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Janine Shea

How the Experts Would Fix Cities (part 1) - Businessweek - 0 views

  • What role are public-private partnerships going to have in funding development in cities? Is that just happy talk or is there reality to it? Hsu-Chen: It’s very real talk. And we’re getting smarter and better at it. Right now a lot of the incentives the city offers are around getting the right density at transit nodes. Kate and I worked together on a project just a couple years ago—Kate in the private sector, I in the public—to deliver a new state-of-the-art skyscraper right across the street from Pennsylvania Station.
  • The world has become increasingly urban—more than 50 percent of the globe’s population now live in cities. How can we make them more sustainable, efficient, and prosperous?
  • We don’t have a strong central government. We have a federal system.
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  • In Europe you have a strong central government that can come in and work with the private sector to deliver something locally. Here it’s up to the municipalities to figure out how to use those public-private partnerships at the local level to deliver the types of benefits that Edith was talking about.
    • Janine Shea
       
      Work with cities and investors to facilitate public-private partnerships at the LOCAL LEVEL
    • Janine Shea
       
      Corroborates Richard Florida's research - Rise of the Creative Class
  • Generally, cities are very good at talking to each other. Mayors talk to mayors. City officials talk to city officials. The lessons that are starting to really take root are that there’s safety in numbers.
  • We’ve also gravitated toward the idea that economic development is really the result of creating a city where people want to live. It’s the attraction of human capital. If you can attract highly educated people from other parts of the country and keep your own best and brightest, chances are the job creators are going to be successful. And people no longer chase jobs. Jobs chase people.
  • At a time when some technologists talk about telecommuting, what makes you so sure that cities will continue to grow at the kind of pace that we’re talking about? Hoornweg: Well, people want to be with other people. Entrepreneurs want to be with other entrepreneurs. The idea that they could live anywhere is very much available to them. But they’re not choosing to.Ascher: It’s not just on a neighborhood level. It’s also on a business level. You want to interact with your business counterparts face to face. The physicality of a city is still so important.
  • What kind of people are going to live in these cities that will be growing so quickly the next couple decades? Will retirees want to be in them? Families? Or will they have to flee because they won’t be able to afford them? Hoornweg: All of the above. With good city management, a city is attractive to everybody. There are really interesting studies coming out of the Santa Fe institution that basically say that if there were no externalities for traffic or whatever, the human population would like to live in one city, because we really like being with each other.
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    Corroborates 'Rise of the Creative Class'!   Public-private partnerships at the LOCAL level
Janine Shea

Why scaling up sustainable urban growth is critical for the planet | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

    • Janine Shea
       
      Love this quote
  • “We cannot apply the same approach for both.”
  • As UTC’s Sisson put it, “When we see cities stepping up and making policies and strategies in support of energy efficiency, that is a clear signal to us.” He also pointed out that city visions can vary dramatically, so it’s important to understand their objectives.
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  • Like other transactional aspects of sustainability, most notably supply chain issues, getting the incentives right allows for greater transparency, better decision-making, and more “sustainable” sustainability solutions.
  • NGOs and civil society organizations can develop credible standards, decipher local issues, and create the environment that supports sustainable urban growth.
  • Business can deploy systems that address real social and environmental challenges — along with the partnership of government and civil society
  • Government policies can create income distribution, economic and social mobility, the right incentives for the private sector to invest, space for truly engaged discussion, and a commitment to longer-term sustainability strategies.
  • City-focused initiatives, lead by NGOs and the private sector, are drawing more attention to the clear opportunities, but the results are still lagging behind the pace of the growing challenges. While innovation is important for developing sustainability solutions, technologies and infrastructure systems that will help achieve sustainable growth already exist. Companies that provide infrastructure systems and components for energy, buildings, and transportation, must push fast-forward to deploy these technologies faster. They can start by collectively understanding the challenges and the role that each stakeholder sector can play in support of sustainable growth:
  • At BSR, we know that when business engages stakeholders proactively, the insights gained will lead to more informed decision-making, more valuable collaboration, and more inspired business models. The challenges are large, but the quiet and unstoppable megatrends are larger. The sooner meaningful engagement is at the forefront of the sustainable urban infrastructure agenda, the sooner we can hit fast-forward and have a chance at truly sustainable growth.
  • Per capita economic activity increases 10 percent with every 5-percentage-point increase in urban population.
  • Just like in corporations, setting goals and having a vision proves to be an essential start for cities that want to engage business. The WBCSD Urban Infrastructure Initiative (UII)
  • “Cities are looking at sustainability as their strategy,”
  • The global infrastructure and technology firm Siemens also entered the fray with its Green City Index, which ranks more than 120 global cities on a variety of environmental dimensions. Cities at the bottom have the greatest opportunities, and the ones at the top have the most lessons to offer
  • “I talk to cities about their strategy and goals just like I would with a company. City CSOs are making the same decisions as companies and have very similar challenges with internal engagement.
  • Matthew Lynch, the project lead, said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “The companies in the UII are engaging collaboratively with cities upstream in the planning process, demonstrating the value of the early involvement of business and showing how a multisector group of leading companies can help cities find integrated solutions to interconnected challenges,”
  • encourage the idea that it was business, not just individual companies working with cities.
  • The WBCSD expects that companies will use the landscape reports to refine their own approaches to working with these cities, targeting specific challenges and opportunities.
  • Kate Brass, GE Energy’s ecomagination program manager, said there’s a “need for better coordination and understanding among governments, industries, and NGOs so that cities holistically plan for and build the infrastructure of tomorrow rather than create an infrastructure of mismatched components and potentially stranded assets."
Janine Shea

WBCSD - World Business Council for Sustainable Development - 0 views

  • The WBCSD's Urban Infrastructure Initiative (UII) brings together a diverse group of companies: ACCIONA, AECOM, AGC, CEMEX, EDF, GDF SUEZ, Honda, Nissan, Philips, Siemens, TNT, Toyota and UTC. The UII Co-chairs are CEMEX, GDF SUEZ, Schneider Electric and Siemens; WBCSD is also actively involved as Co-chair. These companies from sectors including energy, buildings, materials, transport, engineering, water, equipment, and support services are collaborating to help urban authorities develop realistic, practical and cost-effective sustainability action plans. The project draws on the expertise of individual companies who already work with urban planners and engineers to provide services and solutions to sustainability challenges in cities.
  • For cities, the case for action is compelling: A sustainable city is more competitive and offers its citizens better lives. It uses resources more efficiently, thrives economically, and creates an inclusive community. For companies, the case for action is also compelling:  the urban market offers companies the opportunity to provide systems solutions, products and services in support of sustainable development in cities (buildings, energy, infrastructure, waste collection and recycling, etc.)
  • Each city faces different challenges. Tailor-made solutions are required, as challenges and opportunities vary from country to country and city to city. Some cities can capitalize on expanding populations. Others need to deal with aging and declining numbers. City governments must therefore find systemic solutions to address the interlinked social and environmental challenges and create the right framework conditions to make them competitive in order to attract investments.
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  • Working with authorities in key cities, the UII will help create action plans and translate their defined issues into landscape solutions for sustainable urban development.
  • The initiative is currently in the process of identifying the cities which will participate in the UII project.
Janine Shea

The Challenges of Living Large: Scaling Up Sustainable Urban Growth | BSR Insight | BSR - 0 views

    • Janine Shea
       
      Get city departments talking to each other - breaking out of their silos! More accessible ways to communicate with each other - CASUAL, i.e. social network
  • Just like in corporations, setting goals and having a vision proves to be an essential start for cities that want to engage business.
  • Matthew Lynch, the project lead, said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “
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  • The companies in the UII are engaging collaboratively with cities upstream in the planning process, demonstrating the value of the early involvement of business and showing how a multisector group of leading companies can help cities find integrated solutions to interconnected challenges,” he said.
  • The “solution landscape” presents a menu of potential options for cities to address their key sustainability challenges. Lynch said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “Business adds value by being involved in the beginning, looking at the big plan, and looking at the issues landscape and challenges,” he said. WBCSD decided to work with multiple companies as opposed to a more ad hoc engagement to encourage the idea that it was business, not just individual companies working with cities.
  • The WBCSD expects that companies will use the landscape reports to refine their own approaches to working with these cities, targeting specific challenges and opportunities.
  • One significant challenge with deploying sustainable infrastructure solutions in cities is the vastly different time cycles used by business and government.
  • “Our experience is that building trust is critical.
  • there’s a “need for better coordination and understanding among governments, industries, and NGOs so that cities holistically plan for and build the infrastructure of tomorrow rather than create an infrastructure of mismatched components and potentially stranded assets.
  • “The aging population is the fastest-growing cohort, yet most of our cities are designed by men for young men in commerce,” he noted. How will women, children, and the elderly thrive in those cities?
  • At BSR, we know that when business engages stakeholders proactively, the insights gained will lead to more informed decision-making, more valuable collaboration, and more inspired business models.
  • The sooner meaningful engagement is at the forefront of the sustainable urban infrastructure agenda, the sooner we can hit fast-forward and have a chance at truly sustainable growth.
Janine Shea

european smart cities - Why smart cites? - 0 views

  • cities in Europe face the challenge of combining competitiveness and sustainable urban development simultaneously.
  • This project, however, does not deal with the leading European metropolises but with medium-sized cities and their perspectives for development. Even though the vast majority of the urban population lives in such cities, the main focus of urban research tends to be on the ‘global’ metropolises. As a result, the challenges of medium-sized cities, which can be rather different, remain unexplored to a certain degree
  • Medium-sized cities, which have to cope with competition of the larger metropolises on corresponding issues, appear to be less well equipped in terms of critical mass, resources and organizing capacity.
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  • specific aims focused on shareholder interests
Janine Shea

A Chicago Park Learns from New York's High Line - Next City - 0 views

  • corporations like Boeing and Exelon have added $12 million in donations.
    • Janine Shea
       
      CORPORATE DONATIONS
  • The High Line has reportedly spurred more than $2 billion in area investment. Though it cost the city $112 million, the park is expected to bring in an estimated $900 million in additional tax revenues over two decades.
  • already New York City’s second-most popular attraction, pulling in nearly 4.5 million visitors in 2012, and ranks among the most influential public works projects of the past half-century, altering our thinking about public space and urban revival.
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  • Funded by a $467,000 grant from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Trust for Public Land
  • Parks are suddenly big business.
  • d Friends of the High Line,
  • reliance on non-municipal funding
  • property values along the park doubled within two years.
  • Since the city rezoned the area in 2005 to encourage development, nearly 30 new building projects have accounted for more than $2 billion in private investment, adding some 12,000 jobs, 2,500 residential units, 1,000 hotel rooms and nearly half a million square feet of new office and gallery space
  • Aping the High Line, then, is not merely about sustainable reuse or new park construction. It’s about sparking investment and increasing a city’s ability to attract new residents.
  • “Cities have really become aware that they are competing with each other for the businesses and well-educated mobile citizens that make cities work,”
  • choose green, walkable cities with great neighborhoods, great parks, good cultural institutions. I think the reason cities are investing in these opportunities is that they are really trying to position themselves to attract these people.”
Janine Shea

How the Experts Would Fix Cities (part 2) - 0 views

  • What role are public-private partnerships going to have in funding development in cities? Is that just happy talk or is there reality to it? Hsu-Chen: It’s very real talk. And we’re getting smarter and better at it. Right now a lot of the incentives the city offers are around getting the right density at transit nodes. Kate and I worked together on a project just a couple years ago—Kate in the private sector, I in the public—to deliver a new state-of-the-art skyscraper right across the street from Pennsylvania Station.
  • In Europe you have a strong central government that can come in and work with the private sector to deliver something locally. Here it’s up to the municipalities to figure out how to use those public-private partnerships at the local level to deliver the types of benefits that Edith was talking about.
    • Janine Shea
       
      Facilitate public-private partnerships at the LOCAL LEVEL
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  • At a time when some technologists talk about telecommuting, what makes you so sure that cities will continue to grow at the kind of pace that we’re talking about? Hoornweg: Well, people want to be with other people. Entrepreneurs want to be with other entrepreneurs. The idea that they could live anywhere is very much available to them. But they’re not choosing to.Ascher: It’s not just on a neighborhood level. It’s also on a business level. You want to interact with your business counterparts face to face. The physicality of a city is still so important.
Janine Shea

Top Five Most Sustainable Cities in the World - ecomagination - 0 views

  • “Why do we do all this?” former Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a 2008 interview. “Because it’s the right thing to do. We’re consistently among the top travel destinations in the world. We think people are attracted to the values of this city.”
  • “There is no endeavor more noble than the attempt to achieve a collective dream. When a city accepts as a mandate its quality of life; when it respects the people who live in it; when it respects the environment; when it prepares for future generations, the people share the responsibility for that mandate, and this shared cause is the only way to achieve that collective dream.”
Janine Shea

Creative class - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • It is composed of scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and architects, and also includes "people in design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or creative content”
    • Janine Shea
       
      Customer segmentation variables
    • Janine Shea
       
      Demographic - Occupation, Education, Location, Income, Social class Psychographic (LIFESTYLE) - Activities, Interests, Opinions (AIO Survey), Values, Attitudes Behavioral (towards PRODUCTS) - Benefits sought, Usage rate, Brand loyalty, Readiness to buy
  • Employers see creativity as a channel for self-expression and job satisfaction in their employees. About 38.3 million Americans and 30 percent of the American workforce identify themselves with the Creative Class.
  • cities which attract and retain creative residents prosper, while those that do not stagnate. This research has gained traction in the business community, as well as among politicians and urban planners. Florida and other Creative Class theorists have been invited to meetings of the National Conference of Mayors and numerous economic development committees, such the Denver mayor's Task Force on Creative Spaces and Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm's Cool Cities Initiative.[1]
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  • members of the Creative Class value meritocracy, diversity and individuality, and look for these characteristics when they relocat
  • For a city to attract the Creative Class, he argues, it must possess "the three 'T's": Talent (a highly talented/educated/skilled population), Tolerance (a diverse community, which has a 'live and let live' ethos), and Technology (the technological infrastructure necessary to fuel an entrepreneurial culture)
  • “the Creative Class share of the workforce; innovation, measured as patents per capita; high tech industry, using the Milken Institute's widely accepted Tech Pole Index…; and diversity, measured by the Gay Index, a reasonable proxy for an area’s openness"
  • Creative workers are looking for cultural, social, and technological climates in which they feel they can best "be themselves".
  • active participation in a variety of experiential activities.
  • Street Level Culture
  • hard to draw the line between participant and observer, or between creativity and its creators”
  • interest in being participants and not spectators
    • Janine Shea
       
      Don't be a tourist. Find the local in you.
  • Super-Creative Core: This group comprises about 12 percent of all U.S. jobs. It includes a wide range of occupations (e.g. science, engineering, education, computer programming, research), with arts, design, and media workers forming a small subset. Florida considers those belonging to this group to “fully engage in the creative process” (2002, p. 69). The Super-Creative Core is considered innovative, creating commercial products and consumer goods. The primary job function of its members is to be creative and innovative. “Along with problem solving, their work may entail problem finding”
  • 40 million workers—30 percent of the U.S. workforce
  • knowledge-based workers
  • Florida argues that the Creative Class is socially relevant because of its members' ability to spur regional economic growth through innovation (2002).
  • these usually require a high degree of formal education
Janine Shea

From Poverty to Power by Duncan Green » Blog Archive » Can Cities build local... - 0 views

  • local and city governments play an increasingly influential role.
  • ‘A ‘local developmental state’ model appears to have emerged in many of the most successful countries and regions, most notably in post-war northern Italy, Southern Germany and in several Scandinavian countries…. The core idea is that sub-national levels of government can, and should, be pro-active in building the institutional and organisational infrastructures required for growth-ori¬ented micro-, small and medium enterprises to emerge and succeed.’
  • They are also at a scale where it is much easier for relatively small organizations to engage at the city level
Janine Shea

Buick Underwrites MSN Travel Show 'Re - Discover' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • While it resembles conventional travel shows, the series turns out to be a vehicle for, appropriately enough, a vehicle. “Re: Discover” is underwritten by Buick
  • Some New York episodes, for example, feature Karen Washington, a community activist who has been instrumental in the urban farming effort to turn empty lots into community gardens.
  • Buick models, particularly the Regal, appear only incidentally in the videos, as in product placement deals in television shows or movies. Specifically, participants drive from one establishment or attraction to another in Buicks, but never mention the brand.
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  • ensuring the cars were in the storytelling
  • the series is aiming for something more subtle: instilling in viewers an affinity for Buick.
  • “Buick is enabling the entire experience
  • Russ Axelrod
  • senior brand strategist
  • “If I’m a consumer coming to the site, the underlying message is that Buick gets me, that they understand what I like on a content basis, and if they understand what I like on a content basis maybe they’ll understand me on a vehicle basis.”
  • It is no coincidence that the brand is, through the series, encouraging a fresh look at cities at the same time its ads encourage a fresh look at its cars.
  • “Buick is sort of trying to reinvent itself in the eyes of the consumer,”
  • Cities are reinvigorating themselves and being discovered in a new way, whether it’s Miami or L.A. or New York, and that’s what Buick is trying to get across as well.”
  • Buick has been the company’s fastest growing brand
  • “We talked about Detroit, and we love Detroit, but it’s not in the original batch of cities because we do quite well there as it is,” said Mr. Casmon of Buick. “Los Angeles, Miami, New York — in some of those markets we don’t have as strong a position, and we’re hoping to reintroduce the Buick brand to that audience, especially those who drive imports who are not familiar with Buick right now.”
Janine Shea

creative class struggle - 0 views

    • Janine Shea
       
      Serve the Creative Class and the cities looking to attract them, but through SUSTAINABLE development so you don't create these mutually exclusive, inequitable scenarios that are not only morally conflicting with our values & brand ideal but also potentially obstructive to our business goals
  • Creative People? Collaborative Spaces? Innovative Places? According to the event’s website – politicians, private consultants, architects, community development advocates, culture workers, and public space activists are meeting to plan the future of urban policy.
  • Hamilton Joins the Fight Against the Creative City!
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  • Check out the great new flyer from Hamiltonians Against Neighborhood Displacement (HAND) about how creative city policies are causing displacement in Hamilton, Ontario.  If you are interested in contacting them please let us know.
Janine Shea

CreateDetroit - 0 views

  • "We're going to make this a fun place to live. We are going to somehow create the 'Austin lifestyle.'
  • That's just not what drives a city now. What drives a city we know increasingly are good places to live, great neighborhoods, great cafes, night life, places to have fun.
  • The thing is, with places like Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and some of the Sunbelt cities in a different way, is that they don't want to change. The creative people are either unempowered or the institutional structure that exists disempowers them.
Janine Shea

Project for Public Spaces | What is Placemaking? - 0 views

  • “’Placemaking’ is both an overarching idea and a hands-on tool for improving a neighborhood, city or region. It has the potential to be one of the most transformative ideas of this century.”
  • Placemaking is both a process and a philosophy
  • his process is essential–even sacred–to people who truly care about the places in their lives.
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  • parks, downtowns, waterfronts, plazas, neighborhoods, streets, markets, campuses and public buildings
  • unite people around a larger vision for a particular place
  • Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations. This information is then used to create a common vision for that place. The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale, do-able improvements that can immediately bring benefits to public spaces and the people who use them.
  • Unfortunately the way our communities are built today has become so institutionalized that community stakeholders seldom have a chance to voice ideas and aspirations about the places they inhabit.
  • Experience has shown us that when developers and planners welcome as much grassroots involvement as possible, they spare themselves a lot of headaches.
  • underperforming development projects can be avoided by embracing the Placemaking perspective that views a place in its entirety, rather than zeroing in on isolated fragments of the whole.
  • guidelines that help communities integrate diverse opinions into a vision, then translate that vision into a plan and program of uses, and finally see that the plan is properly implemented.
  • designing cities that catered to people,
  • perpetuate the community-driven, bottom-up approach that Placemaking describes.
  • Placemaking Grows into an International Movement
Janine Shea

10 Best Cities for the Next Decade - Kiplinger - 0 views

  • And it's no coincidence that economic vitality and livability go hand in hand. Creativity in music, arts and culture, plus neighborhoods and recreational facilities that rank high for "coolness," attract like-minded professionals who go on to cultivate a region's business scene.
Janine Shea

My Beautiful City: An Architect in Austin: Places: Design Observer - 0 views

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    "Barton Springs. [Photo by Wally Gobetz]"
Janine Shea

The art of place-making · Urban Design Forum - 0 views

  • connected to many other movements - like new urbanism, slow city, slow food, and eco-cities.
  • it is genuine engagement and connectedness with individual community members - to a point where they themselves become place-makers of their own making.
  • It is about creating a culture of participatory and grassroots democracy where the community has direct ownership of the processes and outcomes. This is a huge difference from our current engagement and planning framework, which does the opposite.
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  • The results of this are people having the tendency to linger in a beautiful and comfortable environment, and businesses see the benefits of people staying longer which helps to sustain the local economy
  • Beautiful and meaningful places and spaces create an intransient value to the locality and a sense of pride to the community.
  • Place-making provides a way of seeing the world through a more sustainable filter, and provides a platform to make the necessary changes and move towards sustainable lifestyles and behaviours.
  • culture to one that nourishes life and nurtures communities
  • It is a return to the local and the re-localisation of our economies and communities. Our task is to build resilient places and communities that can easily adapt to the many challenges and imminent changes.
  • We all know and gravitate towards such places, and yet we keep building ‘empty’ places with little or no sense of ‘spirit of place’. Some would blame globalisation and consumerism on the demise of local communities
  • Enlightened developers and councils have utilised the new place-making tools to deliver such environments: Rouse Hill Town Centre in northwest Sydney, Flinders Lane (Degreaves/Centre Way) and Victoria Market in Melbourne epitomize the power of place-making.
Janine Shea

New York's Zany Floating Pool Will Test 10 Potential Locations - Dive-Ins - Curbed NY - 0 views

  • June 23, 2015
  • five years
  • celebrity endorsements.
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  • fundraising efforts
  • swimmable water
  • a feasibility study to assess 10 specific locations across the city where the eventual pool might live.
  • Archie Lee Coates
  • We're analyzing the technical and structural feasibility of various sites in the harbor to understand where exactly is the best place for + POOL. After this testing, we'll be finishing site-specific final designs so we can hand them off to the city, apply for permits, build this thing and finally all swim in the river together.
  • +Pool has some environmental lawyers on the case, pro bon
Janine Shea

Richard Florida - The Atlantic Cities - 0 views

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