For those of you who have casually wondered what an auto-oriented street would be like if it were reclaimed by people, for people, Park(ing) Day is an annual step in that direction. Participants in cities around the U.S. and the world ‘park’ themselves in a parking space for the day, paying the meter of course, and make a third place of it.

Founded in 2005 by Rebar, a collaborative group of creatives in San Francisco, it is now sponsored nationally by the Trust for Public Land (TPL). The list of participating cities now numbers over 80 in the U.S. and a few around the world. However, New York City alone had 50 park(ing) spaces throughout the city - which you can see in the video above.

What kind of spaces would you create on Park(ing) Day? What kind of spaces did you see or experience?

In another example of a picture being worth a thousand words, here are three before and after shots of pioneering New York City’s DOT (Department of Transportation) plan to transform auto-oriented corridors into pedestrian places and destinations.

Pearl Street Plaza, Brooklyn (Top) - An asphalt parking lot is now in the middle of a final transition to becoming a restored cobblestone plaza, hosting farmers markets and concerts. Read more about this street-turned-plaza, with wide-angle shot, in this NY Daily News article, Plazas are beauty of a plan. DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said at the time in August 2007, “And it’s just the beginning.” She’s right, see the last line of this story.

Ninth Avenue at 14th Street (Middle) - See how this Meatpacking District community-lead process began in this 2006 CoolTown entry, A NYC ‘beta community’ to build a piazza.

Willoughby Street Pedestrian Plaza Brooklyn, 2006 (Bottom) - Check out a link to a video of this street’s transformation along with a larger image and description in this previous CoolTown entry, Hey, let’s try it.

This is indeed just the beginning, as the NYC DOT looks to fund at the very least eight more of these in their new NYC Plaza Program.

A year ago we profiled Patricia Martin’s Rengen: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer - and What It Means to Your Business, which has helped define the term creatives as far as it’s used on this site. It’s time to check in to see how this second renaissance is coming along via this New York Times interview and a CoolTown perspective.

What is the rengen? That’s nicely defined here, a “a thirty-year swath (20-50 years old) of individuals who are living comtemporaneously”, but more of a psychographic than a demographic of people poised for fundamental change, a major shift in evolution.

What are the signs of a coming renaissance? Massive change, both destructive and monumentally creative: The fall of Wall Street, corporations, automakers, dependence on oil, big bosses… the rise of the internet, entrepreneurs, mass collaboration/you, the green movement, employee teamwork… More specific signs are the wave of ciclovia events sweeping cities around the world, and Manhattan’s program to turn car-oriented streets into pedestrian-only plazas based on community collaboration.

What are the rengen survival skills? Quoting from Patricia, the ability to collaborate, to connect and to create. “They don’t respond to directive. They respond to teaming. Employees need to grasp that during creative brainstorming sessions it’s uncool to feel threatened if someone draws on top of your drawing.” We’ll see a shift from mentors passively advising mentees, to masters teaching apprentices everything they know. Finally, one of my favorites, is the shift to creative entrepreneurialism, “Rather than waiting 30 years to see if MOMA finds their work worthy, they will shoot a 30-second spot for DDB Needham. Unlike their parents, who would have stayed at the agency, they will use that money to fund their independent documentary.”

Image: Piazza Di Spagna, Rome, Italy by Camillo Miller

First, the definition of bilingual - communicating in two languages fluently, or to further define language, communicating in two different methods of exchanging information fluently. Second, the definition of social network - is the organic gathering of individuals into specific groups; or from wikipedia, “a social structure made of nodes (generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas...” This can be physical, or virtual.

In the best-selling book, Bowling Alone, author Robert Putnam laments the loss of social groups like bowling leagues and membership clubs. However, if you ask the millennials/gen yers and progressive gen xers, they feel those measures of community aren’t spontaneous and fluid enough in a world where a hundred people who never met can gather in a square at the exact same time, and have a pillow fight. Many stick around in the aftermath and make new friends, strengthen old ones. Think of it as the light-hearted opposite of a community coming together to build a dam of sandbags during a natural disaster. However, how is that these people were able to pillow bond seemingly out of the blue?

They’re bilingual in social networks. That is, they’ve formed virtual groups on platforms like Facebook, Ning or Meetup, and use those to build face-face groups with people of like-minded interests. However, here’s what makes this evolving skill for community building (and crowdsourcing) so effective…

Just like those who are bilingual with spoken languages, those who are bilingual in social networks can flow in between the virtual and physical world seamlessly, fluently, without even thinking about it.

One example of a bilingual social network is CreativesDC, a virtual social network of 300 creatives (and growing) in Washington DC that meet up face-face once a month to network, experience interactive performances, and introduced to other social networks and crowdsourcing opportunities.

Do you see the value of jumping between the two worlds with ease? Which social network platform do you use, and why? Comment/vote below…

Update: Six days later, a Facebook pillow fight.

Women make up a majority of those who start their own businesses, so it was a matter of time before that trend intersected with the coworking movement. It also helps to know that top women business builders are looking for creative and affordable environs.

Thus, we have In Good Company (IGC), an affordable/high-value coworking space in the creative capital of Manhattan (Flatiron district) - for women only. It has all the amenities you’d expect in a coworking site, like a conference room, open plan workspaces and wi-fi, priced very attainably from $300/year to $375/month for a workspace. However, meeting room and conference room access are $20/$50 hour respectively, though perhaps that would cut down on the productivity-killing habit of relying on too many meetings

Some of the features that are perhaps more oriented to women:
- IGC’s many ongoing events don’t necessarily cater to women per se (outside of the bi-monthly mom/business owner lunch), but they’re presented by successful women in business.
- Effective spaces for casual, more intimate conversation are provided, from small meeting rooms to a welcoming lounge area.
- IGC emphasizes a supportive structure for building relationships. Cocktail minglers and salon forums allow informal networking, formal bi-monthly business support groups encourage members to share their challenges and achievements, and on-site consulting provides targeted assistance.

Comment below if you’re interested in starting up a women’s coworking space in your city.

Parking for cars with every new building has been the law since the 1950s (complementing the 1956 Highway Act which legislated our interstate system), not surprisingly resulting in what are easily recognized post-1950s developments and buildings - they look like cars are the priority. The 2000s mark the era where cities have decided that the great experiment is over, and are now focusing on pedestrians and people once again. Where to start? Removing parking requirements for every new building.

Milwaukee began easing parking requirements in the 1990s while San Francisco and London changed minimum parking requirements into maximums decades ago. Washington DC is looking to eliminate parking requirements altogether, with some exceptions. This would be a significant asset to a green condo development in Washington DC’s H Street neighborhood that I’m helping to crowdsource. Why? Half the units couldn’t be built if parking were required because there simply isn’t enough room, which means the developer has to charge higher prices to make up for the loss in volume, which is unfortunate especially when you consider that many of DC’s homebuyers don’t even have cars.

Here’s a vignette of this trend in Milwaukee, quoting its former mayor in an AP article, “...a lot sat vacant for decades after a historic building burned down. The required parking made it unfeasible to build anything new there. After officials relaxed the parking requirement, a thriving restaurant sprang up.”

Image: Amsterdam by hunting ghosts.

Residents in the U.S. revel in block parties, whether they’re urban like Adams Morgan Day or residence-based in the burbs. It’s a time when you can roam the street freely without having to look both ways, and enjoying the street as one giant festive patio.

Still, having a block party in the U.S. is typically a major pain in the ---, where the city government and police department must be notified and involved. Imagine that though, U.S. citizens have become used to the fact that they need the city government and police department in order to have a neighborhood gathering. Kind of ironic? So what’s the alternative?

See the photo of the Plaza De Chueca, Madrid in Spain. The reason why government entities are involved is the city needs to be legally transformed from a car-prioritized street to a pedestrian-only one, but what about one that’s already pedestrian only?  That’s right, not only won’t you need a bureaucracy to approve your party, but you could have one everyday, spontaneously, informally. Isn’t that what life should be about?

Image: Plaza De Chueca, Madrid, Spain by Eduardo Nasi.

On two glorious days on August 31 and September 14, 2008, the streets of San Francisco belonged to pedestrians, bikers, joggers, skaters, dancers (lots of dancers), picnickers, roller soccer, hula hoopers… you get the idea (and actually get to see all of it in the Streetfilms video above). That’s because San Francisco became the last of the country’s most progressive cities (Portland, NY, Seattle) to host their own Ciclovia, a ‘party on the highway’ originating in Bogota, Columbia where several miles of car-oriented roads are closed to… cars, on the weekends.

Sunday Streets, open from 9 am to 1 pm, covers 4.5 miles from the Bayview neighborhood, along the Embarcadero waterfront and ending in Chinatown, and is sponsored by the mayor’s office to promote health. As one Sunday Streeter put it, “When there’s no cars and just people, people are friendlier, people are less stressed out.” Really though, it’s become a wildly popular event simply because the crowd thoroughly enjoys it. As Mayor Gavin Newsome, one of the most forward-thinking mayors in the U.S., puts it, “Most importantly, it’s the spirit of folks who come up to you and say, ‘Why aren’t we doing this every weekend?’ It’s just been another vibrant success.”

...and a closing quote, “I think you’re seeing the city wake up to what’s been obvious to some of us, that there are so many other wonderful uses of a street. Streets aren’t limited to just a few people and cars. Streets are for people, and it’s really wonderful to get the people out in the streets playing.”

Check out the Streetfilms ‘Ciclovia’ videos for:
Portland’s Sunday Parkways
Manhattan, NY’s Summer Streets
Brooklyn, NY’s Williamsburg Walks.
Bogota, Columbia’s Ciclovia

While resources abound on who creatives are and the tremendous economic impact they have, what about how they think? What better wellspring than Psychology Today’s Ten paradoxical traits of the creative personality.

To summarize, the key personality traits have a common theme: complex, integrated, contradictory extremes, multitude, or how about bridging the line between order and chaos? In other words, creatives essentially tend to have a dual personality, but a complementary one. The ten traits, with a much more detailed analysis in the article:

1. Very energetic, yet often quiet. Think comedians. A result of focused minds.
2. Smart, and sometimes naive. Wise and childish - “a certain immaturity, both emotional and mental, can go hand in hand with deepest insights (Mozart). Versed in both convergent (problem solving) and divergent (brainstorming) thinking, such as determining which of the brainstormed ideas are any good.
3. Playful and disciplined, responsible and irresponsible. Creative thought is largely useless without hard work to make it a relevant reality, which is why many burn the midnight oil.
4. Alternate between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted sense of reality. This is possessing the ‘big picture’ or ‘vision’ of the completed idea.
5. Extroverted and introverted, which relates to trait #1, but applied to people.
6. Humble and proud. They are aware of their achievements because they’re so focused on its impact, yet at the same time are often humble because they’re so centered on their work rather than self promotion.
7. Escapes rigid gender role stereotyping. Each gender shares strengths of the other - women are more dominant and tough, men are more sensitive and less aggressive.
8. Rebellious and conservative. To ‘be different’ for the sake of being different is considered a negative motive, of which is said creative impulse has difficulty arising from. However, generating an impact within a traditional context requires risk and courage.
9. Passionate, yet objective and detached. This is similar to the previous trait, which is not getting caught up in a vacuum and falling in loving with one’s own work, but being able to step back and see if it has appeal beyond that.
10. Open and sensitive. Creative people are asking of criticism, yet deeply affected by it, and not necessarily in a negative way. This is why creatives have high standards for other ideas and manifestations as well. To quote the article:

“...the creative person may feel isolated and misunderstood. Perhaps the most difficult thing for creative individuals to bear is the sense of loss and emptiness they experience when, for some reason, they cannot work. This is especially painful when a person feels his or her creativity drying out.  Yet when a person is working in the area of his of her expertise, worries and cares fall away, replaced by a sense of bliss. Perhaps the most important quality, the one that is most consistently present in all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake.”

Which of the ten paradoxical creative personality traits best relates to you? Vote via the link below.

Thanks to Braulio Agnese of Architect magazine for the reference.

Image: Nuit Blanche mosaic, Toronto, Canada by lv- Inspiration.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what about a video explaining what coworking means to creatives? There really wasn’t any until this one came along, produced by none other than the pioneers of one of the first coworking sites in the country, the Affinity Lab in Adams Morgan, Washington DC.

Founded in 2001, the ‘Lab’ is peaking right now with a full house of entrepreneurs who rent workspaces full time and part time. They’re also one of the first to establish an online social network to complement the robust face-face interaction. They’ll soon be opening their second coworking site in the H Street district, which will be more than twice the size, and the team is also being commissioned by the City of DC to help establish other coworking sites. As stated a few times before, it’s the happy home of CoolTown Studios. Read a bit about the Lab’s history here.

A question the Affinity Lab owners would like to get your feedback on is, as they open more Labs, would you prefer having unique names for each subsequent coworking site, or using the Affinity Lab name? Vote via the link below.