Investing in third places
Progressive investors are hard at work to provide next generation communities where third places are the rule, not the exception. Here are some of the prerequisites for attracting third places:
1. Build an attractive environment for creative entrepreneurs, the very people who start third places. That’s essentially a CoolTown.
2. Make tenant space as affordable as possible. The more creative, the more risk is involved, so a little financial support is vital.
3. Have hundreds of creative people live in the area who thrive on such places. Works with #1 quite well.
4. Establish a guild of third place proprietors that provides both financial and technical support for starting and maintaining their business.
5. Require a strong percentage of local ownership over national chains in the main street.
6. Build third places outside as well. If successful, these can literally redefine a community.
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So we gather the support of visionary backers, and move on creating a cooltown — if we’re not bulldozing valuable farmland, how do we keep from participating in gentrification? And once it’s built, how do we keep the cooltown cool? Hip places to live are notoriously short-lived because the hip are notoriously fickle.
Case in point: Williamsburg (NYC).
The key is home/studio ownership, and if artists can only afford to rent, then we’ll establish a rent-to-own finance program.
To ensure a steady flow of new faces to keep the place fresh with new ideas, we’ll also work to provide artist-only rentals like at Artspace.
We’ll also promote a community-focused artists’ guild integrated with the local governance so the artists themselves help shape their own destiny.
I think that answers — in large part — the issue of hipster fickleness… but what about gentrification? These neighborhoods have history and a built-in populace… are these to be brushed aside? Ignoring the growing penchant for the soon-to-be-disposessed to be litigious, how can a cooltown justify its existence if it will only create a new class of evictees? How do the elderly, the working poor, and other marginal social groups fit into the cooltown blueprint?
I don’t mean to be accusative, Neil — not in the least — but too often urban redevelopment is just another tool for clearing out the rifraf to make room for higher rents and more sales tax revenue. Until redevelopment schemes bring the current tenancy along for the ride, I don’t think it will ever live up to its promise… and will be a boom for litigators and muckrakers.
Gentrification happens when units get priced out of the market. CoolTowns are focused on affordability and local culture. The worst scenario we’d like to see is for existing tenants to live in a much, much more desirable, safe neighborhood in exchange for a smaller unit. Also, the nicest housing in the world doesn’t mean much without jobs, and that’s really our priority #1, to build a local job base. In addition, the best CoolTown sites are under-developed or abandoned areas. Finally, it’s poor policy to concentrate poverty or wealth, diversity is the end goal here.