A great vision doesn’t really matter if it can’t be implemented.  Implementation doesn’t mean much if it no one cared for the vision.

The key to the CoolTown Program is to combine a great vision with the financial capacity to implement it.  That means letting the people who will live/work in the community design it, and finding investors who will finance it.

The program summary, which is downloadable, begins:

“The San Francisco Bay Area, Denver and Charlotte made attracting young professionals a priority in the ‘90s. Now they’re seeing higher sales tax revenues, prosperous new businesses and remarkable job growth. The City of Austin credits their quality of life (i.e. the live music capital of the world) for #1 rankings in net migration and Forbes’ Best Places for Business and Careers.  Cambridge, Mass. has long catered to retaining its university graduates, and now ranks as the 23rd largest economy in the world.  Manhattan remains the capital of cool, evidenced by its being the most expensive (greatest in demand) place to live.

Why isn’t my city attracting growth, excitement and prosperity like Austin?“

So what does it take to build a place where people quickly realize that vibrant pedestrian life is more appealing and healthier than streets filled with moving vehicles, or a sterile parking lot?

1a. You need a progressive government that’s willing to enable legislation to eliminate minimum parking requirements.  If the people don’t want all that parking, the government shouldn’t require themselves to spend money to supply it.

1b. You also need, at the same time, a progressive private sector investment group, such as these guys.  How does one define ‘progressive’ in this case?  1:1000 parking spaces/s.f. of building.  Typically, it’s 3 to 5:1000 spaces/s.f.

1c. Finally, none of this works if you don’t have people who really want to live in a place that prioritizes over people, piazzas over parking lots, paseos over passing lanes.  How does one form this market?  Here’s our suggestion.

2. If you complete the first step, most everything falls into place naturally.  You’ll see.

Photo courtesy of Carfree Cities

Yesterday’s blog diagrammed the concept of hiding cars on a neighborhood scale.  Today we show you a real such neighborhood.

Uptown District is a relatively new urban village in San Diego that creates a pedestrian-oriented destination and economic model for success, aided by its progressive parking layout.

1. The parking in the retail area of Uptown (right of photo) is located mid-block - that is, all the parking is behind buildings.  The only building facing a parking lot is a Ralph’s supermarket with most of its parking underground (you should see the shopping cart conveyor built into the escalator!).  Inconvenient and bad for business?  It so happens to be the best performing in the company’s chain.

2. The residential area is completely car free.  All the parking is below.  Instead of parking lots, residents enjoy paseos, courtyards and a mini main street.

Yesterday’s blog demonstrated how to hide 17 cars.  But what about 500 cars?

Town planners Dover Kohl illustrate how to do this, which is a textbook method of parking in the New Urbanism movement:

1. Parking is placed behind all the buildings, forming a parking core in the middle of the blocks.  Thus, pedestrians only see people-filled streetscapes and streetfronts (ideally a paseo with no cars at all), not a parking lot/garage.

2. The entire site is built upon an underground parking garage, again out of sight for pedestrians.

3. With stackable parking systems, underground capacity can be doubled, even tripled.

Tomorrow we’ll look at what a resulting urban village looks like in San Diego.

Can you find the parking for the 24 tenants who live here?  Hint: It’s not behind, to the side or in front of the building.

1. First of all, not everyone who bought a home here at the Shattuck Avenue Lofts needed, or wanted a parking space.  The first downtown housing in Berkeley in fifty years, only 17 parking spaces needed to be provided.

2. Secondly, the 17 parking spaces take up the same space as 9 parking spaces, as illustrated in yesterday’s blog.

Answer:  All the parking for the 24 tenants who live in this highly successful, award-winning building is in the ground floor.

In business terms, cars are a pure expense.  They’re also expensive for a city: The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune published an article on Sept. 7 stating that only 24% of its roads are paid for by the people who directly use them.  Cars also take up a lot of space while often adding negative value to the area they’re parked in.

Now, while the coolest (and as a result the most desirable, and thus most expensive) towns are walkable to the point of not needing a car (ie Manhattan), these towns are also great at hiding them, which has tremendous economic advantages.

Klaus Car Parking Systems, based in Germany, has a lock on innovative parking solutions, such as the one in this image in New York City.  The benefits from its parking space-reducing systems are self-compounding:

1. One can literally halve the size of the parking garage needed, providing more space for more income-producing, pedestrian-oriented real estate.
2. The resulting increase in pedestrian-oriented real estate further decreases the need to drive and park, further reducing the need for parking spaces.

In Manhattan, only half its population even has driver’s licenses.  No more waiting in DMV lines.

While the San Franciscos, Austins and Iowa City’s continue to prosper on their entertainment and quality of life strengths, what are the next generation cities and what are they doing to initiate growth today?

In the Milken Institute’s Knowledge-Value Cities in the Digital Age, authors Joel Kotkin and Ross DeVol identify the following as “comeback cities”: 

Philadelphia PA: Philly is finally benefitting from city-sponsored revitalization of its urban neighborhoods to stem the massive brain drain from Temple, the Univ. of Pennsylvania and Drexel.

Brooklyn NY: The Brooklyn Academy of Music is catalyzing a major cultural arts district, while the City promotes a 24-hour atmosphere to attract entrepreneurial creatives.

Pittsburgh PA: Investing more dollars in communications than any other city, this city that has more jobs than residents is focused on transforming 700 acres of manufacturing into neighborhoods.

Tacoma WA: Taking advantage of spillover 30 miles north of Seattle, Tacoma “Click Network” fiber-optic system and industrial area workplace conversion attracted 100 new technology firms.

Baltimore MD: The City invested in successful waterfront and funky workplace renovations have literally sparked neighborhood renaissances

Oakland CA: An under-used industrial district in West Oakland, comprehensive fiber-optic infrastructure, relative Bay Area affordability and proximity to Silicon Valley contribute to potential prosperity to San Francisco’s forgotten neighbor.

Iowa City?!  Ever heard of it?  You should.  Not only did the acclaimed Milken Institute name it as the best small city in economic performance and job creation in the country in their annual report, but here are a few other accolades:

• One of the ten most enlightened towns in the U.S. - Utne Reader
• Listed in the book The 100 Best Small Art Towns in America
• Number-one place to live in the nation by Editor & Publisher magazine.

Diversity of economic base was listed as the most common attribute for economic success. Other important assets are a university presence, an array of service-based (evolving to experience-based) industries and population-driven growth.

A diverse economic base essentially comes from a diverse population, and cities must understand statements like the following if they want to attract and retain graduate talent:  “Iowa City is very diverse for a small town.  Coming from Chicago, it was surprising to me to find something similar to that in such a small town.  I have a wide variety of friends across different cultures here in Iowa, and that’s privately what i didn’t think i’d find here.“  African-American University of Iowa student

The Milken Institute’s keys to become a best performing city:  Economic dynamism/entrepreneurialism, capital access, human/creative capital, innovation capacity and global/international integration attributes - all CoolTown objectives.

First of all, it’s important to realize that creativity produces jobs, attracts people and increases income.

The Creativity Index, pioneered by the Richard Florida Creativity Group, is measured via creative workforce (science, engineering, architecture, design, education, arts, music, entertainment), innovations (patents per capita), high-tech industry and diversity.

#1 on the Creative Index is the San Francisco Bay Area (Austin is #2).  It’s also #1 in diversity.

Since the SF Bay Area is one of the most expensive places in the world to live in, and jobs follow talent, reason holds that the entertainment value can’t be anything short of spectacular.  I’ve lived throughout the area - it is:

Incredible nightlife, literally hundreds of one-of-a-kind cafes and restaurants, skiing, mountain biking, beaches, water sports, breath-taking hikes, beautiful walkable urban neighborhoods, art galleries, talent-laden live music venues, amazing architecture, lots of fascinating creative people to make your own entertainment with, etc. etc. etc.

The city of San Francisco itself is one of the few places in the U.S. that is a living, walkable museum unto itself.

Vignette by Thomas Kinkade

Forbes ranks Austin as the Best Place for Business and Careers in their annual report.  What are the key ingredients for its success?

Entertainment:  As mentioned on this site previously, Austin is indeed the live music capital of the world.  The proof is in asking just about anyone who’s been to Austin - “It’s so cool.  There’s always something going on and the people are so nice.“

Affordability:  The second annual Affordability Index from techies.com Inc. (a treasure trove of workforce market insight) puts Austin in third place.  The index measures the greatest value based on salary vs. cost of living.

Jobs:  Based on the information above, it’s no surprise Austin attracts so many jobs.  Supported by one of the largest education talent pools in the country (49,000 University of Texas students), Dell, Motorola and IBM soon migrated.  Overall, Austin has one of the highest net migration rates in the country, if not the highest.

Austin is lacking a bit in the place-making department, but the talent and energy are there to change that.