Aaron M. Renn

All Things Aaron

Tony Hsieh and the Las Vegas Downtown Project

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The Downtown Project in Las Vegas, an attempt to completely reinvent downtown Las Vegas spearheaded by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, is one of the better known downtown revitalization initiatives in America. I've been planning to write on it since I saw Tony speak about it in Providence last fall. I was kicked in the pants to finally do so by a trip I took to Vegas last week to check the Downtown Project out. Before going any further, I should disclose that I stayed there for free in one of the project's "crash pad" apartments (more on those … [Read more...]

Chicago’s Daley Deals

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Politics + Projects = Planning......And The Deal Beyond Daley Chicago has trouble beating its rap portrayed in the popular media these days. So do the Daleys. Three books give a balanced description of what The Daley Years got done, focusing on the son’s service as Mayor from 1989 to 2011. By reviewing these books in context, this essay suggests that two key tasks in completing Chicago’s transformation -- revitalized poorer neighborhoods and improved transit -- requires sacrifice from taxpayers and a new deal. Richard M. Daley was raised … [Read more...]

Milwaukee’s Future as Part of Greater Chicagoland

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Last summer I was invited to speak at a conference called "Milwaukee's Future in the Chicago Megacity" put on by the Marquette University School of Law and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It was an interesting day of conversation about mega-regional integration between the two metros. In follow-up, Marquette Lawyer magazine asked me to write a piece for them about it. I'm including the full text of that article below. However, the current issue of the magazine has a couple of other major articles on the same topic. These are "Thinking and … [Read more...]

Worcester v. Providence: Is Downtown Revitalization the Sum of Urban Revitalization? by Stephen Eide

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Worcester, MA and Providence, RI invite comparison for at least four reasons. They’re the same size (pop. ~180,000), they share the same history of deindustrialization and urban decline, they’re only 40 miles apart, and they’re different, which makes comparison stimulating and worthwhile. By most any fiscal or economic measure, Worcester outperforms Providence. But because of the so-called Renaissance, the revitalization of downtown Providence throughout the 1980s and 90s, Providence has attracted far more attention among urbanists and the … [Read more...]

Parallel Societies

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This post originally ran on November 11, 2009. Until recently I had an apartment in the Fountain Square neighborhood of Indianapolis. Fountain Square is a small commercial node surrounded by houses on the near southeast side of the city that has long been my favorite 'hood in the city. I've been hanging out in the area for over 15 years. Fountain Square was a sort of lower working class neighborhood. The South Side of Indianapolis is notably more Southern in character than the north. In fact, some have said that Washington St. (or I-70) … [Read more...]

No Parking, No Problem

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[ Here's a rarity. It's one from the archives that I wrote way back in 1997. There are a lot of anachronisms in it, but it is still very relevant. Also, this should not be considered overly specific to Indianapolis, because the thinking is pervasive, though thankfully improving in a lot of places - Aaron. ] It is almost considered a truism in Indianapolis that one of the biggest obstacles to getting people to come downtown to shop, see the sights, etc. is a lack of free, convenient parking. People driving in from the suburbs are forced to … [Read more...]

The Power of Corporate Logos in Branding Cities

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Rolls-Royce Logo on Building in Downtown Indianapolis. Photo courtesy Gary Glover.While driving up and down Boston's Route 128, I've often noticed the various tech company logos that adorn the office buildings - Oracle, SAP, Adobe, etc. Interestingly, most of the ones that catch my eye aren't Boston area based companies. Yet the presence of these blue-chip tech names on the buildings reinforces in my mind that Boston is a tech center. I had a similar thing happen when I was in Indy last fall. Rolls-Royce - which actually manufactures … [Read more...]

Are You a Consumer or a Producer?

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Cities like New York offer a nearly unlimited range of pastimes, diversions, and consumption activities. If you want to have a good meal, see a top notch arts performance, shop, etc., this is the place for you. You can get more quantity of quality in the world's biggest cities than you can anywhere else. The question I often ask though, is whether most of the people living there and partaking of what the city has to offer in fact are part of helping to create those things apart from spending money on them. While anyone with a job or who does … [Read more...]

The Strategic Case for Mass Transit in Indianapolis

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Andrea Neal had a column in the Indianapolis Star last week called "Mass transit just isn't a good fit for Indy." This piece argues, basically, that because Indianapolis is low density, transit won't work there. Let me first say that I agree Indy is low density and transit is not something that's needed to address a serious, near term transport issue, save for the embarrassing state of the basic bus network. However, for a place like Indianapolis, the real case for transit is strategic. In a nutshell, the urban core of Indianapolis is … [Read more...]

Mumbai Is a Beautiful City

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[ Rameshwari Takle is an Indian native who came to the US to study architecture at IIT. She was kind enough to write this piece for us about Mumbai, Indian, where she previously lived - Aaron. ] Photo Credit: Flickr/Dey“Mumbai is a beautiful city, but a terrible place” ~ Architect Charles CorreaAfter having lived in Mumbai for almost 8 years, I completely agree with the above statement. How much ever ironic it sounds, the city of Mumbai is extremely beautiful in its own essence, yet it is a terrible place to live. It is a city of extremes. … [Read more...]