A cool town is truly people-driven

What makes a CoolTown unique is that the people who will actually live and work there get to be involved in its design from the very beginning. Fair huh? Typically today, a community’s stakeholders use the charrette to plan the town from the ground up. Once the project is approved by the City several months later, only then would it be marketed to future tenants, already designed.

Now, suppose a number of employers desired a main street of loft offices, or if half the residential tenants didn’t want any parking at all, or if most everyone supported a true Italian piazza**? Unfortunately, developers/municipalities won’t invest in such innovative amenities if the market demand isn’t there, and the market won’t demand them if they don’t even know they exist. It’s a vicious cycle, but we’re working on it.

**Just this Saturday I was strolling through my neighborhood when I came across a rockin’ swing dance on the neighborhood center plaza. I even discovered I knew several people, and some of us went out to dinner afterwards. So for social reasons, what if a number of future tenants wanted an outdoor ballroom (eg piazza)?

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neilkt