First there was coworking without a space, aka coffeehouses with wi-fi. Then there were coworking spaces. Then came coworking spaces with general themes, like Green Spaces in Brookyln, NY. Next up in that evolution? Coworking with a specific social purpose.

One of the best grassroots examples is mission*social (pictured above) in San Francisco’s SoMa district, a large loft renting ‘social enterprise space’ at $2/s.f. and ‘cowork space’ at $300/mo. What’s unique is that a tech company, …

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What do you do with an abandoned city-owned 68-acre parking lot and arena in downtown Orlando, Flordia? Mayor Buddy Dyer would like it to focus on growing the area’s creative economy as a creative industries urban village, appointing a Downtown Orlando Creative Village Concept Team in August 2006 to get the party started. Now why can’t it be this easy more often…

The creative village vision statement: “The Creative Village will be a magnet for knowledge workers to live, work, learn and play -

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While they put together the videos for the TEDx in Washington DC yesterday (tedxpotomac.com and #tedxpotomac on Twitter), here’s the basic transcript for the presentation on crowdsourced placemaking. The presentation team included Neil Takemoto speaking, D’Blend (Juan Botero and Lina Almansa) doing the visuals and videos, and Yoko K performing live organic electronica music. Hope this holds you over…

[Intro visuals and music feature open call answers to the question ‘What place would you be

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When people are asked what’s missing in their downtown, you’ll often hear things like a ‘central place’ for the community to gather for public events, dining and people watching; a public market; or a farmer’s market. The San Pedro Square Public Market aims to be all of the above.

Scheduled to open in late summer 2010, the 50,000 s.f. public market will feature a public market hosting 50 vendors in spaces as small as 100 s.f. Only unique, local, independent food vendors, restaurants and

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One indication that people are becoming increasingly more interested in getting around within a downtown rather than in and out of it, is the continued rise of the streetcar.

Within the past year, federal funding for streetcars has shifted from buses to streetcars, and the first streetcar was built in the U.S. since 1951.

Cities looking to add new streetcar systems in the next two years:

- Washington, DC: 37-mile network proposed. 2-mile $75M locally funded Union Station to H Street

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GOOD Magazine went all out in their 2010 Neighborhoods Issue with well over 30 short articles (with nifty illustrations) on redefining what our neighborhoods may mean to us in a more creative, diverse, connected world.

The stated purpose of the issue? “To fight homogeneity and think of creative ways to preserve or recapture our unique communities.“

Here are some highlights of the many intriguing reads:

- The magazine’s own vision of the perfect neighborhood, by providing a signature event,

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Crowdsourcing often gets negatively associated with competitive websites that utilize a crowd to submit ideas in order to select one winning entry, and less so with collaborative efforts like Linux and Wikipedia.

So, we present a little video to help explain that there’s a difference between competitive crowdsourcing, collaborative crowdsourcing, and purpose-driven collaborative crowdsourcing, especially when it comes to placemaking.

The video also communicates that crowdsourcing is not

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