What would a city look like from an arts point of view?  That question was answered in detail by Jeff Speck, long-time associate and director of design at the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversees the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, and presented by Planetizen.  Here’s our synopsis of his top ten principles:

1. Design Streets for People - That’s people, not cars.
2. Overrule the Specialists - Traffic engineers prioritize cars, not people.  Don’t put them in charge.
3. Mix the

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Can artists bring vitality to an abandowned downtown?

The artists in the Massachusetts town of Pittsfield think so.

Pittsfield lost 13,000 jobs when GE left 15 years ago, which is staggering since it had a population of 60,000 at the time (50,000 today).  That and a new shopping mall all but killed the downtown.

Fast forward to 2002, when an artist, Maggie Mailer realized that even if all the downtown businesses were gone, the downtown vitality didn’t have to be, nor should it.  As the

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Where’s the heart of entertainment in Ann Arbor?

If there’s only one area to go in Ann Arbor for entertainment, that’s at East Liberty and State Street, home of the Michigan Theater and State Theater.

They’re both historic theaters, which seem to be the creative choice for the best entertainment in our five-city tour through Cambridge, Madison, Athens, Burlington and Ann Arbor.  Independent and foreign films, midnight showings, live music and comedians make up the daily schedule, but the

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That’s according to Rolling Stone Magazine.

Ath Fest, a nonprofit annual music and arts festival in downtown Athens, Georgia that largely showcases the Athens area musical and artistic community for four days in June, was first started in 1997 because no one heard of or heard most of the 400 bands in Athens. It attracts 145 music acts (and 40 Southeastern artists) each year - the majority of them from the Athens area.

It’s a lot of fun, to be sure, but it’s also about serious business

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This is my neighborhood and this is its day - Adams Morgan Day.

Held since 1978 and organized by the Adams Morgan Main Street Group, this annual event attracts over 20,000 people to one of the only closed-street festivals in Washington DC.

In an effort to improve its business purpose of promoting the neighborhood main street, fewer outside vendors were allowed and 85% of all the local restaurants and stores were open (which isn’t normal for many owners on a Sunday afternoon).

The highlights

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Walk-in theater

As drive-in theaters continue to close down, walk-in theaters (often on big lawns) are becoming more and more common, like Washington DC’s Screen on the Green, playing tonight (and throughout the summer) on the Washington Mall.  Here’s my favorite example in Switzerland.  Why the popularity?

Here’s a comparison:

Cost:
Drive-in theater: Same as a movie theater
Walk-in theater: Free, usually sponsored by the City or arts group
Fresh air, space:
Drive-in theater: No
Walk-in

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Ever wanted to start a band but couldn’t find neighbors who were that hard of hearing?  Or, ever knew someone who did?

There’d probably be a lot more bands, and maybe a lot more new, creative and polished music out there if musicians, and ‘aspiring musicans’ had a place to play.

That’s what Nuci’s Space in Athens GA is all about.

First of all, it’s no coincidence that for a small town, Athens has quite a history of spawning bands (REM, B-52s, Widespread Panic).  It’s one of the most

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...and that is to attract only the most creative people.  Creative prejudice if you will.  For instance, the 9:30 Club is by far the hottest venue in Washington DC for big-name live rock bands in a small venue, but it may very well be the ugliest building in the city as well (image) in a neighborhood not recommended to be walking alone in.  Because of this, some say the club only attracts die-hard music fans, the same people that feel a place is ‘ruined’ once it’s discovered by suburban

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Must see TV.

PBS broadcast the first of two 2-hour parts of Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance just last night.  If you’re looking for some inspiration (minus the medieval bloodshed) to attract the kinds of creatives that can manifest a renaissance in your town, this is good watching.

The Medici were a rather humble family that rose to power in Florence through a matter of luck, relationship building and business acumen.  The Renaissance literally began when Cosimo Medici befriended and

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The CoolTown movement is more than just providing funky affordable housing for creative people, as featured this week.  It’s about building an entire neighborhood… a small town… a comprehensive community of such people, places and programs.

Real estate investment is now focusing on combining live, work and play in a single built community, a field often described as smart growth.  A next generation of real estate organizations and investors however, will apply those principles with the

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It’s the familiar story:  Artists, creatives and bohemians move into an undesirable neighorhood, add diversity, nightlife and vibrant entertainment as well as a renewed sense of security and community… then are gentrified out of the neighborhood by the wealthier who are attracted to its coolness.  Not surprisingly, the Mom & Pop coffee shop is soon replaced by Starbucks.

The solution:  Nonprofit artist-loving developers like Artspace, which have invested $60 million into transforming

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If you’re an artist!  One-bedroom units in this 12-unit building in the upcoming Mount Rainer artists’ community are really only $425/month, thanks to the Housing Initiative Partnership in Maryland.

Mount Rainer, a neighorhood in Maryland at the Washington DC border, is focused on revitalization through attracting creative people - risk-takers at heart.  This is a key attribute, being that the area was overrun by drug dealers just a few years ago.

The Mount Rainer Artist Lofts will provide

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I’ll be posting more photos of Italy’s inspirational place-making, but this week I’ll focus on the programs that make it happen - artist meccas - as CoolTown Studios begins to meet with public and private sector leaders in initiating CoolTowns of creativity within their cities.

First, one must understand that Creativity Drives the Economy.

Second, there’s a CoolTown process to attract that creative core, not unlike what the Medici did for Florence and the Renaissance.

Third, you need

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The things a CoolTown piazza can’t be without:

Movie theaters - There are several reasons why movie theaters can be the centerpiece to making a CoolTown piazza a true destination:

1. It will single-handedly bring hundreds of people out at night (away from their couch and TV sets.)  They’d then be within a mecca of food, entertainment and social opportunities.

2. It promotes diversity - see point #4 of this previous CoolTown blog.

3. In Europe’s oldest cities, monumental churches anchored

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The things a CoolTown piazza can’t be without:

The eclectic nightclub - Nightlife is a must for the creative - entrepreneurial market, and for many the night doesn’t begin until the morning.  If you’re the only nightclub in town, then you need a minimum of three stories to play three genres of music - whether it’s hip hop, r&b, house, techno, trance, salsa, ‘new swing’ or that 70s, 80s, 90s stuff.  Why?  Just ask any creative - entrepreneur what kind of music they like - “Everything” is the

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The most inspiring person at the Creating Cool conference was the lunchtime keynote: Bill Strickland of the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild.

Here was a simple man with no money who established a center for excellence in job training, art and music production in “a black neighborhood in inner city Pittsburgh” as he reminded the audience repeatedly.  The incredible story behind the center is definitely worth the time to read.

Another great story told at the conference was that of the Box Factory

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Perhaps we’ll be able to see a next generation CoolTown in less than two years - on the big screen.  The director of the Godfather is researching the ‘coolest cities’ around the world (e.g. Curitiba, Brazil) in writing a script for his next movie, ‘Megalopolis’, inspired by the 1936 movie of H.G Wells’ “The Shape of Things to Come.“

From CBS News: 

“I’m not looking for Flash Gordon or fantasy or Star Wars. It’s ‘what’ will people 100 or 500 years from now be living in and what will it be

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Resort: A place frequented by people for relaxation or recreation
Recreation: Refreshment of one’s mind or body after work through activity that amuses or stimulates; play

So, what if a visionary financial group invested in places that people specifically visited to play in, to refresh their minds?  Now what if that same group invested in places that people lived in to play, and continually refresh their minds?  That’s the notion of a cool town.  Thus, a “CoolTown resort” is a pleonasm.

One

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To answer that, it may be best to ask one of the pioneers of progressive town planning, Andres Duany of DPZ & Company.  Here’s his response just today:

Resort towns have the responsibility of being better than daily towns. People will not go on holiday unless the experience is better, more like their ideal than their regular places. Resorts are the most interesting experimental sites. We can always push the envelope further as people will risk new behavior modes for short periods of times in

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The next generation of music buyers won’t be shopping at Wal-mart and Best Buy, they’ll be visiting their local music store or staying at home.

Local music stores
What if you could walk into your local neighborhood music store and listen to the hottest new local area artists - live?  What if that music store turned into a live band juke box?  That’s the idea behind the fast-growing trend of independent music alliances, typically about 30-40 non-competing small music stores, with the first

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Recreation: “Refreshment of one’s mind or body after work through activity that amuses or stimulates; play”

Thus, a recreation town is a place for play - for adults that is.  One that extends this into the nightlife could be referred to as a recreation entertainment town.  Such a destination, oriented toward an active, entrepreneurial, creative audience would have:

A natural greenbelt for joggers, bikers and skaters to go from one town to the next without having to encounter traffic.

A big

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Many joggers would love to run through a scene like this every morning.  In Washington DC, you’d have to live in the heart of the city to do so.

CoolTowns are not all about urbanity - it’s about balance, diversity and yes, entertainment and recreation.  The best towns have a greenbelt corridor, usually along a natural waterway, that allows the most urban dweller a job, skate or bike ride for 25 miles completely immersed in nature, just like Rock Creek Park in DC, an eight minute jog from my

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Wheels on your feet that is.

One of the most popular outdoor recreational activities is exploring, whether it’s by foot, kayak or cross country skis.  In the city, especially San Francisco and Paris, it’s by skate.  When you bring hundreds of them together on a Friday night, it turns into entertainment as well.

Let me describe the Friday night skate in San Francisco:  In the early evening an average of 300-400 skaters (beginners and advanced) get together at the Market Street waterfront

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The best kind of entertainment, in my opinion, is the kind that keeps you fit:  Dancing, rock climbing, roller-blading, sports and again, dancing.  Dancing deserves to be mentioned twice.

In the bestseller Tuesday’s With Morrie”, Morrie, who is terminally ill, describes his perfect day (evening) from the point of view of someone who cherishes his last few days: “In the evening, we’d all go together to a restaurant with some great pasta… and then we’d dance the rest of the night.  I’d dance

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Using the Experience Town steps, here’s how an investment group looks to invest in their next generation communities:

1. Discover and extract commodities:  Utilize capital in institutional investment network, leverage student/graduate market of universities and seek currently undesirable/economically-disadvantaged sites.
2. Develop and make goods:  Team with the best urban designers to build a new urbanist neighborhood fabric, although more European/international in density/intensity.
3.

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