On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Tim Erickson wrote:
I worry that "urban enthusiasts," myself among them, might be somewhat out of touch with the financial realities of developing a site like Lexington and University. I have lots of ideas for how the site should look, but the fact is - I've got really no clue about what will actually "work."
Tim, I'm going to go backwards on what you and I and all us other "urban enthusiasts" believe for just a moment. Bear with me. :-)
Whatever is built on this site affects you in many ways. One that is very important is this -- you should be a CUSTOMER of whatever goes in there. I saw a study long, long ago that said that people spend like 60% of disposable income withing 5 miles of where they live, 10% within 5 of where they work, and 30% regionally. You and your neighbors should, reasonably, make up a majority of the income such a place would generate.
Now, if there's one thing any decent business will crave it's customer feedback. How are you going to make money if you don't offer a product or service people want? And so, when you make an investment as big as this site will require, can there be anything more valuable than to have direct input on the needs of a majority of customers?
A smart devloper would use you, have you send out questionaires for them (for free) and really get piles and pile of info on you -- aggregate income, as well as taste. Now, I realize that this never happens, and I speculated it's because nearly everyone at that level is either too lazy or too much of a control freak to actually make use of the valuable resources they have. But whatever.
I think your job is to point out this point, and let them know that you intend to be a customer of whatever is put there. Get to know your 'hood's aggregate income. Do even more of their job for them, because it turns out it's in everyone's interest.
Naturally, it would be better if they weren't all lazy or stuck up snots about this, but it is still very true that a long term capital investment of that size that close to you is inherenly a partnership. That some people refuse to realize this is a subject we've gone on about for a long time, but it's irrelevant. They're just wrong, and we need ways of letting them know that.
We need to let them know that they are, in fact, about to be partners whether they like it or not. Odds are, they'll start to like it if you do it right.
Erik Hare [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.comcast.net/~wabbitoid/ Irvine Park, West End, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, North America, Earth
Fine Amish furniture, cedar chests, and crafts http://www.harmonycedar.com
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