Yule Heibel's Library tagged entrepeneurialism →  View Popular, Search in Google

Fantastic article by Kay Hymowitz on Brooklyn, NY: history, economics, gentrification, and the importance of land use zoning. Must-read.
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Walentas’s prescience—and patience—put him in an unusual position. Like many successful developers, he was able to make a lot of money: space in the buildings he bought for $6 per square foot now sometimes sells for $1,000 per square foot. But unlike other developers, Walentas owned so much of a neighborhood that he could play God. Also, since he was making so much money from the properties overall, he could give rent breaks to commercial tenants that he viewed as desirable—for instance, upscale retailers like West Elm, the modern-furniture outlet, and Jacques Torres, a high-end chocolatier—while refusing chains like Duane Reade, which, he felt, set the wrong, down-market tone.
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city_journal kay_hymowitz brooklyn nyc urbanism urban_renewal entrepeneurialism

This is part 2 of what will be a 3 part series, written by Wes Regan. Regan gives an excellent close reading of Vancouver's position and potential as a high tech center. In particular, I was startled to see government (which we have in Victoria) described as a player (or breeding ground) similar to a big corporate employer. Never before had I imagined that Vancouver might benefit from being a government town. At the same time, imagine what could be if the provincial seat left Victoria and moved to Vancouver... Things would not look pretty for Victoria. On the other hand, it's also interesting to see how many similarities there are between Victoria and Vancouver when you count up the handicaps - except that in Victoria they're compounded by sparse density and an even greater "splendid isolation" (can't beat that island status, especially as we don't have a bridge).
QUOTE
"This is the 2nd post in a series of 3 that look at Vancouver’s position relative to other major centres of innovation and development. In it I draw from the perspectives of experts at Vancouver’s economic think tank the VEDC (Vancouver Economic Development Commission) and from a growing software development and internet marketing firm based in Yaletown, Thirdi. The first installment looked at availability of office space and inter-city economic competition as factors in firm location. Today we look at the broader implications of our business climate as it relates to our overall geography."
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techvibes wes_regan vancouver entrepeneurialism

Saw this in Boris Mann's FriendFeed (via his Google Reader bookmarks). Comment on Jason Mendelson of Foundry Group (which "funds primarily light-weight, inexpensive software startups") giving a talk in Ann Arbor. The push-back in the comment interesting insofar as it points to 2.0-bubble-ism and over-eagerness to build on clouds as opposed to "real things." But then again, one could ask, what are the real things? Isn't information real, too?

boulder ann_arbor entrepeneurialism web2.0 economic_development jason_mendelson

I watched this video a couple of days ago (via PSFK's Twitter feed), and loved the emphases brought to light by the interviews.

- Entrepreneurs liked the density of the city -- the ability to encounter colleagues by chance, run into folks, rub shoulders;
- Some talked about liking the "small" aspects of San Francisco: that there isn't *so* much going on to distract one's attention from the tasks (work) at hand

I thought that latter point was kind of intriguing, something to remember when someone once again goes off on how it's such a bad thing that *this* isn't as happening a place as NYC or <snort> Toronto.

entrepeneurialism psfk cities san_francisco socialnetworks