If you were looking to travel the world to discover and learn from the coolest places, venues and daily cultural events, Travel + Leisure’s compilation of the World’s Best Cities is a good place to start.  See the rankings below, and you can check out the overall top 10, each city’s score, and full profiles here.  Please add your comments below, especially on the happening hot spots in each city.

Asia:
1. Bangkok, Thailand (pictured) - The cool/hip/chic capital of Asia?
2. Chiang Mai,

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Why is it so important to know what a paseo is?  One key reason is that it’s tough creating a kind of place if people don’t even know what to call it… you know, those streets with no cars that only pedestrians are strolling along, lined with casual diners at outdoor cafes, bustling waiters, and an ever-changing diversity of sights, scents and sounds.  That’s what a paseo is.

At dictionary.com, a paseo is defined as:
1. a slow, idle, or leisurely walk or stroll.
2. a public place or path

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...IF they continue to support more developments like Poinsettia Commons, a $55 million mixed-use, transit-oriented urban-style community that was unanimously approved by the Carlsbad City Council.  For a perspective of Carlsbad’s current creative class status, check out the comments to this entry.

Located right next to a train station leading directly to downtown San Diego, this innovative vision by forward-thinking developer Urban West Strategies is a model for mixed-use development and

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Big is out.  Small with style is in, and understandably so given the increase in home prices.  Then again, prices have increased the last few decades because homes are now more than three times the size per occupant.  Seems like practicality ultimately comes through in the end.

From a Reuters article, here are some telling quotes by housing experts and home buyers:

“Ten years back, most people wanted more space - now they want more features.“ Gopal Ahluwalia, vice president of research at

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While not exactly fitting in height-wise with the surrounding buildings, developer Scott Kimball’s The Aspen, a $20 million proposed urban mixed-use development in Boise, Idaho has a number of significant innovative, progressive features, including:

- The building site is only 32 feet deep.  Shows how much you can build in the tightest spaces.
- Home buyers have the ability to purchase 600 s.f. modules ($180,000) to build 600 to 2400 s.f. (or more) lofts, in the building locations they choose

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That’s the question answered by the Urban Land Institute, and the answer is that at least for the newly built town-center-style shopping centers, they’re trying.

All five examples provided in the report are unaffordable for most as far as residences and offices are concerned, and largely consisting of chains, but what’s noteworthy is that the developers are providing public spaces for everyone that have the potential for being third places.

In addition to thousands of square feet of window

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Most of the 22,000 residents of Hudson, OH (30 minutes from Cleveland) were no longer shopping downtown, but going elsewhere - a familiar story.  Not so common however, is the level of vision and investment to reverse that trend.

The City and Hudson Village Development; a development company formed by Tom Murdough, a 31-year old entrepreneur who wanted better for his town, formed a public-private partnership to expand its historic 200-year-old downtown and village green.  They sought

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How does the planning of neighborhoods and cities affect your health?  Thanks to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), that’s answered in the first report that comprehensively summarizes the impact of the built environment on public health, and how changes can be implemented.

The study, the LEED-ND Report on Public Health & the Built Environment, measure five areas of health:

- Respiratory and

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Of the accepted applicants to the University of Connecticut each year, about two-thirds decide to go elsewhere. The #1 reason, based on annual surveys?  Lack of a college town.

So, the Town of Mansfield CT, the University, and a visionary real estate developer, Leyland Alliance, partnered to establish the Mansfield Downtown Partnership to build… a college town center.  And a pretty cool one at that.

Next year, the $165 million Storrs Center will commence, with 200,000 s.f. of retail and

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The last two entries covered crowdsourcing 101.  Are you ready for crowdsourcing 201?  This is for when you’re ready to invest $ collectively as a future community of tenants to develop a common product, such as that affordable, green-built, downtown loft building with roof deck and indie ground-floor coffeehouse and restaurant - or even better, a whole block of them (pictured).

The term used to describe this team development methodology is angelic crowdsourcing* (combining angel investing

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Based on this chart spanning the last 15 years, the increasing % of Americans who now consider driving a chore is equivalent to 20 million more people, in addition to the 40 million who already find it a chore, on top of the 90 million who don’t/can’t even drive.  Since crowdsourcing was defined in yesterday’s entry, here’s a way to apply the means (crowdsourcing) to the end (driving less/walking more).

First, crowdsourcing is an excellent tool to communicate a vision.  For instance, have you

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This website mentions customer-driven and mass customization as key to economic growth and quality of life, essentially a trend towards authenticity and uniqueness.  The most relevant of this movement however, is crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing - “a business model akin to outsourcing. The difference is that instead of professional vendors, crowdsourcing relies upon mass volunteer participation and self-organization to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R&D”

Thus, crowdsourcing is

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While towns and cities are putting up official signs (see yesterday’s entry) to declare their inclusiveness of different people and cultures, one city neighborhood that hasn’t needed one for a while is Hillcrest, San Diego, referred as the city’s Greenwich Village.

According to urban designer and former City of San Diego planner Howard Blackson, “Hillcrest is a Richard Florida prototype.  The gay community found a home here in the late 80’s as it had cheaper rents (artist,  designers,

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That’s the official sign you’ll see in sixty-eight cities across 28 states (and counting).  Why?

Based in part on economist Richard Florida’s research documenting how diversity generates jobs, isolated smaller cities and towns are realizing they need to work harder than metropolitan areas in attracting a diverse talent pool.

From the sponsoring organization, “The Partnership for Working Toward Inclusive Communities, an effort led by the National League of Cities, unites city leaders who are

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Yes it’s in France, and 65% of its citizens named Montpellier as the city they’d most prefer living in, even over Paris.  So what does Montpellier have that makes it so desirable?  How about what it doesn’t have…

Cars. From a North American journalist, “...the virtual absence of cars is paradise - not the sort of thing we could ever accomplish back in the real world, of course, but an unstoppable delight in this bar-filled biosphere where tables crowd into every square, flute solos seep out

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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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...and the winner is Taipei, Taiwan.  Taipei just this summer completed its citywide wi-fi network of 4000 hot spots (wi-fi transmitters) covering 90% of its 2.6 million residents.  The major reason for the unprecedented wi-fi investment?  To reduce traffic on city roads, says the city’s mayor.

Yes, there still isn’t a single major U.S. city with comprehensive wi-fi, though many are talking about it, with San Francisco apparently taking the lead (promising citywide wi-fi by year’s end). 

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If the nation’s economy is at stake, should cities and companies invest/locate in the city center or surrounding communities?  Based on findings (and title) of the highly respected Conference Board of Canada’s recent economic study, , the answer is:

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Our last entry focused on a model for attracting new residents to a city, but what about a specific district or neighborhood, like a downtown?  Baltimore once again provides a model website for achieving this with its Downtown Baltimore website.

First of all, they do a great job with a video that captures the clean, green and safe theme that’s at the forefront of potential urbanites, especially women.  Every downtown should have a video this well put together.

Second, for housing seekers,

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In the last two days we looked at the Attracting the Young, College-Educated to Cities study, whose researchers stated that the #1 task on cities’ to-do lists is to personally show potential residents how great its neighborhoods are, rather than just present them online (and most don’t even do that).

The Live Baltimore Home Center does just that.  Not too far from the central train station, it’s a one-stop shop for determining how much home you can afford, researching over two hundred

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Continuing a look at the study (profiled in the previous entry) that concluded 64% of young adults choose place over job, here are the researchers’ recommendations on how to attract them.

First, cater to their top three aspirations:
- To be healthy and safe. A clean, green, and safe city.  Investment in attractive public places, green building and active streets (public safety).
- To be your own boss. Lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs.  Attainably-priced workplaces, entrepreneur

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How important is it for cities to invest in their quality of life over jobs?  If they expect to attract 25-34 year olds, it’s pretty darn important.  According to a recent study*, 64% of college-educated 25-34 year olds chose the city they want to live in before the job.

Women were more apt to choose place over job than men, 69% for women, 60% for men.  How clean, green and safe a city is factors more into a woman’s decision than men regardless of job.

The study’s researchers identify three

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With a quarter million page views last month, it may be a good time to provide a summary of what you can find on this website:

Daily weekdays: A new cooltowns entry with image.  Except holidays!

$40M Investment Network - For cooltown investors and ‘investees’ seeking one another
What People Are Saying… - Unsolicited feedback on our website
About Us - What we do, who we are
Archives - All 800+ entries since day one!
Discuss! - Message board to carry on discussions, share images amongst

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