Here’s the bad news - you can no longer afford to live in Manhattan, NY, unless $2000/mo. for a one-bedroom is normal rent for you.

Here’s the good news - you probably don’t want to live in Manhattan anyway - its surrounding boroughs of Brooklyn, Williamsburg and Greenpoint are where it’s at.

What’s the deal?  Well, Manhattan has 7 million jobs and 1.5 million residents - a ratio any city economic development official would die for.  Unfortunately, that also means there are statistically

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Downtowns continue to grow. Young professionals and small families are rediscovering the richness of activities and culture in downtowns, such as in Tampa where there are 1000 downtown residential units underway. The City of Anaheim is looking to transform 807 acres of warehouses and parking lots around Angel Stadium into an urban village of 9000 homes (see image).

Interiors become a priority for self-expression. Older working professionals and retirees with discretionary income want

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It’s tough to have a sense of community without third places, as this inspiring article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette attests to, ‘Third places’ are No. 1 in the hearts of patrons.

Here are links to the mentioned third places, followed by what matters most - the opinions of its patrons.

Monterey Pub (top image)
Affogato (middle image)
Coffee Tree (lower image)
La Prima

Article quotes from the patrons:
“It fills a social void.“
“I get all my information here.“
“After 15 days on the road, no

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There’s been a heated discussion lately in at the urbanism watering hole, and that’s, “Is there a difference between a main street and a shopping street?  The answer is yes and no.

Yes, there’s a difference: Main streets are typically known to serve a neighborhood.  Shopping streets, which include outdoor malls, cater to an entire region.  Main streets have neighborhood-oriented venues like a coffeeshop, hair stylist, deli, pub, etc., many of which are independent businesses, while shopping

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Just remember - ‘big and alive with five by five’.  We’ll get back to that shortly.

You ever notice that the most expensive homes are simply the ones on streets with the biggest trees?  Or that the trees on most streets rarely seem to grow, and when they do, they eventually fall over in a major storm?  You would too if someone tied your ankles together.

Here’s two things that don’t add up:

1. A trees roots naturally extend as far apart as its canopy.
2. Tree roots cannot grow under

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The world’s most creative people put together what has become the world’s best operating system (Linux) for many.  The same concept lies behind our approach of catalyzing a beta community for building next generation places that can perhaps exceed expectations. Maybe we can apply this energy to writing a book.

Just as you have several dozen ideas of what your very own ideal community would be, but don’t have the means to develop one, here’s an opportunity to let the world know what they are. 

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The name says it all for this destination in Munich, Germany: CityQuartier F�nf H�fe, Town Center of Five Courtyards - a portal for year-round social interaction, concerts (pictured) and relaxing, rain or shine, summer or winter.

Right in the historic center of the city, this is Germany’s version of a downtown shopping mall, though with some radical differences from those found in the U.S.  In addition to the 168,000 retail s.f. of shopping (unfortunately most of which are high-end

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In a recent large-scale study* of 16 pairs of neighborhoods, one that has a typical main street and a mix of apartments and houses has a proportion of people with BMI (body mass index) over 25 (considered a healthy level) at 35% of the population, but in areas of single-family homes with ‘poorly connected streets and a shopping center on its edge with a big parking lot’, BMI over 25 matched the national average of 60%.�

Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm has made health and fitness a

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If your city needs job growth, it needs fast-growing businesses.  From 1997 to 2004, women-owned businesses grew twice as fast as all businesses in the U.S.  One in 18 women is a business owner, producing $2.5 trillion in annual sales, employing 20 million people.  What can your city do to attract the most successful of these women?  When Fast Company magazine profiled the top 25 female business builders, they may have helped answer that question.  Here’s where they live:

Alexandria MN;

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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 the term ‘the projects’.) 

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