On an island near Shanghai, China formed by the accumulation of, silt shared with a protected bird habitat, will rise a city that is free of greenhouse gas emissions and gas-powered vehicles with an emphasis on energy-efficient design, waste reduction strategies, and renewable energy.

Dongtan, a 21,250-acre eco city, is being developed by Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation as a leading example of green development in China.

Transportation
- All vehicles within the city will be

read more…

Every major city nowadays has a coworking space, but what about a coworking district? That’s the plan with the nascent Adams Morgan Works program.

With 30 million people and counting working at home as we transition to a knowledge-based economy, coffeehouses and coworking sites are becoming increasingly popular, most of which thrive in natural cultural districts. Thus in Adams Morgan, Washington DC’s preeminent natural cultural district, a movement is underway to transform a rather dead day

read more…

What’s a city that launches the world’s largest bike sharing program, Velib (‘free bike’... for the first 30 minutes), do for an encore? It announces the world’s largest electric car sharing program, Autolib. However, unlike the wildly successful bike sharing program, it’s unclear if this will result in more or less people driving. We’ll soon find out.

The highlights:
- 4000 electric cars
- 700 pick-up points
- Drop off anywhere (a computerized system will let you know of available parking

read more…

The previous entry was for the beer crowd. Today’s is for the wine set.

First of all, yes, there is such a thing as an urban winery, like the Signal Hill Winery with downtown locations in Cape Town, South Africa, and Beaune and Bordeaux in France. The primary advantage? According to winemaker Jean-Vincent of Signal Hill, being at a regional center without a committed vineyard allows him to select only the best grapes from the best microclimates.

However the upcoming NYC City Winery (in the

read more…

A neighborhood microbrewery is a good indication that you’re living in a progressive area, but a crowdfunded one? Let’s just say if that were the case, there’d probably be a lot of reason to get together, hoist a beer and celebrate every milestone one could think of. BeerBankroll is planning to be the business model behind that brewery (but thank goodness not the name of the brewery). In the land of the neighborhood pub, it’s not surprising this is a UK joint.

Goal: Establish a local brewery

read more…

Ok, since Fast Company Magazine’s choice for their Fast Cities 2008 U.S. City of the Year (Chicago) and Global City of the Year (London) isn’t very earth shattering news, perhaps its more intriguing to look at their list of twelve Fast Cities, which aren’t so obvious. Fast Company btw, is the business magazine for the creatives (and why I’ve read every article of every one of their 126 issues).

Beijing, China - A booming economy and arts scene - you won’t think of China the same way after

read more…

While the market has already assumed a digital infrastructure will succeed our asphalt one, city government leaders still haven’t accepted that by making the same financial commitment to free public wi-fi. It’s largely a generation thing and it’s inevitable the investment will come eventually, but for the cities with progressive leaders that implement them now, they’ll realize an economic and cultural windfall as a reward for ‘letting go’.

Santa Monica is one of those cities, with their City

read more…

If you’re looking for a benchmark restaurant that represents most everything that a restaurant should be (as far as omnivores go), The Linkery in San Diego is a necessary destination. It starts with a founder like Jay Porter, “It would be a place that would, as a business, provide a community space that would bring people together. And it would celebrate really good quality food and drink and beer in a simple way… hopefully it could be a place that could become a center for something that adds

read more…

Emerging generations want more pedestrian areas, less traffic-congested streets. In Manhattan, pedestrians are literally running out of sidewalk room. This August, New York City is conducting a ground-breaking historical experiment called Summer Streets, to provide a bold answer to this growing demand.

On August 9, 16, 23, three Saturdays between 7am - 1pm, the following streets will be pedestrian only, closed completely to auto traffic:

- Downtown Routes - 6.9 miles:  Park Avenue between

read more…

In the previous entry we looked at Elizabeth Currid’s The Economics of a Good Party and the process by which arts and culture added to the economy. Today, we look at Elizabeth’s answer to the question, “How does the social community (ie the patrons, the attendees, the participants) influence the emergence of arts and culture that then translates to economic impact?“ Her four ways:

1. Access to gatekeepers both formally and informally - Gatekeepers are defined as the purveyors of taste, so if

read more…

How does art and culture translate into economic value? Elizabeth Currid, author of The Warhol Economy presents an invaluable scientific view on an industry regarded as anything but in her article, The Economics of a Good Party: Social Mechanics and the Legitimization of Art/Culture.

Simply speaking, arts and culture establishes economic value the more it’s recognized as a scene, when people pay to share in the experience via goods or events. The real question is, how does it become a scene

read more…

In 1956 the Federal Aid Highway Act ushered in the auto age, with the U.S. government funding 90% of the costs to build 41,000 miles of interstate highways over 20 years, an equivalent of $200 billion today. Highways are still being built, but they’re also coming down as cities are realizing that a digital infrastructure (ie the internet; wi-fi, fiber optic, cellular, satellite networks) negates a continued need for heavy asphalt investment, and at a much lower economic, environmental and

read more…

The newly christened pedestrian-only Mint Plaza in San Francisco is worth the two headlines.

First, as you can see in the images to the right, what was once a seedy automobile alley is now a pedestrian-only gathering destination. Opened a year ago near Fifth and Mission Street, the plaza is starting to become a vibrant scene with restaurants and outdoor seating. It was funded through a public-private partnership and is maintained by a nonprofit.

Mayor Gavin Newsom used Mint Plaza as the

read more…

First of all, one principle that our crowdsource-based beta communities agree with is that ‘design by committee’ - a true democratic design process - isn’t effective (see Apple). Another way to look at it is this quote by designer Yves Behar, “Never ask the consumer about the future. You can ask them what their aspirations are, but you will not get an answer about what you should do. Design will bring those stories to life.“ In other words, good design needs a leader and isn’t something that’s

read more…

Finally, a more compelling answer to the question, ‘What is crowdsourcing‘?

When I get asked that (a lot), I first confirm that the person asking knows what outsourcing is - which is when work is transferred to a foreign company, where a company’s employees are replaced by a foreign employees. With crowdsourcing, the work is transferred to its future customers instead, where a company’s employees are replaced by the organization’s existing and future customers. Compensation comes with

read more…

So many emerging artists in one city - how can one possibly see them all? Enter Artomatic, Washington DC’s five-week multimedia experience showcased in a single building that is one of those no-brainers as far as finding something to do on a given evening - this year being from May 9 through June 15 one block west from a subway station. Where else can you experience the work of 1000 local artists in one building over 28 days… for free? Not only that, but there are several events going on

read more…

First we profiled the conference bike, then the pub bike, followed by the delivery bike, so a natural progression would be a barista bike... the Bikecaffe.

Founded by a couple of coffee connoiseurs, Steve and Mike, they took it upon themselves to provide what they felt was missing in the marketplace - a mobile, outdoors-oriented third place.

“We saw a gap in the market for alfresco (outdoor) coffee to cater to the backlash against global coffee chains. People don’t like queing inside a shop

read more…

Not only are coworking spaces (shared open-plan entrepreneurial workplaces) fast becoming a standard office model in every city, but they’re starting to multiply.

San Francisco has at least four, one of the most recent being the largish (4500 s.f.) downtown Sandbox Suites (pictured above). Meanwhile, Seattle has several, the latest being GiraffeLabs (pictured below).

That doesn’t mean quantity trumps quality, as a single coworking space found out the hard way in the small town of Wassau, WI

read more…

As we gradually evolve from an auto-oriented infrastructure to a more pedestrian-oriented one, other of visiting the best examples around the world, a video is the next best thing to experiencing and understanding the appeal of pedestrian-only streets.

Thanks to Streetfilms, a sort of YouTube meets Discovery Channel, you’ll get an excellent feel for Melbourne, Australia’s myriad pedestrian-only lanes in their film, A Pedestrian Paradise in Melbourne. In the 19th century when city planners

read more…

It doesn’t matter if it’s by bus, subway, light rail, streetcar or commuter rail.  It doesn’t matter if it’s in Minneapolis, Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, New Jersey, Houston, Charlotte or Philadelphia. For the last ten years, mass transit ridership has been increasing (see NY Times survey), and significantly the last three months for obvious reasons.

Americans took 10.3 billion public transit trips in 2007, up 2.1% from 2006, but transit planners are expecting 5% growth in 2008, the

read more…

Adams Morgan, the preeminent natural cultural district of Washington DC, has no problem attracting nightlife whatsoever, especially on the weekends when you’ll have difficulty walking down the sidewalks that are packed with pedestrians.

However, weekdays during the day are another story, when only a tiny fraction of the restaurants are even open and pedestrians are sparse. The picture above isn’t a normal day (taken during the annual Adams Morgan Day festival), though that’s what it could be

read more…