Why creatives detest suburbia

Conventional developer: “We look at what’s been financially successful and replicate it. Then we’ll customize it according to the local culture.” Sounds fair enough, until you realize the result is something like a McDonald’s in Texas marketing “Spicy Ranch” bbq sauce for their McNuggets. “Oh, but no other McD’s has it!”, they say.

This business model explains why you can’t tell one suburbia from another. Add the opinion that suburbia is ugly, and you’ve got a pretty depressing situation. The flipside is to be in a place that’s uniquely beautiful, which I can tell you, is what the market really wants.

The reason we don’t see more uniquely beautiful places being built anymore is because it’s very, very difficult to do. It means listening intensely to hundreds of individual people – collectively as a community. Many developers promise that, but you can easily call their bluff when their new built community still pretty much looks like every other, except with maybe spicier bbq sauce.

The trends indicate the inevitable arrival of a truly market-driven developer, and you can bet this site will be one of the first to document the results, not the promises.

Tomorrow: What? Only 20% of the market follow through? TBB@midnightEST

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neilkt