So you want to think global and act local? Check out Springwise’s Top 10 Eco Business Ideas in 2006. Springwise’s list may be UK-based, but the implementation doesn’t have to be. Here’s their list - visit via the link above to see full profiles of each one.

1. Hailing a hybrid: greentomatocars’s taxi fleet consists only of hybrids.
2. Consumer generated power: Buy a wind generator for your building or neighborhood.
3. Household recycling plant: Save time with an indoor recycling plant - ,

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A local institution on Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, Las Manitas, a Mexican restaurant and crowd favorites, must say goodbye after 25 years. It’s lease was up, and the building owner already signed a new one with Marriott. However, Austin’s city government isn’t your typical city government, and its leaders proposed to do something about it.

They’re proposing the Congress Avenue Retail Retention and Enhancement Fund to invest in the kinds of businesses they feel reflect the local culture

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Those people who think they’re more likely to die from sharks than deer (you’re 300 times more likely to get killed by a deer via car collision), are probably the same who think you’re more likely to get hit and killed by a car in New York than in Arizona or South Carolina. See the graph above - not true.

Yes, there are a lot of cars in Manhattan (and Boston), for instance, but there are way more pedestrians.  Not only that, only half of Manhattanites have a driver’s license, and there are

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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 model. If you imagine movies as live/work/play experiences, a truly

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Understanding , the way it’s evolving our economy, and its applications to real estate, what would be the real estate developer/investor equivalent of an Amazon, Google/YouTube, eBay, Netflix?  What’s the big deal?  Millions of people don’t just use these companies’ services, they’re passionate about them. When’s the last time anyone said that about Kodak, GM or Kmart?

As you know, all of these companies invest in ‘a full line of products’ that appeal to what individuals really

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As explained in the previous entry, much of what is built today is in ‘the big head’ of mass production rather than diverse niches of The Long Tail. However, in the internet age, companies focusing on both the Big Head (the mainstream ‘hits’) and the Long Tail (hundreds of niche favorites) are starting to eat the Big Heads for lunch - companies like Google, Netflix and eBay that pretty much cater to every niche, every personal interest you can think of.

In other words, we want a lot more

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“For too long we’ve been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution.“ Wired Magazine, The Long Tail, Oct. 2004.

Sound familiar when it comes to strip malls, subdivisions and office parks, which make up a vast majority of new real estate

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People often ask me what I read on a daily basis as far as keeping on top of the industry.  I’ll tell you what exists, and what should exist.

Daily Sources that Exist:

The Creativity Exchange: This is Dr. Richard Florida’s blog on the creative class, and it’s fairly new. If you want to understand the market, this is where to go.
Planetizen: This is the portal for any news pertaining to visionary placemaking, cities, development and planning. It’s a bit comprehensive, so you still have to

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Retail seen as ‘the Achilles’ heel’ of some TODs (transit-oriented development), reads a recent New Urban News headline, spotlighting the Latino Fruitvale Village retail center in Oakland, CA.

We highlighted its difficulties with attracting patrons at the beginning of this year. The key is to establish the retail center as a community center - the equivalent of the town square where ‘everything happens’. In other words, the place needs events, events and more events, and collective ones at

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Does this sound familiar?  “I (or we) would love to buy a condo, but they’re too expensive where I want to live and I don’t want to go the housemate route to help pay the mortgage.“  Or how about this, “I’d really like to live in this neighborhood for at least a couple of years and would love to rent out a contemporary not-so-big efficiency to be able to afford it, but they simply don’t exist.“

Well, both those prayers are about to be answered with what is being referred to as Mortgage

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Many of us enjoy that college town feel of a pedestrian-oriented urban fabric, indie hang-outs and diversity mixed with enlightened conversation. Which cities do well in this regard, which don’t, and why?

Creative class economist Richard Florida provides some answers with his colleagues in their recently published, The University and the Creative Economy.

As far as statistics and rankings, the study introduces two new ones:
Brain Drain/Gain Index (BDGI) - measuring and ranking cities by the

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How comfortable are you with the colors in your home?

Each year Apartment Therapy, one of the best blogs on apartment design anywhere, has a nationwide contest to find the best unheralded apartments that add a bit of emotion to their living environment via color, namely fall colors.

Why is color important, and why the contest?  In their words, “Color is a powerful part of interior design and the cheapest way to change a room, but few feel comfortable using it. We could all use some help from

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In a time when five indie films take all five Oscar nominations, the question is, can we get that kind of quality if we provide support for the indie developer?  In a customer-led economy, the answer is a resounding yes.

One Minneapolis group that’s taken the lead is University UNITED, a group of 12 progressive community organizations + businesspeople that want a vibrant, urban, pedestrian-oriented, transit-oriented district along St. Paul University Avenue, seeking investment in places like

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Does your town have a manufacturing district that just feels very 1960s? That’s probably because that’s the last time anyone’s invested in them as we slowly evolve to an information-based economy. However, the Olneyville neighborhood in Providence, RI isn’t going to settle for living in that bygone era.

The City designated 175 acres for development investment based on a more contemporary economy - the Promenade District - with 10,000 new jobs, 2000 new residents, and 153 acres of park land. 

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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 own population. Not to oversimplify things, but here’s a CoolTown scenario of

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Yesterday in Part 1, we looked at the different models of a what is fast becoming a standard feauture in anything we buy - customer-led services, products and yes, buildings and neighborhoods. However, just to show you how quickly this is all evolving, Trendwatching provides a summary of the next step - getting paid for it - and they even have their own term (albeit a bit trite):

“Generation C(ontent) is joining Generation C(ash). If consumers produce the content, if they are the content, and

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You’re hearing more and more how customers are participating in the decision-making behind what they’re buying. Here’s a summary of terms used to describe this customer-led economy, with real-world examples and how it will help shape our communities for the better:

Customer-Led - The most generic description encompassing the entire field, also referred to as customer-driven or customer made. This website has an entire collection of entries on this topic here.

Mass Customization - The

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There is probably no greater diversity or activity over a given time period than at your city’s train station. So, which ones do the best at inspiring people to linger, want to return, or regret leaving?  Here are some examples, with a primer provided by the UK’s Guardian and their local favorite in London.

Clockwise from the top left:

Grand Central Terminal, New York, 1913 - There’s a reason why it’s featured in so many movies, referred to by The Guardian as the world’s most romantic

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By 2010, 50% of all new homes will be built by just 10 national homebuilders, up from 36% today, say industry analysts (that’s a lot of influence). Why? As reported a few entries ago, most of our investment capital is held in large, corporate entities that only invest in other large corporate entities. Accepting this trend, there are two paths to steering this capital toward the readers of this site seeking urban, affordable, creative, unique, social, pedestrian-oriented places to

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Some people say I could talk about food all day long, but you have to admit, it’s a great topic. Plus, it not only influences your city’s cultural standing, but its economic bottom line as well. We’ll get to that in the next entry, but first…

Check out the study, Culinary Deserts, Gastronomic Oases: A
Classification of US Cities by Zachary Neal, managing editor of an urban journal, based on economist Richard Florida’s creative class research.  He defines four types, defined by the author

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