...is on Wikipedia’s list of car free places.

Now the first thing to keep in mind is that a true list would literally consist of thousands of entries. So to present a more meaningful register, the following two criteria are applied:
- They are unusual for their country or region (which explains why there are so many entries from the U.S. and only two from Africa)
- They make up a sizeable fraction of a city, town, or island, though this seems to be relaxed a bit when it comes to the U.S.

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...which is why in Europe they call them trams, apart from ‘light rail’ which is associated with those clunky, boxy trains you see in the U.S.  The tram in the video above debuted in November 2007 in Nice, France.

The Strasbourg, France line pioneered the sleek look in 2006 and has been an overwhelming success ever since, not to mention a favorite photo subject for tourists - now how often does that happen? Notice in the video above how its futuristic silhouette contrasts with the historic

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A picture is worth a thousand words, which is why the folks at the GIS savvy planning firm Criterion created a tool to not just analyze  where to best invest in low-carbon development, but to illustrate it.

The concept is referred to as Cool Spots, and is described as “places where land use, transportation and energy data converge to create the best places for low-carbon development.“

The process, as described in more detail here:

1. Analyze the region’s energy usage, from CO2 building

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The most straightforward measure of the creative class in any city is by density; the number of creative class per square mile. You can download the
Creative Class Group’s rankings with each of their creative class densities here (it only consists of four top ten lists).  Below are the top three in each of the population range followed by their creative class members per square mile, with some unexpected cities outside of the usual suspects listed below.

Over one million
1. Los Angeles, CA -

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The essence of Key West’s vibrancy, located along the very public Duvall Street profiled previously, was often very hidden via outdoor patios behind and alongside buildings.

Take Croissants de France (pictured) - at first glance you see a traditional front porch leading up to the entrance of the cafe, but as you walk up you notice a side patio followed by a tree-shaded courtyard, triggering an inkling to want to sit down and order a chocolate crepe or afternoon mojito.

Then there’s Blue

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Key West, Florida is both a city and an island hosting a few facts you may already know: it has a population of 25,000; is a cruise destination; has phenomenal weather (except when I visited it); is among the Florida keys that originated the key lime pie; is only 90 degrees from Cuba; has the nation’s first and oldest continuous gay and lesbian chamber of commerce; was home to Ernest Hemingway; and maintains 200 of the 300 liquor licenses in the keys - half of which are on Duvall Street

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Hidden to tourists that is. The locals know where the public courtyards in their city are, and they make some of the best third places around, especially given that you can enjoy a little sun and warmth in the experience.

This particular one is in San Telmo, off Defensa Street, which is open only to pedestrians on Sundays (see previous entry). You’d never know it existed walking down the street (left image), demonstrating the value of exploring a city with a local (How to experience the

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Local, independent businesses that are just starting out typically can’t compete with the chains that already have an established national customer brand. However, as profiled previously, the best local, indie businesses can outperform any chain given a loyal community brand.

Even better though, is to enjoy that success on day one, which is a little unexpected given that it’s a new business.  That’s where crowdsourcing comes in, with the ability to not only develop a loyal customer base on

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How serious is the commitment to building more vibrant cities? This whole creative city thing isn’t confined to just cities - entire states are taking such a proactive approach to modernizing their economies, from Michigan’s Cool Cities Initiative to now, Vermont’s Creative Communities Program (CCP):

“Communities apply to participate in the Creative Communities Program. Successful applicants receive technical assistance in the form of a community visit process that moves quickly from

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Utilizing the Fifth Discipline principles of systems thinking, we bring to you a representation of why cities, especially their economic development departments that manage the largest of budgets, choose to invest in the outdated practice of landing ‘the big one’ rather than cultivating its own creative economy that is known to create jobs more effectively.

The Context:  First of all, it’s important to understand the long tail. The vertical axis in the graph to the left is economic output,

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