New Businesses Want Downtown Lofts, Not Office Parks with Parking Lots

Fickr/David Basulto

This is Pinterest's new headquarters in San Fran.  Richard Florida explains here why lots of new businesses are moving to loft spaces like this, in dense, pedestrian neighborhoods like this.

If great loft space is what a business needs, and would trade "densely populated area with amazing night life" for . . . "cheap" - then I've got some buildings I want to show you in downtown Fort Scott, KS.

Are You a Placemaker?

Volunteers from First Presbyterian re-roofing
a house in Fort Scott

An old term has taken on life as a new development buzzword: placemaking.

For smaller, un-celebrated places like Fort Scott, learning the skills of placemaking are essential for renewal, beautification, progress, and economic development.

While I'm wary of buzzwords, there were a couple of lines from the placemaking article (linked above) that make it worth a read for anyone who cares about neighborhood revitalization: