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

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Investing in ‘people places’ over parking

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

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A people village in San Diego

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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