6 Slightly Harder, More Expensive Things Ann Arbor Could do to Build a Better City(See my post on “Five Easy Things”) 1) Plow (some) sidewalksUnder current Ann Arbor law, the property owner is responsible for clearing snow from the sidewalk on their property. While this might make sense for lightly-traveled residential neighborhoods, in a dense […]
Next March, Dr. Richard Florida (the author of the book that is popularizing “creative class” economic development theory) will be leading a “Regional Transformation Process” for the Detroit area. The corporation-heavy, top-down event seeks to create One Giant Master Plan, since that has worked so well for Detroit in the past. They’ve launched a website: […]
Here’s Ypsi blogger Mark Maynard’s take on all this cool cities madness: ” … The secret, it seems to me, is to find places with the right demographics, proximity to cultural events, and yet affordable space. Right now is a good time for Ypsi. There’s a lot of energy, as is evidenced by JenniferÂ’s hip […]
While I’m sure you’ll hear plenty from me about today’s cool cities conference, here’s some media: > Michigan Radio discusses Ypsilanti and “cool cities” (via Steve) I also heard that there was an NPR piece with Richard Florida and Governor Granholm that “talked about Ann Arbor a lot,” I haven’t located it anywhere on the […]
I’ll be spending today at the “Creating Cool” conference held as part of the Governor’s statewide cool cities initiative. The keynote speaker will be Richard Florida, who is behind this whole fixation with “coolness.” I’m sure the conference will be a bunch of urban hipsters mixing with state politicians telling them to get liberal and […]
I think my fellow cool cities task force member Eugene Chan is on to something: “Chan says what makes Ann Arbor’s college scene cool is the blending of ages. “It is actually integrated,” Chan said. “Look at any coffee shop. StarBucks on State Street. It is these students studying. You can see residents talking about […]
“The Midland-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy questions whether a state-government-led effort can produce cool cities. Michael LaFaive, the center’s director of fiscal policy, says cool developments, such as the SoHo area of New York, succeeded because they “flew below the radar screens of control-seeking bureaucrats, politically connected developers and local zoning bureaucracies.” LaFaive argues […]