On the one hand you have authentic cultural destinations grown naturally, referred to as natural cultural districts (NCD)(image on the left), which attract creatives. On the other hand, you have developments that attempt to become such cultural destinations in one fell swoop, referred to on this site as corporate cultural districts (CCD)(image on the right). However, they tend to attract tourists and corporate employees with higher salaries than creatives. Here are the objective differences why, from a placemaking point of view:

Time: NCDs are built slowly over time, decades.CCDs are built completely within a couple of years.
Developers: NCDs involved multiple developers.CCDs involve just a few, and often only one.
Building age: NCDs have a mix of old and new buildings. CCDs are predominantly new buildings.
Building proportion: NCD buildings are often taller than they are wide, and not more than four to six stories. CCDs are almost always wider than they are tall, unless they exceed ten stories, which is often the case.
Building size: NCD buildings square footages are measure out to four (ie 5000 s.f.) or five digits (ie 50,000 s.f). CCD buildings are usually no less than six digits in square feet (ie 500,000 s.f.), even seven (ie a million s.f.), typically encompassing entire blocks.
Retail: NCD restaurants and shops are primarily local independents. CCD businesses are mostly chains.
Retail scale: NCDs almost never have big box stores. CCDs often have big box stores.
Entrepreneurs: NCDS often host entrepreneur-oriented workplaces. CCDs favor Class A corporate office space.

Images by Nik81 and M.V. Jantzen.

On the one hand you have the good ol’ boys network. On the other hand, you have diversity. Obviously, the title of this entry hints at the answer, but it’s not that simple. Here’s a story from Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business that illustrates this:

The founders of Marketocracy established an online stock market that allowed its members to use ‘monopoly money’ to make trades. The top 100 performers, known as the Marketocracy Masters 100, formed the basis for actual investment. The ‘m100’ outperformed the market in 2002 and 2003 (43%), but then began underperforming in 2004 as investors fled the scene. What happened? Wasn’t there diversity among the 100? Yes, in 2002 and 2003, until 2004 when the m100 members began networking with one another, sharing ideas and tips… essentially becoming a good ol’ boys network. The point is, even if you think you’re diverse, you may not be.

In the book, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies, author Scott Page states, “Scholars from a variety of disciplines have studied how people and groups make breakthroughs. The common answer: diverse perspectives.“ It can hardly be better stated than this:

“Progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers with enormous IQs than on diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality.“

This helps explain the difference between the natural cultural districts” that attract the creatives, and the corporate cultural districts that typically mainly attract tourists.

Image: Restaurant Row, Dresden, Germany by stuckincustoms.

If self assessment of your own body, fitness, energy, and overall well-being matters, then Burlington, Vermont is the healthiest city in the U.S.. This is according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study, mentioned in news sources throughout the country, from CNN to the Associated Press. However, other sources claim Lincoln, Nebraska takes the top spot, though if you look at the map below, Burlington makes sense. Boulder, Colorado is also up there.

Burlington and Boulder have two things in common:

1. People are skiing, bicycling, hiking, and staying physically active on a regular basis in either city. You’ll find some of the best deals on snowboards and mountain bikes in Colorado, as evidenced by the map below. If your city doesn’t have the majestic scenery either city has, it’s that much more crucial to invest in greenbelts, bike routes, sports fields and access to national parks to make up for it.

2. Both cities are known to have a progressive, green, forward-thinking mindset. It’s no coincidence each city has a pedestrian-only downtown adjacent to a university, featuring restaurants that emphasize healthy, organic, and vegetarian. If you want an idea of what our communities will be like in the future, this is a good place to start.

Photo: Downtown Burlington by eternalsun.

So, what does a creative economy strategic report for a city look like? One example is Creative New York, now a few years old (December 2005), published by the Center for an Urban Future, a public policy organization focused on the well being of New York City’s low-income and working class.  Being that this is an implementation-oriented site, let’s cut right to their recommendations on what NYC should do to grow its creative sector.

Create a centralized coordinating body modeled after Creative London. Creative London is a steering group of leaders in the public and private sectors of the creative community. However, the Creative London website is no longer functional - investigative journalism underway. Comment below if you know anything!

Establish an Industry Desk for Creative Industries at the NYC Economic Development Corporation. This is the liaison between the city government and the creative leadership group, ensuring some level of accountability and government investment within its economic development plans.

Begin to address affordability issues facing individual artists and creative enterprises. This is one of the most effective ways to attract creatives, and the most difficult. Suggestions includie clustering new buildings for creatives in targeted districts, and encouraging the inclusion of space for artists or creative firms in new developments. That’s not going to make much impact though. What needs to be done is redefining the American Dream (or myth, that we need big homes) for emerging generations and provide more efficiencies like at Cubix Yerba Buena in San Francisco, as well as those being crowdsourced in Washington DC at the Bearden Arts Building.

More flexible support from the philanthropic community. The recommendation here is a little vague, but the idea is that programs should be set up to fund creative districts that support the creative community as a whole, rather than seeking funds for specific, isolated, esoteric arts projects.

Expand market access for locally-made creative products. Emphasize locally-made products, such as through further support of the “Made in New York”� trademark. What’s lacking are both virtual and physical destinations where these products can be centralized, nor is there a plan to do so.

Help creative individuals and enterprises get access to business assistance services. There are programs to help artists, and programs to help small businesses, but rarely is the assistance integrated. However, examples and details on how to do so aren’t provided.

Improve access to health insurance and other work supports for creative workers and enterprises. This is beyond just a creatives issue.

Begin to address the creative core’s workforce development needs. A training program to prepare people to transition to the creative economy. No details or examples however.

It’s a start.  One suggestion is to establish a creatives social network to better understand what the creatives themselves feel is needed to grow their economy, and that’ll be soon underway in Washington DC via CreativesDC.

It’s that time of year again, to profile the apartments that best invigorate their homes through color, in Apartment Therapy’s annual Fall Colors Contest.

Shown here are the ‘Final Four‘ contestants, using kitchens for comparison. Here’s the inspiration and color tips from each of them:

The East (top image) - “After living with white walls for one year we painted a bedroom wall red and quickly realized the rest of the house needed color. Don’t be afraid to use bold colors that make a statement.“

The Southwest (middle image) - “Given this was our first home, we were very excited to experiment with different colors throughout the house. Paint is not permanent so don’t be afraid to go bold!“

The Northwest (lower image) - “Color makes us smile when we walk through our front door. Do not be afraid to mix colors, patterns and textures. Combine new, antique, Modern, retro and classic pieces all together. Use all the things that you have collected, been gifted, and that remind you of where you have been and inspire your future.“

The winner, representing the Midwest, shown to the left. His inspiration and tip:  “I am constantly inspired by fashion, music, art, literature and anything that creates a story either mentally or visually. Put together a scheme you love and find a room to put it in.“

Check out photos of the Fall Color winners in 2007 and 2006.

There’s an emerging market for green housing and transportation, and in the Bay Area, California, both the private and public sectors are taking leads to accommodate them.

At The Uptown apartments in Oakland, developer Forest City Enterprises offers home buyers free annual membership ($25) to the car-sharing service Zipcar, free annual public transit passes and access to bikes. Developer Rick Holliday offers a free bike with every unit at his Pacific Cannery Lofts development, plus a bike lounge with parking for 300 bikes, bike repair work benches and stands, an air fill-up station and private lockers.

Since September 2008, Oakland requires all developers with projects of more than 50 units and/or 50,000 s.f. of non-residential space to complete a “transportation demand management”� plan, including strategies to increase bicycle, pedestrian, transit and car-share use.

The City of San Francisco passed an ordinance in 2005 requiring new residential buildings with more than 50 units to provide car sharing on site or within 800 feet, and dramatically reduced parking requirements to as low as one car for every four units, such as in the Market-Octavia neighborhood.

At SOMA Grand in San Francisco, developer TMG Partners donated a Smart car for its residents to use through the local car sharing service, City CarShare. Developer Allan Mark gives Vespa scooters to new buyers at his 733 Front St. development in SF’s Jackson Square.

As a sign of the times, here’s a quote you would have never heard ten years ago, even five… from the zoning administrator and assistant planning director for San Francisco, Lawrence Badiner, “The idea is that if there are fewer cars in the world, more people use the Muni [local transit line] and there are less carbon emissions. It’s all about sustainability.”�

Read more in the San Francisco Business Times, Developers find ways to drive new residents home.

Which incentives motivate you the most? What would you suggest?

Image: The Uptown Apartments in Oakland, California. Note the proximity to transit and the courtyards within each building.

How does one apply a successful crowdsourcing model to placemaking?

In the previous entry, we profiled Threadless, a $20 million t-shirt company that crowdsources its designs. We talked about how the benefits are similar for t-shirts and placemaking (we’ll use housing as an example), but how does that serve as a framework in crowdsourcing cool housing for creatives?

First, you have to even the playing field. Shirts are mass produced and creative buildings (that’s all we’re talking about here, not mass-produced buildings) aren’t. Let’s say a limited run of only 30 shirts of a certain design will be made, just as there will be only 30 units available in a proposed residential building. Thus, these shirts will be of a significantly higher cost to justify their not being mass produced, and it’s no longer a scenario where there are enough shirts for everyone who wants one. Now we’re getting closer to housing parameters.

The following are not Threadless programs, but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch.

Second, you have to weight the votes. For instance, those not interested in buying, say, a $100 limited edition shirt shouldn’t have final voting power in choosing the winning design. To discourage people from being dishonest just to vote even if they’re not interested, something like a voting fee, limited editions membership or deposit is effective. This is the same for future homebuyers crowdsourcing a residential building, where only those that are open to buying - evidenced with some kind of financial commitment as mentioned - can make collective decisions on unit size/price point combinations, green features and common spaces.

Third, securing your customers. This is where it gets creative. For shirts, if there are only 100 to be made, but 50 are needed to break even, then the group needs to know that and ideally, be informed of the progress toward reaching 50 which would then trigger the 100 shirts actually being made. There is an option of providing this for the top three designs, but that could also dilute the total number of limited edition buyers to the point none of the designs reach 50 orders. With housing, it’s closer to 80-90% units sold to break even, except that since we’re talking about a factor of 2000 in price, the likelihood of changing one’s mind is considerable. Thus, if there are 30 units of housing, the number of ‘committed’ buyers should be at least three times as large. This is why step 2 is imperative.

Fourth, once the community moves in, there’s no limit to the things they can collectively improve as a team that’s already proven themselves.

What do t-shirts have to do with creating places? Since we were recently on the subject of t-shirts that expressed the love of certain places, it’s a good segue to profile a crowdsourced t-shirt company that’s a favorite of creatives.

In 2000, student Jake Nickell was feeling the priceless euphoria of having won a t-shirt design competition. Why not let others in on the emotional high? He presented the idea for a t-shirt company based on such a competition to future partner Jacob DeHart, someone he met on an online design forum. Starting with $1000, they held the first competition within months and Threadless (a play on an online discussion ‘thread’ as well as clothing) was born.

Anyone can upload their t-shirt designs to the site, where the community rates them from 0 to 5. Based on the ratings, the staff selects about ten designs among the 700 or so every week. Each winning designer receives $2000, plus $500 for every reprint. At $15 a shirt, the company makes $20 million a year on just 20 employees, and has sold out of every single shirt ever produced.

Now the question is, can this be applied to the creation of places? The short answer is yes, though of course not literally. However, if truly crowdsourced effectively, every square footage of office or retail space would be leased, every residence would be sold before construction was completed. Because shirts can be mass produced and desired buildings aren’t, the analogy works in a scenario where, say only ten exclusive shirts are produced at a much higher price.  In the next entry we’ll look into this in detail.

Read more about Threadless in Inc.

Image: The Threadless store in Chicago, with video displays of its customers paired with the shirts, photo by ozmodiar.

What does the new U.S. administration have to do with creatives? A lot, according to Joel Kotkin, author of the best-sellers The City: A Global History and The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape, and finishing a book on the American future. In his Forbes article, The Triumph of the Creative Class, Joel states,

“Obama’s triumph reflects a decisive shift in the economic center of gravity away from military contractors, manufacturers, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, suburban real estate developers, energy companies, old-line remnants on Wall Street and other traditional backers of the GOP. In their place, we can see the rise of a different set of players, predominately drawn from the so-called “creative class“ of Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the younger, go-go set in the financial world.“

He states that a vast majority of both Obama’s financial support and votes came from companies and regions closely tied to creatives… in other words, contributions from companies that build virtual places that attract creatives (ie Google, Hollywood) and people in physical places that attract creatives (ie cities, progressive towns).  Thus, we should prepare to see a culture that further reflects the creative direction the economy is already heading. As Joel writes,

“What will this ascendancy mean in economic terms? Since the creative class deals largely with images, ideas and transactions, it’s not likely to focus much on reviving the tangible parts of the economy: manufacturing, logistics, traditional energy and agribusiness.

The biggest difference between the creative class and the old business types isn’t on cultural issues - few traditional CEOs embraced the religious right’s agenda - but on environmental policy....“

Thanks to Braulio Agnese of Architect magazine for the reference.

Image: Post-election celebration in San Francisco, josmith94701.

It’s a familiar scene - you find housing you can afford near a mass transit line on the outskirts of a city, and the reason it’s affordable is because few people will visit you. There’s no there, there.  For decades, Collingswood, New Jersey, neighborhood of 15,000 just outside of Camden, was just that. It suffered massive downtown vacancies like most other cities, even though it was served by a major transit line to Philadelphia.  It hasn’t helped that many are still averse to living or working in Camden, which sits in between Collingswood and Philly.

However, it has found the magic formula to become a walkable destination with a vibrant downtown, and the window of opportunity to buy attainably-priced homes is still there, but shrinking fast. How’d they do it?

The process is a very familiar one - as this previous entry, Attracting people to emerging main streets, provides in more detail. It starts with visionary entrepreneurs establishing destination local restaurants with great food and atmosphere. A farmers market complements them well, further making people feel comfortable just being in the downtown for longer periods of time, and thoroughly enjoying an entirely unique experience, followed by festivals celebrating the local culture.

Unfortunately, the city leadership seems determined to shift from attracting the creatives that helped the town’s revitalization, and instead focus on wealthier families and those with executive positions. The city is incentivizing owners of duplexes that serve two households to convert them into single-families, and in a neighborhood where the average available home is $216,000, a public private partnership is developing a signature mixed-use project with 120 condominiums that start at $350,000 to $400,000. Of course, these were planned before the economic crisis, and creatives are well aware of how that may have been avoided.