{"id":2089,"date":"2011-11-09T21:44:21","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T02:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/?p=2089"},"modified":"2011-11-09T21:44:21","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T02:44:21","slug":"innovative-re-use-along-the-low-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/2011\/11\/09\/innovative-re-use-along-the-low-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovative re-use along the low road"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Screencap from Bundled, Buried, and Behind Closed Doors<\/p><\/div>\n

Assorted (and tangentially related) links:<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Stephen Smith also digs into<\/a> Eric Colbert (see my previous post here<\/a>):<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure I agree with her parenthetical about DC\u2019s \u201chistoric fabric\u201d being \u201cso strong already\u201d \u2013 in fact, I\u2019m hard-pressed to think of a newer city on the Northeast Corridor than Washington \u2013 but she\u2019s definitely right that that\u2019s what Washingtonians, even the not-so-native ones, think of their city. Of-right development \u2013 that is, building within the zoning code in a way that does not trigger a subjective review \u2013 is on the wane everywhere in America, but in DC it\u2019s even rarer, and therefore personal relationships like the ones Eric Colbert has (\u201can ANC 2B commissioner, who had worked with Colbert on previous projects, introduced him with affection\u201d) are even more important than usual when compared to good design.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A few points. A) I’m not sure why Stephen associates the strength of a city’s fabric with age – DC’s fabric has the advantage of being largely intact.\u00a0 B) Stephen more explicitly states the same thesis – that Colbert’s architecture is ‘boring,’ and boring is, by association, bad design.\u00a0 I would disagree that fabric is boring – on the contrary, fabric is essential. C) It’s a mistake to conflate the countable and objective measures of development (square footage, height, density, etc) with more subjective measures like ‘good design.’\u00a0 Stephen conflates two key elements here – development by right, and design<\/em> by right. The regulatory structures and processes that govern both are quite different.<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong> Cities are all about context. Atlantic Cities discusses a review of San Francisco<\/a> by John King, from iconic buildings to more mundane (boring?) elements of the urban fabric.<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> Mammoth links<\/a> to another Atlantic piece, discussing “Low Road” buildings<\/a> and their importance in urban economics, innovation, and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

The startup lore says that many companies were founded in garages, attics, and warehouses. Once word got around, companies started copying the formula. They stuck stylized cube farms into faux warehouses and figured that would work. The coolness of these operations would help them look cool and retain employees. Keep scaling that idea up and you get Apple’s ultrahip mega headquarters, which is part spaceship and part Apple Store<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But as Stewart Brand argued in his pathbreaking essay, “‘Nobody Cares What You Do in There’: The Low Road,” it’s not hip buildings that foster creativity but crappy ones.<\/p>\n

“Low Road buildings are low-visibility, low-rent, no-style, high-turnover,” Brand wrote. “Most of the world’s work is done in Low Road buildings, and even in rich societies the most inventive creativity, especially youthful creativity, will be found in Low Road buildings taking full advantage of the license to try things.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Being on the low road isn’t exactly the same as being a part of the fabric – the price point and the prominence don’t always correlate – but the concept is somewhat similar.\u00a0 These spaces are easy to adapt and reuse. Not just easy, but cheap.<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong> Where Stewart Brand discusses the space of innovation, Ryan Avent has another<\/a> (follow-up<\/a>) piece on the geography of innovation:<\/p>\n

I think that the authors have basically gotten the state of innovation right: we are approaching a critical point at which impressive progress in information technology becomes explosive progress. And I think that the authors are right that the extent to which we are able to take advantage of these technological developments will hinge on how successful America\u2019s tinkerers<\/a> are at experimenting with new business models and turning them into new businesses. But I also think that there is a critical geographic component to that process of experimentation and entrepreneurship and, as I wrote in my book<\/a>, I think we are systematically constraining the operation of that component.<\/p>\n

High housing costs constitute a substantial regulatory tax burden on residence in many high productivity areas. These are the places where the tinkerers are having their ongoing innovative conversation. But if the tinkerers are driven away, the conversation loses depth and breadth, and we lose many of the combinations that might go on to be the next big company \u2014 the next big employer. That, to me, is a very worrying idea.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

5.<\/strong> When considering both the versatility of space as well as the institutional and infrastructural momentum (as well as touching on the importance of information technology), Mammoth also links<\/a> to a short documentary of the infrastructure of the internet: Bundled, Buried, and Behind Closed Doors<\/a>:<\/p>\n