How to establish your own beta community

There’s a key neighborhood street block in your downtown that could be the catalyst and benchmark for inspired urban design and investment to attract the next generation of downtown residents and tenants. Is there a way then, that these emerging populations in your could city get together to design and develop their own neighborhood, buildings, workplaces, third places and homes at attainable prices? They can via a beta community (evolved from crowdsourcing), a progressive community of future tenants that work with willing developers and investors to do just that.

Here are the key components in establishing a beta community in your town:

– Motivated residents – It all starts with the demand. When the residents become an organized group working together to establish a collective vision, they become a beta community.
– The forward-thinking developer – Someone needs to actually understand and be passionate about implementing this vision, of course, along with the investment capital.
– An agreement If a developer hasn’t signed an agreement to work with the beta community to implement their vision, then the effort is largely being wasted. In exchange for the developer reducing risk, unsold inventory, marketing costs and realtor costs, the beta community deserves something like a 10% pre-sales discount on homes and permanent ‘founding member’ status (ie 10% discount) with participating restaurants/bars/stores that open as a result. Not uncommon at all.
– A leader (eg CoolTown Studios) – Someone’s going to have to organize these next gen residents into forming the beta community, securing a partnering developer, and drafting the agreement.

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neilkt