Should rural universities even think about going urban?  In our customer-driven economy based on you, that question may be best answered by the students themselves, such as Cleo Szmygiel, a University of Connecticut freshman, “This would make it easier for them to attract students.”�

That’s a quote from a NY Times article on how students who want a more urban vibe when going to a university ‘in the middle of nowhere’ are finally getting what they want. Just listen to these University

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The Grand Rapids, MI area lost 27,000 jobs between 2000 and 2004, but is it looking to regain them by ‘stealing companies from other cities’ like most economic development programs prioritize?

Not so. In BusinessWeek’s Towns Chasing Workers, Not Just Jobs, Greg Northrup, president of the West Michigan Strategic Alliance states, “The old model, where you used to chase people to invest in real estate [ie office parks] might not be the most effective way to be successful. There’s recognition

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So how did Boulder Housing Partners (BHP) bring together seven different developers to work together on a common vision for the Holiday Neighborhood in Boulder?  Mind you, developers rarely partner with other developers, much less six others.

The key is that BHP had a very clear vision for the 27-acre former drive-in theater site, one that resulted from extensive citizen participation. The vision’s focus on people and community also greatly appealed to the 45 interested parties that responded

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If you’re familiar with the open-source form of business development that’s becoming the standard for the fastest growing companies, and read the entry introducing the Holiday Neighborhood’s application of such in Boulder, CO, you may be interested in the story behind it all.

Here’s a brief timeline, with a more detailed summary in the American Planning Association article, They’re Bolder in Boulder:

- 1969-1989: Drive-in theater operates on 27-acre site.
- 1990: Drive-in owners’ plans for

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How important is Pittsburgh’s creative future?  $460 million worth, in what is billed as the nation’s first master-planned, green

, mixed-use neighborhood, referred to as the Cultural District Riverfront Development.

You know the times are changing when the following words are spoken by a state governor (Ed Rendell):

“Working together, we’re funding projects that will draw people back downtown to live, work and play. It’s the same successful approach we’ve used across the state over the last

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Buildings have long been third-party certifiable as green/sustainable via the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards administered by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), but what about neighborhoods?

Given that more than a third of greenhouse gases are generated by buildings (primarily heating and cooling them) and another third is generated transporting people and goods to and from those buildings, the USGBC is collaborating with the Congress for the New Urbanism

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As you know, each succeeding generation of products and services is increasingly co-designed by you, and the internet is the primary tool. However, what are the tools to use when it comes to co-designing your next home, workplace, building, block, community…?

Enter Google Sketch-Up - and yes, the downloadable program is free. Check out the demonstration video here - it’s easy to use, and certainly for pro-amateurs (people who know how to teach themselves skills via the internet).

How could

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Walk around those popular historic districts of the 1920s - notice how most of the buildings are taller than they are wide?

They proceeded to go flat in the mid-20th century that followed, bringing a fascination with all things mechanical and mass-produced… “Mass production also led to a standard for low ceilings. The architect Le Corbusier saw houses as machines for living, with all the stripped-down functionality that this implied”, states the NY Times article, Developers and Architects

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You have to admit you saw this was inevitable, it was just a matter of when.

Movie theaters provide the thrill of a large screen, a first-run movie, the buzz of a live audience and the satisfaction that you ‘went out and did something’. Home theaters now have terrific picture and sound (how many of you traveled out to watch the Superbowl on your friends’ HDTV?), with the comfort of more sophisticated food and drink during the movie.  It was too logical that the two would eventually

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What provides the greatest return on investment when developing destinations or revitalizing neighborhoods?  The answer is easy by far - color.

However, developers and cities mistakenly associate that with the word paint, and that’s simply not true. More importantly, it involves investing in the expertise of choosing the right paints - that attract your target market most effectively, in the largest numbers, with the strongest emotional connections.

The best investment in that regard is a

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One of the most concrete ways of providing sustainable/green, affordable living in NYC is to develop such a benchmark community for others to be inspired by.  That’s certainly the case with the New Housing NY Legacy Project Competition that sought triple bottom line development team to build such a place on a 40,000 s.f. site in the South Bronx.

The sustainable, affordable development competition is part of Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace plan to build/preserve 165,000 units of

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