No other city in the world matches Amsterdam’s biking culture, where more people commute by bike than car. As one resident put it, “It’s the quickest way to move around in the city, even more than a car or public transit,” and from a public official’s point of view, “Everything you do for a bike is very cheap compared to what you do for cars,” claiming that bike infrastructure improvements typically cost only 5% as much as automotive and mass transit improvements.

Some of the biking

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Thanks to the geniuses at ThinkStudio that brought us the direct economy matrix, we’re able to provide a chart that better explains what crowdsourced placemaking is, when people have a direct hand in shaping their built environment.

As in the direct economy matrix, the x-axis represents progressive levels of interactivity, and the y-axis displays progressive levels of knowledge, as explained in The creative economy = the ‘direct economy”. Notice how raw data really doesn’t add up to

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For the purpose of understanding the evolution of our economy and our quality of life, if there was ever one definitive graphic, this is it. However, to understand the current creative, knowledge-based, whole new mind economy from an individual’s point of view, you have to get to know the work at ThinkStudio, a global think tank based in Switzerland.

The chart above illustrates the direct economy, where “customer knowledge is replacing producer knowledge”. ThinkStudio illustrates this

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Washington DC developer Jair Lynch has a unique live-work space in their new Solea mixed-use project, but hasn’t quite figured out how to market the 1600 s.f. live-work spaces on its ground floor. With 800 s.f. of retail space on the ground floor, and an open stairway down to 800 s.f. of living space with kitchen and washer/dryer below, it’s not for the everyday buyer. So, they decided to crowdsourcing what it could be.

“Crowdsourcing means we are opening it up to the creative people in

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There’s little doubt that there’s no more effective way to understand the placemaking of a city other than simply being there, experiencing the streets, squares, parks, buildings and pedestrians firsthand.  Photos and videos don’t do it justice.  However, just the same, simply being there is only half the story itself.  If you truly want to experience the places of a city, you’ll need to experience the culture, and that means connecting with the people who live there.  It’s the only way I was

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It took until the nearly the last day I was in Paris, but a local resident who understand my values absolutely insisted I check out La Bellevilloise, and so I did that night. It turned out to be what I would consider the place I’d hang out at the most in Paris, a true third place for creatives.

Described by its owners as a ‘an independent, artistic and festive place‘, La Bellevillois got its name from a Parisian cooperative of the same name founded in 1877, which offered political education

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First of all, I don’t presume to have all the answers to this question, so please provide your individual one below. However, some common collective responses include:

- It means people come before cars.  Paris is not only pedestrian-oriented, but it has several pedestrian-only districts and streets, and distributed throughout the city as well.  The Marais, Montmartre, Saint Michel, Saint Germain, Bastille, Les Halles… just about every neighborhood in central Paris, home to 2 million …

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One of Switzerland’s best-kept secrets, Fribourg is a town of 33,000 on a forested peninsula bordered by the River Sarine, characterized by its pedestrian-only streets, cobblestone roads, quaint bridges, flowers everywhere and its innate human scale. Yet it’s a very modern, even cosmopolitan town as far as its shops, businesses and residents, aided by hosting one of the country’s most prestigious universities.

Not surprisingly because of its prevailing picturesque, human-scaled character,

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In the historic city center of Lausanne, Switzerland, an hour away from Geneva, the Place de la Palud seems to represent the heart of the town.  With a ‘Fountain of Justice’ dating to 1557 and home to the present Town Hall, it’s literally been a center for centuries.

On Wednesday and Saturday mornings, a public market is held on its surrounding pedestrian streets, and there are a lot of pedestrian only streets, all filled during the day. In fact, the area represents the main shopping district

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Geneva, Switzerland, central to United Nations relations (ie known as the ‘Peace Capital’, site of the Geneva Convention) ranked in a 2009 survey by Mercer as having the third-highest quality of life in the world, and referred to as the world’s most compact metropolis, which essentially means one of the most pedestrian-oriented. It is also extremely diverse because of its international affairs.

Geneva’s most pedestrian-oriented area by far, not surprisingly, is its historic district, known as

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