February 2012
127 posts
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Conservative Chickens Come Home to Roost →
The finger-pointing game is a fun one to play, but it’s a little like drugs – you have to keep taking bigger and bigger doses in order to get the same high.
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WatchJimmy Fallon, as Eddie Vedder, sings “Jeremy (Lin)”.
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What "The Wire" Has to Teach Us About Nonprofit... →
Simon puts his finger on something that many of us have observed in government and nonprofits. When performance measurement is about external accountability, priorities quickly get distorted and means (i.e., measures) become ends in themselves. This is especially common when institutions and their leaders rely on performance measures to justify their actions, defend their prerogatives, or...
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Your Start-Up Life: Advice on Work, Life, and Play →
Rana Florida interviews Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh:
Rather than work/life balance or work/life separation, we focus more on work/life integration. That’s why we encourage employees to be their true selves when they come to the office. This way, they end up forming real friendships, not just co-worker relationships.
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Choosing the United States →
The question “Where should we locate?” is more prominent in the minds of executives than it has ever been. Over the past three decades, business activities have become increasingly mobile, and more and more countries have become viable contenders for them. As a result, the number and significance of location decisions have exploded. Considerable evidence, including new data we unveil below,...
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Housing Affordability is a Supply Side Issue →
The idea that poor people should become less poor, rather than simply poor-and-equipped-with-a-subsidized-apartment is a worthy one, but I think it’s worth emphasizing that housing affordability is an issue at all points on the economic spectrum. Like almost everything in life, it’s the poor who feel the pinch most sharply, but even well-compensated new arrivals in the D.C. area...
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'Cash Mobs' Profit Locally Owned Businesses →
In a time where many small, local businesses are struggling, victims of a fallen economy, the concept is a financial relief, serving to bring communities together.
Smith said cash mobs are a chance for business owners to begin building a longer-term relationship with customers.
He also wants consumers to rethink the value of locally owned stores.
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How Inequality Begets Inequality →
No, the most striking claim is that the rest of America should care, and in particular that the shrinking middle class, the typical families whose incomes have been steadily declining since 1999, should care.
Typical families typically didn’t care about equality of outcomes because they believed in equality of opportunities, that over the years and across generations there would be a vigorous...
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The New Hipster Cities of America: Who's Emerging... →
All of a sudden, Asheville, North Carolina is on my radar:
Like Austin, Asheville is a live music Mecca featuring troves of young white men dressing like their grandfathers. But instead of finding collections of synths and Moogs strewn across the land, Asheville musicians find themselves drowning in a sea of mandolins and banjos. One can often hear hipsters comparing who has the largest upright...
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After Lemming Exodus, Manufacturers Look to U.S. →
“We, lemming-like, over the last 15 years extended our supply chains a little too far globally in the name of low cost,” said Jim McNerney, chief executive of world No. 2 planemaker Boeing. “We lost control in some cases over quality and service when we did that, we underestimated in some cases the value of our workers back here.”
Good news on the manufacturing front....
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WatchMajor League Soccer moves to the NBC Sports Network. As a fan, I’m excited by how much promotion they’re doing. I hope it helps the game - and the league - grow even further.
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Can Boomers Save the Suburbs? →
My latest:
I believe there’s also a key psychological and behaviour influence that’s being overlooked. Many seniors are going to want to stay in communities they know and are comfortable with, which is a large part of what’s behind the concept of aging in place. While that deals specifically with a senior living in his/her own home as long as possible, that familiarity extends to the...
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10 Thinkers That Executives Actually Listen To →
To make the list, the person must be known for “originality, practicality, presentation style, ability to communicate through writing, followers’ loyalty, business sense, international outlook, rigor of research, impact, and ‘the elusive guru factor.’” We’ve highlighted the top 10 names, as determined by online voting and panelists.
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How the Happiest People in the World Spend Their... →
Great post. I completely agree, and relate to most of what’s written:
Work, life, and money are intertwined intimately, and yet they’re rarely addressed together. As the traditional boundaries that used to define “work” and “life” disappear, the conventional beliefs related to money must also evolve.
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Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler: The Musical Soul of... →
If you believe, as I do, that cities are essential to any kind of sustainable future - and if you believe that commerce alone is not enough to sustain a worthwhile place (and I’ve made my view on that pretty clear recently), then look to the culture. It’s why we want to be in a particular place, other things being equal. And it will help a place’s sustainability if that culture is both strong...
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Top 10 Underrecognized Music Locations →
Denton, Texas takes the prize:
Denton is a Texas town located about 50 miles northwest of Dallas. The University of North Texas has one of the best music colleges in America. Denton has a music scene that is beginning to rival that of Austin’s. Denton has hundreds of artists in which every genre is represented. Its music scene has rapidly developed in the last decade. Indie music is the ...
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Task Force to Consider Sale of 700 TCHC... →
Done without a strategy to avoid (or accomodate) displacement of tenants, or to address the huge waiting list, this spells disaster:
“Selling off just seemed like the simplest solution, but we have an 80,000 person waiting list and this would add 2,000 more to that list,” Fletcher said. “Perhaps it is pennywise and pound foolish.”
This story adds a human face to the...
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Single Family Homes Should Be Taxed at a Higher... →
I have mixed feelings on this, but if it can be done in conjunction with other policy directives to encourage greater density (for both single-family and multi-family), I could see merit in this.
In the city’s own affordable housing study, engineers identified that given equivalent taxation (i.e., a $300,000 single-family home pays the same as $300,000 condominium units) revenue left over after...
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Astros Rebrand in 2013? History Says "Yes" →
When it comes to the Houston Astros any major change to the franchise raises questions amongst the logo and uniform community about what they’ll do branding-wise when the change happens.
The Astros have had a history of introducing entirely new looks at moments such as these. The first time they moved into a new stadium they completely changed their name, when they moved again they nearly...
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Retail on my Mind →
We’ve long valued mixed use as a social condenser. And those gathering places that grow naturally out of mixing uses produce the highest dollars per square foot in the surrounding neighbourhood – for developers, owners, and cities. Keeping mixed use viable in tough times makes for economic resilience, yet it’s harder than ever to finance.
Necessity is coming up with all sorts of interesting...
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China's New Sports Problem: Stop the Linsanity →
Mr Lin has quickly amassed a huge following among Chinese basketball fans (and this country does love basketball). This poses a bit of a conundrum for Chinese authorities for a number of reasons. The most obvious is that Mr Lin is an American who is proudly of Taiwanese descent, which would seem to complicate China’s efforts to claim him (and oh how they have tried already—on which, more...
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African Shocked to Discover Homelessness in Canada →
On a street corner, we find people wrapped in blankets and sheets of plastic, sleeping on cardboard in the cold. I am immediately moved to tears. I can barely cope sleeping inside with all the heating systems, yet people are sleeping out in the open, no heater, no bed, no “good night.” Neither my coat nor my gloves can keep out the cold, yet they live with this 24/7, not knowing when the...
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Jeremy Lin Challenges Stereotypes, as well as... →
The real blessing in disguise of Jeremy Lin schooling the NBA: It isn’t merely the notion that undrafted Harvard graduates can overcome obvious profiling by general managers and scouts over what colleges prospective point guards should play for and what they should look like.
No, it’s that maybe now that there is a bona fide American Asian star to make us see the overlooked and often covert...
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Baseball's Great Crescendo and New Beginning →
My latest:
As I get older, I realize that, like with most forms of nostalgia, baseball romanticism harkens back to a past that probably never truly existed. The game has a great past in many ways, and the tradition and history adds value and a dimension that’s lacking in sports that don’t celebrate it to the same extent, but baseball must be enjoyed for its present and future as well. I’m...
“There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical,...”
– Bruce Springsteen: ‘What was done to my country was un-American’ - guardian.co.uk (via brooklynmutt)
Fucking love Bruce.
(via gatm)
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Global Cleveland Seeks to Boost a Successful... →
This points to a competitive advantage for (reasonably priced) mid-sized cities:
Rao, a product of Cleveland Heights, pitched another prospect. He told of a place where they could afford a house with a yard, find good schools and drive somewhere without sitting for hours in traffic.
He threw in parents eager to babysit and tipped the scales. In the fall of 2010, Nikhil Rao came boomeranging...
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Jeremy Lin Makes Us All American →
As a 9-year-old son of immigrants, I was claiming Reggie and, through him, this country. Every time I imitated his explosive swing, every time I adjusted my glasses like he did, with a thrust of the chin, a touch of swagger, I imagined that my family had been American as long as the Yankees had. Such an act of imagining, in its own little way, is what any of us means when we call ourselves...
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Jeremy Lin and the New York Knicks: The Science... →
When a player comes out of nowhere, as Jeremy Lin has, it’s understandable that the casual fan or commentator will take an if-smoke-then-fire view. It’s why, when sportscasters and fans see a player hit several three-pointers in a row, they tend to attribute that performance to the hot streak. But when it comes to streakiness in major American sports, the hot streak is smoke and mirrors,...
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Edible Food Packaging is the Future, Harvard... →
US scientists have developed a food packaging technology that could eliminate the need for plastic containers, and the lead developer told FoodProductionDaily.com that it could hit the market inside 12 months.
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Packaging/Edible-food-packaging-is-the-future-Harvard-developer-claims
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Transportation Costs Made Transparent →
Great new tool that helps you figure out the transportation costs associated with a property. I hope it’s available in Canada soon.
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International Events Key to Winter Tourism, City... →
“The hate of winter is the challenge all Canadians have. We don’t learn from scratch to enjoy winter. If you look at the Norwegians, the Swedes, the Finns, they dress properly and adapt their lifestyle,” Labrie said.
“We have adopted a negative approach to winter . We have to change our mindset.”
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Food Forest →
The entire project will be built around the concept of permaculture — an ecological design system, philosophy and set of ethics and principles used to create perennial, self-sustaining landscapes and settlements that build ecological knowledge and skills in communities. The concept of a food forest is a core concept of permaculture design derived from wild food ecosystems, where land often...
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Chicago's Next Design Competition: the Millennium... →
Authors of the Millennium Reserve incorporated MAB’s creative zoning in their own vision. The Reserve’s core, transition and enterprise lands concept will be tested in an urban region with 434,000 residents, a stagnant industrial complex, and serious contamination issues. The zoning system creates a nimble set of relational components that have the capacity to address these conditions. Each...
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Year 17, MLS Must Chase All Fans →
These friends of ours who get it, the ones who wake up early on weekends to watch the English Premier League or flip on Univisión to watch Club América. The ones who fill up football stadiums when Barcelona or Manchester United come to visit. The ones who proudly sport the jerseys of their favorite European or Latin American teams.
It’s time they became MLS fans, too. Luis’ Real Madrid...
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Hiring Ex-Offenders as Part of a Workforce... →
To be clear, this is not an affirmative action policy for ex-offenders; instead it is a strategy where ex-offenders are not automatically ruled out as prospective employees given their criminal history. The offenders must show they are qualified for employment; the human resources department with the support of the Security Department then places them in positions that are appropriate for...
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Destined to Fail: Rust Belt Cities Without Rail →
By rail, I am including subways, commuter rail or light rail (tram, trolley and modern streetcar). I am not including BRT (bus rapid transit), because they use the same thoroughfares as traditional buses and automobiles. Even the sprawling cities of the south and west—like Dallas-Forth Worth, South Florida, Los Angeles, Charlotte and Salt Lake City—have learned that they cannot rely solely...
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Cleveland Rejects Plan to Turn Building into... →
An architect working on the project said that that building’s ground floor would be maintained for retail, and that housing and offices were possible on the upper floors. But plans submitted to the city focused on the parking proposal, which was limited to the second through fifth floors.
“Given the amount of investment that’s planned for Public Square, and literally all the...
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Modern City, Modern Partnerships →
Great to see leadership from two big city mayors in advocating for more resources for Canada’s cities:
The Canadian city’s relationship with provincial and federal governments has been virtually static since 1867. In one of the most urbanized countries in the world, cities receive a lower share of tax revenues than those in nearly any other developed country.
Let’s stop trying to fuel...
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Correspondent Anthony Shadid, 43, Dies in Syria →
Steve Fainaru, a former Post reporter who worked extensively with Shadid in Iraq and also won a Pulitzer for his own work, recalled himhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/correspondent-anthony-shadid-43-dies-in-syria/2012/02/16/gIQAo2NyIR_story_1.html as “the best journalist I’d ever seen — without any question.”
“He wrote poetry on deadline,” Fainaru said. “What made him so great...
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Anthony Shadid, a New York Times Reporter, Dies in... →
Jill Abramson, the executive editor, informed the newspaper’s staff Thursday evening in an e-mail. “Anthony died as he lived — determined to bear witness to the transformation sweeping the Middle East and to testify to the suffering of people caught between government oppression and opposition forces,” she wrote.
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Obama to Cities: Drop Dead - the Life and Death of... →
When Barack Obama took office, he created the first-ever White House Office of Urban Affairs, and he tapped Mr. Carrion to be his city’s czar. This was seen as the first great signal that things would be different, that the promises made by Candidate Obama, of “putting the UD back in HUD,” would be fulfilled.
“It’s symbolic, the White House Office of Urban Affairs,” said Ed Blakely, the former...