DC.  Last year she paid $9000/year in property taxes.  In the meantime, she’s volunteering 30/hours a week to revitalize MidCity as a diverse,

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‘Free money’ for CoolTown projects

Say you want to develop a $10 million

Town development - transforming a number of historic buildings into contemporary loft offices, residences and indie (independent) businesses.  Say you have only $6 million.

It can be done without giving up any equity.  The federal government already has two programs in place to provide that other $4 million, and they are:

Historic Tax Credits:  Provides up to 20% of the rehabilitation costs (essentially all the

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The dawning of public-private partnerships in innovative development

Let’s face it - creative urban development is costly, much more so than in suburbia, for reasons previously explained.  Land and parking provisions are simply too expensive for the private and public sectors to handle alone - which is why public/private partnerships (PPPs) accounted for $75 billion in real estate last year - ‘creative alliances’ if you will; meeting both financial and social bottom lines.  There are ways to

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West Palm Beach’s second encore

As presented yesterday, first came the renaissance of the downtown, then CityPlace, now West Palm Beach’s first transit-oriented development (TOD).  The buildings in the bottom right of the image make up CityPlace - notice the pie-shaped ‘square’ that is the epi-center of free entertainment in the area.

With three times more housing than CityPlace (2000 residences vs 600), a million s.f. of office (CityPlace has none) and 100,000 s.f. of retail (a third

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Success spreading in West Palm Beach

In 2000, downtown West Palm Beach had no more than 2000 residents with only 20% of its main street occupied.  Today the main street is at 90% and the downtown population is on track for 10,000 in a few years.

“I’ll have what they’re having.“

Leadership, vision, and more leadership.  It starts with one forward-thinking mayor, Nancy Graham (pictured), initiating a form-based planning code that guides what the urban fabric will look like (i.e. think San

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‘The projects’ - 2005

Everyone knows what ‘the projects’ are - ugly, federal-government-financed, high-rise stand-alone buildings surrounded by parking lots in neglected regions of the city, or low-rise concentration-camp-looking complexes.  No defined public or private spaces, just leftover space in between the structures.

Thank goodness for evolution.  This is an image of Bradenton Village, a $70 million ‘garden urban village’ replacing failed federal government projects (the origin of

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