Free wi-fi for all of San Francisco, courtesy of…

...Google.

That’s the offer Google is providing the City of San Francisco, details here.  They haven’t stated whether they would use consumer advertising to pay for the extensive network, but they would charge companies that wanted to offer internet services through it.  Most important is that this removes the controversy of private sector companies accusing municipalities of unfair competition when they get involved in providing a digital

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The downtown WiFi… controversy?

Continuing yesterday’s Small towns that ‘get’ it...

Any city that wants to attract the creative class, knowledge workers, young professionals and enterpreneurs needs to support a free WiFi downtown.  Period.  The aforementioned group views a WiFi network as the previous generation does for a highway network - comprehensive and free... and guess what, it’s a helluva lot cheaper.  The City of Alexandria, VA is the latest city to sponsor free WiFi downtown, and

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Have WiFi, will prosper

To the next generation, a downtown just isn’t complete without free WiFi, as highlighted yesterday.  So where are these cities?

Intel has put together a nice list - here’s their Most Unwired Cities.

1. Seattle Metro, WA (pictured)
2. San Francisco Bay Area, CA
3. Austin Metro, TX
4. Portland, OR
5. Toledo, OH
6. Atlanta, GA
7. Denver, CO
8. Raleigh-Durham Metro, NC
9. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
10. Orange County, CA
11. San Diego, CA
12. Chicago, IL
13. Boston, MA

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Truly innovative CoolTown developers

When’s the last time you came across a real estate developer with these principles, in this priority:

1. Progressive, livable communities
2. Comfortable, engaging, healthy homes and workplaces
3. The lowest total monthly costs to own on the market
4. High quality for the price and low maintenance
5. A commitment to the environment we all live in
6. Renewable energy-powered whenever possible

These are word-word from Solar Village, as CoolTown-oriented a

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The impact of automated parking garages?

Based on the previous blog, Modern Parking 101, the urban parking garage as we know it will eventually be gone - thankfully.  How will this affect cities as a whole, and ultimately your quality of life?

- At the image shows, now that you have three times more space for people than cars, that’s a lot more space to build cool lofts, workplaces and retail venues, and a greater supply means more reasonable prices.  It’s also an opportunity to build

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Modern parking garages 101

Say goodbye to parking garages, and hello to valet parking systems.

Requiring only as little as a third of the space that regular parking garages horde, automated parking systems such as Robotic Parking Systems and
SpaceSaver Parking Systems are letting urbanites have their cake and eat it too.

The system automatically delivers your car right at the front of the building, like the moving rack at the dry cleaners does for your business attire.  You can call ahead

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Wi-Fi helping create a sense of place?

With wireless internet, traditionalists feared that ‘place’ wouldn’t matter anymore.  Indeed, it’s never mattered more.  Here are some of the ways, as highlighted in Salon’s Urban renewal, the wireless way.

- All that digital communication is inevitably going to lead to face-face communication.  Since digital dialogue encourages multiple participants simultaneously (depending on how cool you are), nothing provides a better physical meeting spot than

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What’s to do tonight?  Have your favorite venues tell you

Sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming (or underwhelming) trying to figure out what to do for entertainment on any given evening, like that guy on the right in the photo.  The Cloud in Athens, GA is making that a little easier.

First of all, it’s a 24-block wireless internet zone in the downtown, so one can easily look up the local entertainment scene online.  However, most of us aren’t carrying our laptops wherever we’re going.  Which

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Prepping a CoolTown for technology - think gazelles

A CoolTown needs a world class invisible technology system to feed the voracious entrepreneurial appetite of its population.  That essentially means ultra-high-speed wireless internet - everywhere.

Currently, municipalities are a little behind the wave, focused too much on providing the infrastructure rather than what to do with it.  For instance, there are many policies promoting the construction of cell phone networks, wifi hot spots and

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Applying IM principles to a CoolTown

Based on what makes IM so popular for next gen-ers (blogged yesterday), here’s how that can apply to CoolTowns:

Next gen-ers are infinitely comfortable using the internet.  CoolTowns will not only have high-speed internet everywhere, it’ll be wireless everywhere.

Next gen-ers are very used to a bottom-up structure.  CoolTowns will be designed bottom-up, with the future residents shaping the town vision before it’s built.  Governance will be bottom-up as

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Understanding the market: IM-ing is hot

In thinking of what is insanely popular by the next gen* crowd, IM (instant messaging) popped into my head (just like an IM itself.)  Here’s a service that truly caters to the next gen market, and notice how applicable it is to CoolTowns:

Next gen-ers are infinitely comfortable using the internet.  Why?  They’ve had a lot of practice using it all through their high school and college life.  Period.  There’s really not much more to it than that.

Next

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So what does it take to build a place where people quickly realize that vibrant pedestrian life is more appealing and healthier than streets filled with moving vehicles, or a sterile parking lot?

1a. You need a progressive government that’s willing to enable legislation to eliminate minimum parking requirements.  If the people don’t want all that parking, the government shouldn’t require themselves to spend money to supply it.

1b. You also need,

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Yesterday’s blog diagrammed the concept of hiding cars on a neighborhood scale.  Today we show you a real such neighborhood.

Uptown District is a relatively new urban village in San Diego that creates a pedestrian-oriented destination and economic model for success, aided by its progressive parking layout.

1. The parking in the retail area of Uptown (right of photo) is located mid-block - that is, all the parking is behind buildings.  The only building facing

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Hiding a lot more than 17 cars

Yesterday’s blog demonstrated how to hide 17 cars.  But what about 500 cars?

Town planners Dover Kohl illustrate how to do this, which is a textbook method of parking in the New Urbanism movement:

1. Parking is placed behind all the buildings, forming a parking core in the middle of the blocks.  Thus, pedestrians only see people-filled streetscapes and streetfronts (ideally a paseo with no cars at all), not a parking lot/garage.

2. The entire site is built

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Find the parking for 24 tenants

Can you find the parking for the 24 tenants who live here?  Hint: It’s not behind, to the side or in front of the building.

1. First of all, not everyone who bought a home here at the Shattuck Avenue Lofts needed, or wanted a parking space.  The first downtown housing in Berkeley in fifty years, only 17 parking spaces needed to be provided.

2. Secondly, the 17 parking spaces take up the same space as 9 parking spaces, as illustrated in yesterday’s

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Making cars disappear

In business terms, cars are a pure expense.  They’re also expensive for a city: The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune published an article on Sept. 7 stating that only 24% of its roads are paid for by the people who directly use them.  Cars also take up a lot of space while often adding negative value to the area they’re parked in.

Now, while the coolest (and as a result the most desirable, and thus most expensive) towns are walkable to the point of not needing a car

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Investing in a town with invisible technology

Fiber optics: There are currently about a hundred communities (older listing) that are implementing a comprehensive fiber optic infrastructure.  What’s imperative to know is that the cost difference is negligible between providing a fiber vs. a copper network in new communities, yet the profit potential is tremendous.  In other words, establishing a fiber optic network in a new community is kind of a no-brainer.

Wireless: Wireless goes

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Free wireless internet for all - on Newbury Street

There’s already a well-established market for going wireless (making technology invisible) at home and at the workplace, but even at your local bakery?

If you frequent Newbury Street in Boston, chances are you’re pretty productive as well, as many of its cafes and shops provide free wireless internet access.  Thanks to the work of the Newbury Open Network, there’s a national trend afoot to provide wireless internet access at every public

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CoolTowns start with fiber optics, not freeways

In the industrial age, the basic infrastructure is a road network with cars.  In the experience age (aka the CoolTown era), it’s a fiber optic network with people.  The good news is the fiber is invisible, the people aren’t.

Case Western Reserve University’s fiber optic network is setting the bar with gigabit/second access, 1000 times faster than a typical home connection.  What does this mean?  Major job creation for economically-disadvantaged

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Broadband = quality of life, jobs

Understanding that people will be more apt to use technology they don’t see, a town-wide broadband infrastructure may do wonders for the local economy and quality of life.

Quality of life:  For urban dwellers, a fast network means one less reason to have a car, probably our least invisible technology.  It essentially means you can work at home, or at your local third place w/ free wireless broadband.  This magazine focuses on achieving this quality of

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CoolTown’s invisible technology

CoolTowns are most definitely state of the art, and that means incorporating the latest, most useful technologies.  However, the more invisible the technology, the less afraid people will be to use them.

CoolTowns are first and foremost about building community and enabling face-face interaction.  That mindset just doesn’t seem as sincere when your friend across the table is talking through his cell phone headset while adding entries to his PDA, as both of you

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A 56K modem just doesn’t cut it anymore

While writing this column from my home town in Hilo, Hawaii is refreshing, the lack of broadband isn’t - it sometimes takes a few minutes just to download a single web page.  DSL isn’t even available.  Which leads me to fiber optics…

If being stuck with a 56K modem has already made me miss publishing a daily story, how many opportunities is a small town with a struggling economy missing each day?  Then again, how much is a big city missing by not

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HP’s CoolTown

Check out HP’s ‘cooltown rocks’ video, which coincidentally has a similar vision - albeit from a very, very technology-oriented point of view.

Technology is merely a tool toward a higher level of human interaction - and that’s what a CoolTown is all about.  In fact, the technology in a CoolTown is only as successful as how invisible it is.

In the vignette below, a tribute to a music teacher is broadcast live to her former students at home, on the go, and even allows a guest

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