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Strange article. The article is trying to say something about collaboration and then somehow leaps to cities being good for collaboration. This claim is made d

by lmg643 12y ago

Strange article. The article is trying to say something about collaboration and then somehow leaps to cities being good for collaboration. This claim is made despite abundant evidence that the greatest tech innovations in Silicon Valley did not occur in the city, but the much more mundane suburbs and universities. This trend has largely continued because cities are poor environments for "innovation" - higher cost of living, less space for tinkering and equipment, and lower "neighborly" sentiment which is required for collaboration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone

kaonashi 12y ago
> … cities … lower "neighborly" sentiment which is required for collaboration I've found this to be the opposite in comparing cities to suburbs. If you're referring to the tech startups that created silicon valley, and why they started where they started, you really can't ignore the subsidized land granted through the university system.
- alexqgb 12y ago
  The point Jane Jacobs makes about innovation and cities is that old buildings are essential. Basically, you need clusters of places with cheap rent. If all the real estate is new and shiny and impressive and nice, it's only going to be available to businesses that are already firing on all cylinders. And that's great for them, for a while. But the other point she makes is that nothing lasts forever. The conditions that make a business work will eventually change, and in most cases, the kinds of business that worked well at one time won't be able to adapt to another. They'll just go away. If the city in which this constant drama is playing out has a decent stock of old buildings, there's a good chance that there will be another generation of businesses that are better attuned to the times who are ready to move into the high-rent districts. But if a city falls prey to short-term thinking and allows all its cheap neighborhoods to be gobbled up by rapacious developers, it's going to find itself driving off a cliff in terms of long range economic viability. In agricultural terms, getting rid of cheap rents is like eating your seed stock. In more vivid terms, it's like setting your house on fire to stay warm in the winter.

by lmg643 12y ago

kaonashi 12y ago

> … cities … lower "neighborly" sentiment which is required for collaboration I've found this to be the opposite in comparing cities to suburbs. If you're referring to the tech startups that created silicon valley, and why they started where they started, you really can't ignore the subsidized land granted through the university system.

alexqgb 12y ago
The point Jane Jacobs makes about innovation and cities is that old buildings are essential. Basically, you need clusters of places with cheap rent. If all the real estate is new and shiny and impressive and nice, it's only going to be available to businesses that are already firing on all cylinders. And that's great for them, for a while. But the other point she makes is that nothing lasts forever. The conditions that make a business work will eventually change, and in most cases, the kinds of business that worked well at one time won't be able to adapt to another. They'll just go away. If the city in which this constant drama is playing out has a decent stock of old buildings, there's a good chance that there will be another generation of businesses that are better attuned to the times who are ready to move into the high-rent districts. But if a city falls prey to short-term thinking and allows all its cheap neighborhoods to be gobbled up by rapacious developers, it's going to find itself driving off a cliff in terms of long range economic viability. In agricultural terms, getting rid of cheap rents is like eating your seed stock. In more vivid terms, it's like setting your house on fire to stay warm in the winter.