Portland is one of the most-praised cities in contemporary America. But is the hype real? To some extent, it actually understates the case. Portland didn't invent bicycles, density or light rail -- but it understood the future implications of them for America's smaller cities first, and put that knowledge to use before anyone else. The longest journey begins with a step, but you have to take it. Nobody else did. In an era where most American cities went one direction, Portland went another, either capturing or even creating the zeitgeist of … [Read more...]
Archives for June 2011
Employment Challenges Facing Smaller City Downtowns
I recently wrote about the return of jobs to downtown in large tier one cities like Chicago. There are a number of factors driving this: the rise of the "global city", the locational advantage of downtown for commuters, the significant rise in central city residency for professionals, etc. This has enabled the central cores of cities like New York to remain extremely strong even if in some sense they are losing job share to the suburbs or even outright losing jobs (as in Chicago). Smaller cities, which I define as anyone below those tier one … [Read more...]
Resolving the Paradox of Success
In a previous posting on innovation, I talked about how coming up with innovative new ideas is surprisingly easy. It is actually trying to do them that is hard. I pointed out many of the structural barriers to this, most of which lie in the realm of organizational dynamics. One of the problems is what I call the “paradox of success”. That is, it is harder for someone, be it an individual or company, to do something new and different to the extent that what they are currently doing is already successful. This actually seems, like the … [Read more...]