Continuing our look at the outdoor cafe scene this week…

So, the key to establishing an outdoor cafe scene is converging and multiplying outdoor cafe walks, outdoor cafe alleys or outdoor cafe squares, outdoor cafe stage rows, sprinkled with isolated outdoor cafes. Then you’d officially have an outdoor cafe district and well on the way to attracting creatives, innovative businesses and a vibrant culture.

The photo of Piazza Navonna, Rome above is a combined stage row and square, or the be

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Continuing our look at the outdoor cafe scene this week…

We’re all familiar with the sidewalk cafe, and they’re a key ingredient in enlivening a street. However, it’s not quite enough to create an outdoor cafe scene. Thus, if you don’t have a pedestrian street to do a outdoor cafe walk, alley or square, go for an outdoor cafe stage row.

What’s the ‘stage’ component?  You need a sense of destination, and a couple of tables outside a cafe doesn’t quite do it.  Even a dining area two tables

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Continuing our look at the outdoor cafe scene this week…

How would creatives identify the heart of their neighborhood? With a central square surrounded (or filled completely) with casual dining tables, served by cafes and restaurants - the outdoor cafe square.

Again, this is not an experience reserved for warmer climates - the scene above is from Amsterdam, which happens to be north of London, and certainly colder than New York City and Seattle.

The guidelines for an outdoor cafe square

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Continuing our look at the outdoor cafe scene this week…

For those times when you want a more intimate experience, that true third place where good conversation is the only thing you want to be distracted by, the outdoor cafe alley may be a welcome retreat.

Unlike the public outdoor cafe walk, the outdoor cafe alley is a more private setting, in a narrow lane that feels more like a hidden discovery.

The guidelines for an outdoor cafe alley are:
- Pedestrian-only. It’s a quiet place

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For all the creative people, companies and events that a progressive economic development program brings, in my opinion it’s the outdoor cafe scene that captures the energy and enthusiasm of what it looks like when it all comes together.

This week we’ll take a look at the different manifestations of the outdoor cafe scene. This entry’s focus is on the outdoor cafe walk.

First of all, a ‘walk’ is a more casual noun that can be given to a pedestrian-only promenade. To illustrate the outdoor

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Based on the previous entry of applying the Long Tail to building a creative economy, here’s a video illustrating how it could work…

Phase I. To grow a creative economy and culture, establish a service to link creatives with companies needing creative talent, whether as employees or vendors. This is the ‘big head’.

Phase II. Develop a website to capture the Long Tail, that is, the 95% of the creatives that don’t have connections to the companies and organizations that can hire them, but have

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The new administration promises to bring true meaning to ‘by the people, for the people‘, and challenges us to take action. So what’s a good starting point as far as growing an economy, building places and improving quality of life for creatives?

This entry provides an existing starting point, and a new starting point. The image above shows the new starting point for creatives, where the Long Tail (everything but the ‘most popular’) is the emerging foundation for growing a creative economy,

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You live in a studio, but you wish you had a dining center, a guest room, a master bedroom, an entertainment room… How about a home spa, bar or lounge while you’re at it?

If you’re Gary Chang, you can experience all of the above in his flexible, convertible 344 s.f. Hong Kong apartment. Known as the Domestic Transformer - inspired by the morphing toy robots - the not so big unit features accordion walls, moving wall units (suspended from steel tracks in the ceiling), fold-down tables and

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There may not be a lot going right economically in Detroit, but at least in 2001 then Mayor Dennis Archer set a goal of creating the best public space in the world. It resulted in a place for people in the heart of the motor city, Campus Martius, a 1.6-acre urban park that reminds its residents there’s more to life than work.

You can read more about its creation in a previous entry here back in 2005, but what’s happened since its opening in November 2004?

- 2.24 million s.f. of new or

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Presently, economic development - “efforts that seek to improve the economic well-being and quality of life for a community by creating and/or retaining jobs and supporting or growing incomes and the tax base” - is managed by government agencies. Then there’s the chamber of commerce, a network of business owners mainly focused on improving their own members’ economic bottom line.

In the age of convergence, expect to see a combination of the two emerge, where creatives take it upon themselves

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Helsinki, Finland’s Esplanade Park is the city’s grand natural stage, a central urban boulevard park that is at the heart of the city’s pedestrian, recreational and shopping activity. So where’s the best seat in the house to watch it all? That would be Cafe Strindberg.

Notice how its cafe tables and seats are line up theater style so you can relish your espresso or smoothie, soak up the sunshine, and sit and enjoy the live ‘performing arts’ that is people watching. It’s a simple sign that

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It’s a 180-degree trend reversal in Japan, where emerging generations no longer find having a car as relevant to their daily lives. Automakers even have a name for it, “kuruma banare,“ or “demotorization”. No more car ownership as status symbol, where auto executives fear the nation’s love affair with the automobile is ending.

“Young people’s interest is shifting from cars to communication tools like personal computers, mobile phones and services,“ says Yoichiro Ichimaru of Toyota.

From a

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Louisiana’s Cultural Districts Program has set the bar for government policy innovation in terms of both identifying a cultural district, then providing incentives for it. It’s the first step towards growing a creative economy, but what could the next step be?

First step:
1. Identify cultural products districts using internal criteria (Louisiana’s state program)
2. Local and state sales taxes exemptions on the sale of original artworks (Louisiana’s state program)
3. Income and corporate tax

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Louisiana is one of the few states that has a very clear program on establishing natural cultural districts for creatives. In 2007, the state legislature approved the Louisiana Cultural Districts Program, also referred to as Cultural Products Districts because of the program’s emphasis on tangible products. As is stated on the state’s website, “The primary goal of the Cultural Districts program is revitalizing communities by creating hubs of cultural activity.“

So what is the state offering?

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The previous entry looked at how creative skills + cultural products = creative economy, but where does it all happen? Of course, the actual production occurs digitally via computers and materially in factories, but since people make up a system, how do the entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, financiers, filmmakers, programmers, designers, etc. etc. etc. establish the relationships to make it all happen?

As creatives know, and as Elizabeth Currid states in her book, The Warhol Economy, much of

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The creative economy is often ineffectively defined by the creative skills/talent: media, film, design, music, visual art, etc. However, those are arguably just the means, and what’s overlooked are the cultural products that result from a convergence of those creative skills. Now that’s what the creative economy is about.

To understand in greater detail how creatives with talent transform their skills into cultural products that grow an economy, you’ll want to read Elizabeth Currid’s The

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If there’s one thing I’m glad to see, it’s not just nonprofits or membership groups working with for-profits to execute their vision, but green organizations working with developers to build attainably-priced green housing.

It started with Live Green, a green-oriented membership organization based on providing green business discounts to its members, and Taurus Development Group, a woman-run real estate development firm with a twenty-year ecological track record. Both of these entities,

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