A blog about marketing, causes and a variety of topics in the “goodsphere”

Category Archives: Urban renewal

Marketing your hyperlocal reputation (or just being a good neighbor)

Posted on August 30, 2010 in Marketing, The Future, Urban renewal

I’ve lived in quite a few different places over the years (Switzerland, NY, Arizona, multiple locations in Germany, etc.) and everywhere I’ve been, I’ve had some pretty interesting neighbors.  In some places, it was really easy to meet people (almost too easy sometimes).  In other places, it was a bit harder.

In today’s increasingly transient world, people don’t stay in 1 place for a very long time and neighborly relationships are getting harder & harder to forge.

A few years ago, Robert Putnam warned in Bowling Alone that our stock of social capital - the very fabric of our connections with each other, has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities.   Here are some depressing/interesting factoids from the book:

  • Every ten minutes of commuting reduces all forms of social capital by 10%
  • Joining and participating in one group cuts in half your odds of dying next year
  • Watching commercial entertainment TV is the only leisure activity where doing more of it is associated with lower social capital.

Encouragingly, a new generation of peer to peer online businesses are helping connect “people to neighbors” and reverse the “Bowling Alone” trend.  The NYT recently reported on a couple of interesting new web start-ups that allow people to share/rent their stuff.  NeighborGoods, Snapgoods & sharesomesugar are clawing out niches in the “rent online” world or “access economy.”  Both sites have a very social bent and promote saving $$, resources & rebuilding local community (all good ideas in the current zombieconomy).  Oh, and ladies, please check out this one bagborroworsteal (renting high-end handbags).

I can definitely see these sites working well in college towns and cities.  It will be interesting to see if the e-borrowing concept catches traction beyond the urban areas.  Will Ebay decides to step in and offer a “rent” instead of “buy/sell” section of their site as well?

Having a great reputation helps to sell online & offline.  It always has.  Just being a good neighbor & being a little more social offline can help turn around the very depressing “bowling alone” social capital funk we’ve been in over the past few decades.

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Planning for people…Livable Streets Initiative

Posted on April 8, 2009 in Geneva, Urban renewal
GenevaImage via Wikipedia

Over the last couple of years, I have been biking to work when the weather permits.  So last week, I paid my Swiss bike tax (sounds bad, but it’s not much) and started hitting the trails. One thing that I have always loved about living in Switzerland (and Germany) is that urban street environments seem to designed more for people vs. cars.  So, I was excited to see a great new initiative called the Livable Streets Initiative from the Open Planning Project.

Really, urban streets should be more than just a place where cars & trucks dominate…urban streets can be “complete streets,” (see this article) accommodating pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders.  Livable Streets is helping citizens re-envision streets as livable public spaces.  Check out this interesting interactive diagram of how streets of the future could look.

Geneva, for example, does a great job of this…in Geneva, you have street cars, bike lanes & car lanes all co-existing together across most of the citywide transportation infrastructure.  This makes it easy for me to bike to work pretty much along the same driving route that I take normally take when the weather is bad.  Though, as a driver, I admittedly get irritated by the reduced space for cars.  This does make for a much longer commute (I guess that’s the point though, right!)

Kudos to the Open Planning Project for empowering people to get involved in transportation reform through the Livable Streets project.  Head over to their site to become a part of the movement to give back the streets to the people.

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