What to do when no one seems to be providing a bold vision for downtown Louisville, Kentucky?

Last fall a core of creatives in Louisville established a beta community and set forth on that very mission.  The above image is the result of that local beta community to date, from a group of future patrons, tenants, developers, building owners and city officials, presented as the South Fourth Street Entertainment District.  Five of the buildings are owned by beta community participants who are

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What does Web 2.0, the most intelligent communities of 2007, the beta community, and building cool towns for the creative class have in common? Ok, so it’s not really a secret.

As stated, Web 1.0 was about commerce, Web 2.0 is about people - you. As cities have found the hard way, innovation can’t just be tech-centric (ie build city-wide wifi and they will come), but people-centric - you-centric (build places the most creative truly want to be in, integrating wi-fi). Beta communities are the

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The NY-based Intelligent Community Forum recently announced their Intelligent Communities of 2007 (don’t shoot the messenger!) based on the following criteria:

- deploying broadband
- building a knowledge-based workforce
- combining government and private-sector ‘digital inclusion’ for all
- fostering innovation and marketing economic development.

One of the cities on the list, Dundee, Scotland, like in many other regions, suffered sweeping job losses in the 70s to mid-90s as manufacturing

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Continuing the previous entry introducing the two economy-generating factors, Web 2.0 with the creative class, what happens when you combine the two in your city?

Let’s take the most popular Web 2.0 website as an analogy…

Imagine the rabid popularity and obsession young adults spend on MySpace, but applied to job-creating entrepreneurs in a single walkable district in your town. Now, people may spend inordinate amounts of time meeting new people by commenting on the blogs, pictures and

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First of all, what is Web 2.0?  In a nutshell, Web 1.0 was commerce. Web 2.0 is people.

Its wikipedia (a Web 2.0 product) definiton: perceived or proposed second generation of Internet-based services - such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies (don’t worry, we’ll go through these) - that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.

The creative class is well documented, as well as its connection to job growth.  These are the innovators (ie the

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Let’s do one better. Why don’t we all pool our most inspiring photos, the ones that inspire us to say, “Wow, I wish that was in my neighborhood!“. There’s no better source for this of course than Flickr, and coincidentally, we’ve just set up a group photo pool called Cool Places right here.

If you’re not a Flickr user, it’s quick, free and painless to sign up.  If you are a Flickr member, just click on the Join this group? link on the group page and share your photos!  It’s highly preferable

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Continuing yesterday’s entry, what happens when a city takes a more open-source approach to real estate development?

New Urban News features two such stories in one article, More developers, better results: A lesson in orchestration.

In each example, the city established an RFP competition for multiple sites, selecting multiple developers.  The primary reason?  Diversity and variety, which speaks to authenticity, which is paramount to a creative class that dispels much of new urbanism on

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The talent and assets (or at least access to them) for building places that raise the benchmark for quality of life and economic vitality already exist in your city. If you’re skeptical, maybe this story from Mavericks at Work will make you a believer…

Entrepreneur Rob McEwen purchased what many considered a fool’s decision - a 55,000-acre gold mine with no gold. Why did he buy it? Because it went cheap, and it was adjacent to a very productive mine.

A couple of frustrating years later,

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According to the NY Times, the word on the street is that New Yorkers are worried that ‘it’s getting boring around here.‘ “The chain proliferation and the sameness they have brought to so many blocks has become a pet peeve for many New Yorkers, and the butt of jokes for others. On a recent episode of the NBC comedy 30 Rock a character sent to pick up a prescription was stymied by the presence of ‘Rite Drugs’ outlets on all four corners of an intersection.“

Meanwhile, last November San

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The city of Renton, just south of Seattle, has long been synonymous with Boeing.  However, visit their website today and there’s not only no mention of the airline giant on their home page, but missing from their economic development and vision, mission, and business plan pages as well.  There’s just a picture of a jet on the business home page, but no mention of Boeing when listing the city’s assets.

Why? The City is steadfastly, wisely, deftly moving Renton away from the industrial economy

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Above: Patrons of People’s Cafe in Upper Haight, San Francisco. Soon they’ll be able to work via their laptops too…

As we all know, since 1949 the government’s been paying for all our roads (ie our asphalt infrastructure), but since the advent of the internet we’ve had to pay for it.  Well, San Francisco is the first city to sign a contract to provide free wi-fi and internet for all in the city… a digital infrastructure.  Earthlink is providing the wi-fi network, and Google the free internet

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We’ve come to the final entry in this series of Made to Stick’s Six Principles of Sticky Ideas as it relates to building cool places...

The sixth principle is Stories. How will you get people to act, to implement, the ultimate goal of any idea. You would tell a story, and not just any story, but in reading the last several entries, you’ll know it would be a Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story (notice the acronym, which is a bit cheesy, but easy to remember and

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Part five in looking at Made to Stick’s Six Principles of Sticky Ideas on how to build cool places...

The fifth principle is Emotion. Why should people even care? Perhaps it may help to first state what tends to trigger people into not caring: Too many statistics, abstract explanations (90% of what’s out there), not enough emphasis on self-interest, and surprisingly, not enough emphasis on self-interest as it relates to group-interest.

Why do people care about cool town beta communities? 

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Part four in looking at Made to Stick’s Six Principles of Sticky Ideas on how to build cool places...

The fourth principle is Credibility. Why should people believe you? How do you handle the skeptics? Are you providing the details, vivid statistics, a proven example or a testable credential (try before you buy) that help people accept your ideas as truthful?

How is the cool town beta community program credible, believable, legitimate? Sure, there are telling statistics from Dr. Richard

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Continuing a review of Made to Stick’s Six Principles of Sticky Ideas on how to build cool places...

The third principle is Concreteness. That is, not abstract, but in terms that relate to our five senses.  This is where analogies, vignettes, proverbs and first-hand experiences. YouTube became a billion dollar company within a year because both its business model (upload and watch videos for free) and content (first-hand experiences) were refreshingly concrete.

How does one describe a

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Continuing our look at Made to Stick’s Six Principles of Sticky Ideas on how to build cool places...

The second principle is Unexpectedness. This is the first principle in Step Two: Telling Others, with Step One presented in the previous entry. This is the principle that compels us to watch a movie or game from beginning to end.

How do you get and maintain people’s interest in building cool places? It’s about taking what people don’t know they don’t know (ie the hundreds of hidden places

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As introduced in the last entry, this week we’ll be communicating how to build cool places based on Made to Stick’s Six Principles of Sticky Ideas.

The first principle is Simplicity.  This is the core idea and the most difficult of the six principles to achieve. In fact, this one principle is considered Step One: The Answer, while the other five are considered Step Two: Telling Others.

So what is the core idea of building cool places?  That is indeed simple to answer.  The beta community. 

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It was published only three days ago, but Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die will soon become a best-seller.  Think of it as the ‘how-to’ of The Tipping Point’s second of three rules; The Stickiness Factor.

Here’s why it’s important. Building better communities is incredibly complex - there are literally hundreds of ways to explain what your vision is and how to go about it, multiplied by hundreds of stakeholders inherently involved.  Where does one start and how does one

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Art gallery by day, home by night

So you want to open an art gallery, but don’t have the budget?  Or how about just wanting to have your home double as an office with employees during the day?  The folks at I-Beam Design worked out quite the solution in this Manhattan loft.

The highlights:
- A revolving wall/door that separates the main gallery/workplace from the private section of the house by day, opens it up by night.
- Moving panels that hide your, ahem, flat-panel TV, in not one, but

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Who are the people that want to live in a ‘cool town’?  What are people in the creative class like?  If you’re a city official or business leader looking to attract creative entrepreneurs to spur job growth and grow a vibrant cultural scene, what mindset should you have when reaching out to them?  Rather than provide emotionless statistics, here are some values questions to be aware of to ensure you’re empathizing and not sending the wrong subconscious messages:

- Are you a regular visitor to

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We recently answered the question How can a City establish a ‘beta community’ to attract the creative class? with an outlined process. We follow that with a living example, Vauban in Freiburg, Germany..

In the 1970s the City of Freiburg in Germany became known for its progressive mindset, much like Berkelely, CA. With that kind of creative foundation, when a 94-acre army base closed in 1991 it was a natural step for the surrounding residents to establish what was pretty much a beta community.

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