How do you do it without busting the Gen X piggy bank?

Let’s face it, 80% of the effort in building a true Gen X town is providing affordable homes in the coolest parts of the city.  So, while it’s hopeless to buy a $200K condo in Manhattan, it’s not out of the question to buy a cooler home between $150-$180K in a one-of-a-kind, nightlife-oriented neighborhood.

Here’s how these investors will do it:  Build not so big, stripped down/customizable units between 900 to 1200 sf, 10 ft. ceilings, and “unbundled parking” (lease rather than buy parking spaces, which is great if you don’t have a car).  The buildings would be six stories, with the lower floor hosting your third places - anything above six stories requires rather costly steel and concrete.

Since the average debt for college graduates is $12-$15K, work with them a year in advance to manage their debt load to afford a home, then provide a rent-to-own program where a portion of their rent goes toward a down payment to buy.  Not owning a car also increases the value of home one qualifies for - another reason why a CoolTown is designed to be walkable.

Finally, provide three bedroom units that provide Xers with rent income in the early years, office/workout space in subsequent years, and kid rooms when they’ve crossed that domestic bridge.

Affordability:  Design smaller-sized 4-6 story unfinished loft-style units (like these here by Dover Kohl, an urban design firm that fundamentally understands this market) with flexible open floor plans and some detailing to add character.  Do the same with office space.  Encourage the retailers to keep it simple and aim for artful practicality and efficiency over status.  Think Parisian neighborhoods.

Entertainment & Nightlife:  Center the village around a carless piazza (that should be a pleonasm) where people can socialize spontaneously 24/7 without having to buy anything.  Support a proactive community center and online network that focuses on building people connections - they’ll in turn advocate for the kind of entertainment they want.

Jobs: For the entrepreneurs, just focus on the above and support them as a guild to secure health insurance and venture capital.  For those seeking more established 9-5 jobs, seek out CEOs like Charles Brewer of Mindspring who wanted to relocate his 3000 employees in a “Gen X urban village”, but just couldn’t find one anywhere in the U.S.  At least that’s what he told me.

Something less than $150,000 in the inner city or near an outer transit station.  It’d be low maintenance with high ceilings, both community and environmentally friendly.

Gen Xers prefer something stylish, efficient and flexible and did I say affordable?  They will not let homebuilders pre-determine their needs and feel they over-design new homes.  In fact, they’d like to customize their living spaces and want homes that express “Who I am.“  Non-bearing walls that can be easily changed to deliver no-additional-cost, customized space would be ideal in choosing new homes.

They’ll choose open floor plans over conventional/compartmentalized floor plans, bright over dark, and affordable craftsmanship (wood-trim, porches and exposed beams) over mass-production interiors.

They assume basic utilities means electricity, water, gas, cable and broadband internet.

It should be clear from yesterday’s blog:

Jobs, affordability, entertainment.
Jobs, affordability, entertainment.
Jobs, affordability, entertainment.

Jobs:  This is the starting point, but the good news is that companies (and city economic development agencies) are realizing that they also need to relocate where Gen Xers most likely want to live, which means affordability with great entertainment.  That works just fine with company executives as well.  Keep in mind that the fastest growing companies are the homegrown entrepreneurial ones that aren’t imported.  Invest in them.

Affordability:  A Builder Magazine survey shows that most Gen Xers can’t afford more than $155,000 for a new home, and they definitely want to own rather than rent.  That rules out Manhattan for starters, an oft-mentioned Gen X dream city.  The fact that they’re not dependent on buying single-family homes evidences a greater demand than supply.  Here’s some other ideas.

Entertainment:  The easy way is to already have the best in outdoor recreation, like Denver, San Francisco and Charlotte.  If not, then the key is building an entertainment mecca, much the same way Austin, Texas made itself the live music capital of the world.  Build your own center of enviable nightlife.

Well, since most Gen Xers are single/divorced (over 70%), they sure aren’t looking to settle down in a family-oriented neighborhood.  Here are the top 10 cities that Gen Xers are migrating to:

1. Orlando: An abundance of new tech jobs and limitless entertainment are hard to resist.
2. Las Vegas:  The entertainment and affordable living capital.
3. San Francisco:  Diversity, entertainment and hundreds of great dining experiences.
4. Denver:  The outdoor entertainment capital.
5. Charlotte:  Another job creation machine with great nightlife and outdoors.
6. Ft. Lauderdale:  Notice the theme?  Gen Xers follow entertainment, companies follow Gen Xers.
7. Raleigh:  Affordable, affordable with lots of jobs in the Research Triangle.
8. Phoenix:  Affordable, cutting edge nightlife, Silicon Valley outgrowth.
9. Portland:  One of the cleanest cities in the U.S., more breweries than any other as well.
10. Atlanta:  Gen Xers just can’t seem to stop talking about this city’s new edge… plus more job growth than any other city.

Where are they leaving from?  Orange County CA, Buffalo NY and Baltimore MD.  The former two don’t have much nightlife or edge, though Baltimore may make the list in a few years.

Fiber optics: There are currently about a hundred communities (older listing) that are implementing a comprehensive fiber optic infrastructure.  What’s imperative to know is that the cost difference is negligible between providing a fiber vs. a copper network in new communities, yet the profit potential is tremendous.  In other words, establishing a fiber optic network in a new community is kind of a no-brainer.

Wireless: Wireless goes hand-in-hand with fiber.  One investment group is pioneering a BB-WAM - broadband wireless access mecca.  What this means is that anyone and everyone will have wireless internet access throughout a town’s public areas and commercial center.  The relatively low cost should be provided by a municipality the same way it funds roads, or it can be financed through a business improvement district.

Customer support!  Your town needs a community center that can demonstrate how to take advantages of these income-generating amenities.  Technology is often useless without a human to showing you how to use it.

There’s already a well-established market for going wireless (making technology invisible) at home and at the workplace, but even at your local bakery?

If you frequent Newbury Street in Boston, chances are you’re pretty productive as well, as many of its cafes and shops provide free wireless internet access.  Thanks to the work of the Newbury Open Network, there’s a national trend afoot to provide wireless internet access at every public establishment, as common as a bathroom or a payphone (remember those?).

Even Panera Bread is offering free wireless internet at its cafes and bakeries.  Why?  For starters, it’s practically free for merchants to provide if they already have internet access themselves, and it’s invisible.  Second, as we head into the experience economy, providing reasons for people to visit and ‘get more than just bread’ is proving profitable.

In the industrial age, the basic infrastructure is a road network with cars.  In the experience age (aka the CoolTown era), it’s a fiber optic network with people.  The good news is the fiber is invisible, the people aren’t.

Case Western Reserve University’s fiber optic network is setting the bar with gigabit/second access, 1000 times faster than a typical home connection.  What does this mean?  Major job creation for economically-disadvantaged communities if they get focused, perhaps on a program like this.

How does this create jobs?  Here’s one way to look at it:  If every Silicon Valley worker’s internet access suddenly and permanently slowed to 1/1000th the speed, it’d be disastrous to its economy.  Now just imagine it the other way around.

The beauty of fiber optic access (and its benefit of instant officing) is that it brings the romantic notion of a walkable community that much closer to reality, being that people may no longer need to commute by car as much, if at all.  I don’t and I love it.

Understanding that people will be more apt to use technology they don’t see, a town-wide broadband infrastructure may do wonders for the local economy and quality of life.

Quality of life:  For urban dwellers, a fast network means one less reason to have a car, probably our least invisible technology.  It essentially means you can work at home, or at your local third place w/ free wireless broadband.  This magazine focuses on achieving this quality of life.

Job creation:  I’m awaiting some studies from Corning proving that ultra-high-speed internet access creates more business opportunities and jobs than dial-up or even DSL/cable broadband, but I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise you. In fact, prospective home buyers of the progressive new Orenco Station in Portland, OR wouldn’t consider homes without at least broadband internet access, and this was well over five years ago.  When DSL goes down in my office of creative entrepreneurs, people simply don’t bother coming in.

Now, if you want to see accelerated job creation to revitalize economically-disadvantaged areas, implement that fiber optic infrastructure, which will be blogged tomorrow.

CoolTowns are most definitely state of the art, and that means incorporating the latest, most useful technologies.  However, the more invisible the technology, the less afraid people will be to use them.

CoolTowns are first and foremost about building community and enabling face-face interaction.  That mindset just doesn’t seem as sincere when your friend across the table is talking through his cell phone headset while adding entries to his PDA, as both of you sit on a sidewalk flanked by dozens of cars (with hundreds more passing by).

CoolTown invisible technologies include a fiber optic underground infrastructure, wireless high speed internet throughout the town, high-tech walking shoes and parking garage stacking systems.  CoolTown bookstores would also carry Turn It Off: How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career by CoolTown Guild member Gil Gordon.