By: Mark Wilson
Via: Co.DESIGN

USING ALGORITHMS, A TEAM OF STUDENTS ANALYZED THE CLUSTERS OF PLACES THAT LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE FLOCK TO.

Every city is filled with different neighborhoods, but often, you won’t find these places on any map. They’re word-of-mouth zoning distinctions known only to locals. The boundaries are vague and arbitrary, based as much upon the way people eat and dress as real estate prices and income per capita.

Yet if these areas are distinctive to city culture, is there a way that we could measure them and analyze them–map them–scientifically?


A team of students (Justin Cranshaw, Raz Schwartz) and professors (Jason I. Hong and Norman Sadeh) from Carnegie Mellon’s Mobile Commerce Lab has done just that. Their research project is called Livehoods, which analyzed 18 million Foursquare check-ins to spot algorithmic relationships between the spots people frequent. “Livehoods looks at the geographic distance between venues, but also a form of ‘social distance’ that measures the degree of overlap in the people that check-in to them,” the team tells Co.Design. “For example, if the algorithm notices that the people that visit a local bar are the same people that visit a nearby restaurant, these two places will be more likely to be grouped together.”
As more and more people and places are analyzed, Livehoods clusters this data into what becomes a collection [of] distinctive neighborhoods–places filled with people who enjoy going to the same restaurants, coffee shops, and music venues. And as calculating as the approach could seem, Livehoods’ scientific basis makes it extremely valuable as a social artifact: It defines local culture without the inherent judgement that comes along with human stereotyping.


With this scientific methodology in mind, the Livehoods team cross-checked their own findings of Pittsburgh with 27 resident interviews. What they found–the full results [of] which will be shared in a paper presented this June–was “compelling evidence” neighborhoods, as Livehood algorithms had defined them, had “real social meaning to people in the city.” In other words, the digital map lined up with many residents’ own mental maps.

All of this said, Livehoods aren’t a perfect snapshot of humanity just yet. The datasets mined for the project are limited by the perspective of Foursquare users. A lot of us don’t use Foursquare (with a strong skew toward older adults, most likely). “Our technique, however, is agnostic to the specific source of the data,” the team explains, “so as we get better, less biased sources of data, we should be able to produce more accurate views of the city.”

The young researchers also fear that we may take their boundaries a bit too literally. As much as Livehoods works to clarify invisible distinctions, the team, paradoxically, points out that these distinctions are more subtle than we might expect.

“In reality, neighborhoods tend to blend into one another,” they write. In which case, may I suggest a simple UI tweak? Maybe Livehoods should be rendered in gradients.

By: Dawn Wotapka
Via: The Wall Street Journal

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.—The housing boom largely bypassed this midsize city in the Appalachian foothills, which many big developers found too small and too remote to warrant many major investments.

But missing out on the national joy ride turned out to be a double blessing for residents: Not only did the local economy dodge the foreclosure hangover that continues to dog other areas, but local and state officials instead spent the time devoting resources to lure big employers that have helped give the former manufacturing city a second act.

European Pressphoto Agency
In Chattanooga, Tenn., employees work at VW assembly plant, which got a boost from land and tax benefits.

Tax incentives and land grants totalling about $630 million were used to help attract $2 billion of investment from dozens of companies—Volkswagen AG, Amazon Fulfillment and Alstom SA—which helped to create more than 7,500 jobs and turned this once struggling town into one of the nation’s strongest local economies. The number of people employed in the region has grown in the past few years to 240,000, putting the unemployment rate at 7.6% in February, below the national rate of 8.3% that month, according to the Labor Department.

Residents “who have lived here for a long time once again have hope,” says Mayor Ron Littlefield, whose city has a population of about 170,000. “We aren’t losing our young people. We are attracting other people’s young people.”

Rising demand has boosted average home prices here by 2.3% since February 2011, at a time when prices have continued to fall in many metropolitan areas. And Chattanooga properties in some stage of foreclosure tumbled 27% from the prior year during the first quarter, compared with a 16% decline nationwide, according to RealtyTrac.

Average rents, meanwhile, grew 3.9% from the prior year in the first quarter, making it the nation’s third-largest gainer, behind San Francisco and San Jose, according to Reis Inc.

The city also is working to grow its tech scene. Since late 2010, EPB, the city-owned nonprofit power provider, has offered one gigabit-per-second Internet speeds, up to 200 times faster than the national average—to both businesses and residents. This summer, public and private partners will pay for dozens of entrepreneurial businessmen and students to come to town for several weeks to develop applications and businesses that could benefit from the high-bandwith. Locals hope the city will benefit from new business ideas.”Here is an old industrial city that now has the tools of the next generation,” Mr. Littlefield says.

Brian McCord for The Wall Street Journal
John Sweet, says sales have jumped at Niedlov’s Breadworks, his downtown bakery.

But using tax breaks, free land and other incentives to attract companies remains unpopular in many quarters. Some critics call the practice “corporate welfare” and some small-business groups argue that incentives are unfair because they often draw big out-of-town businesses rather than sustain smaller local companies.

Peter Fisher, research director at the Iowa Policy Project, says governments usually overstate the benefits of incentives, which he says are usually a bad use of taxpayer funds. The packages “end up costing a lot of money that should be going to the fundamentals of long-term economic growth, primarily education and infrastructure,” he says. Instead, “we end up focusing on these short-term, spade-turning opportunities.”

Proponents counter that incentives have become a necessary tool in economic development. “Cities need to be working with businesses, providing incentives in some fashion,” says William F. Fox, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, who has advised the state on economic development.

It seems clear the incentives have played a role in the decades-long effort to revive Chattanooga’s economy. Like many old factory towns, the city struggled to recreate its identity after its manufacturing base began disappearing in the late 1960s, leaving behind mostly pollution and despair. In 1969, CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite called Chattanooga America’s dirtiest city. “We were dying,” Mr. Littlefield recalls.

Mr. Cronkite’s remark spurred residents to action. In 1973, a group of local executives redeveloped the train station as a tourist site and hotel, calling it the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel and complex. In the 1980s, the city began to revitalize its riverfront; by the mid-1990s, the downtown boasted new museums, a theater and an aquarium.

Next, city leaders turned to wooing businesses. In the past decade, dozens of companies have received various breaks to relocate or expand in Chattanooga. The largest package so far has gone to VW, with incentives valued at $500 million in 2008 from the city, county and state that included a 30-year property-tax deferral, 1,340 acres of city and county-owned land and infrastructure, and training grants, according to the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce. The $1 billion auto plant, VW’s only one in the U.S., employs more than 2,500 workers and the German company recently announced it would hire 1,000 more this year.

Amazon, which built a facility the size of 17 football fields where customer orders are filled, was awarded a multimillion-dollar package in 2011 that includes 75 acres of former Army land adjacent to the VW site and no property tax for a decade, according to the local Chamber.

Alstom, whose new local factory makes turbines for coal, nuclear, gas and hydroelectric power plants, received a similar property-tax abatement in 2008 and help in training workers through a local college. It also received a $63 million clean-energy manufacturing tax credit from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The job growth is helping everything from retail to real estate. Last year, sales climbed 10% from the previous year at Julie Darling Donuts. Sales jumped more than 25% last year at Niedlov’s Breadworks, a bakery downtown, says owner John Sweet. And Chattanooga-based CBL & Associates Properties Inc., a publicly held mall operator, says sales at its flagship Hamilton Place mall have climbed in the “high single digits” from a year ago, while customer traffic has been up by double-digits.

Several new retailers, including cosmetics retailer Bare Escentuals and tea purveyor Teavana, have come to the market. “We have a number of inquires [from prospective tenants] that we’re trying to figure out how to satisfy,” says Chief Executive Stephen Lebovitz. “Our biggest challenge is we don’t have space.”

By: Roberta Brandes Gratz
Via: The Atlantic Cities


Unproven theories abound as to how cities with a diminished population might “shrink” their footprint to ease the financial burden of maintaining an infrastructure created to serve a larger city. By moving the few remaining residents out of the most diminished neighborhoods and into under-utilized spaces in healthy areas, the theory goes, the now-smaller city saves money, strengthens neighborhoods worth saving and prepares for a better future.

‘Unproven’ is the operative word here. History makes plain that if you plan for shrinkage, a city will continue to shrink, not grow stronger.

American cities started losing population after World War II with the creation of suburbs. “Planned Shrinkage,” no different than today’s shrinkage strategies, was New York’s solution to a South Bronx that looked like Dresden after the war and other failing neighborhoods. Fire houses, police stations, schools closed, garbage ignored, streets unrepaired. But residents citywide fought back fiercely, refused to leave, took over vacant buildings, fixed them up on their own, stuck it out with minimum city services and with mottos like “improve don’t move” set about on a sweat equity path that was the catalyst for a slow, incremental citywide rebound. Developers followed the residents’ lead. That is why New York grew again, instead of shrank.

The same pattern of regeneration took hold in small doses slowly in Savannah, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, San Antonio and more. Now, similar pockets of re-growth can be found in Buffalo, Detroit, Syracuse, Muncie, South Bend and elsewhere.

Today, one community exemplifies both the consequences and costs of shrinkage and the regeneration path of incremental but veritable re-growth.

That singular place is the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, skeptics assumed the worst. Officially, the city did not turn its back on the working-class neighborhood of the Lower Ninth, but few dollars and little energy have been expended there. Residents will tell you that there was not much in the way of city services to shrink.

A recent New York Times Magazine article, “Jungleland,” offered an exaggerated look at what’s happened since to the acres of vacant land in the once heavily populated working class neighborhood. The impression is one of an almost primeval forest taking over. The author ignored blocks of rebuilt houses and clusters of homes scattered among the overgrown lots. But he did highlight the inevitable consequences of the removal of city services: piles of broken up concrete and construction debris, discarded sofas, bags of garbage, toilets, a burnt car and lots of tires are randomly dumped, costs that are inevitable in even a semi-shrunk area. Considerable acreage is reverting to unkempt nature.

But the Lower Ninth Ward is also growing again slowly. Residents have defied expectations and expert predictions and are re-staking their claim. Emptiness still dominates the landscape once filled with homes but clusters of rebuilt houses and new construction are not hard to find. The sound of the hammer or buzzsaw is ubiquitous.

Officials too often assume shrinkage is inevitable. But do they ever inquire of the diehard hold-outs why they stay? The answers are clues to regeneration instead of assumptions of continued loss.

Last year, I asked Josephine Short Butler, 89, if she wasn’t a little nervous returning to such an empty neighborhood when her Lower Ninth home was rebuilt soon after Katrina in one of the bleakest corners of the area. She was one of the first back and the landscape then defined desolate. “Honey,” she said to me leaning forward in her chair, “when we moved here in 1948, this was farmland, the streets were paths of oyster shells and it was a 45-minute walk to church.”

Mrs. Butler came back. Her best friend and neighbor followed next door. And so did her two granddaughters who live around the block. Others followed. That corner of the neighborhood now has dozens of rebuilt homes in a few square blocks. Residents will tell you that they never received more than a minimum of city services. Yet, this 65 percent homeowner neighborhood paid plenty in taxes.

Let’s call people like Mrs. Butler “magnet residents.” Magnet residents exist in every city’s derelict neighborhoods. Often they are owners of mortgage-free homes that can’t be replicated elsewhere, or else something equally compelling is keeping them in place. Magnet residents are easier to find now in the Lower Ninth Ward than the reported wildlife, although residents will tell you they always had snakes and abandoned houses.

The Lower Ninth is growing back, much more than expected. When New York was shrinking in the 1970s, planners predicted it would shrink further; thus the need to “plan” for shrinkage.

All shrinking cities exhibited similar patterns: departure of resident population for the suburbs starting in the ‘50s and ‘60s and departure of factories and corporations either for overseas or, in the case of New Orleans, for Houston. They all lost much of their local economy. Neither New York nor New Orleans is a special case; only the particulars are different.

Top image: Josephine Short Butler’s house in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Deloitte returns as NCCDC sponsor to help support the demand for skilled cyber professionals

By: Deloitte
Via: PR Newswire

SAN ANTONIO, April 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) today announced that the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NCCDC) is returning to San Antonio for the seventh consecutive year. Sponsored by Deloitte, one of the largest professional services organizations in the United States, the three-day national championship will kick off on April 20th at the St. Anthony Hotel.

Modeled from real world scenarios and obstacles, this one-of-a-kind competition will feature the top 10 champions of the regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition from universities across the country. The national event will serve as an additional training ground for future cyber defenders. It also provides the best and brightest collegiate students an opportunity to shine on a national stage and connect with the top cyber security firms in the country.

The threat of cyber attacks targeting the United States is a serious issue at the highest levels of government. President Obama recently noted “cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” Moreover, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano recently announced that the Department of Homeland Security faces a barrage – thousands – of cyber-attacks every 45 minutes. In line with the United States’ commitment to cyber defense, Secretary of Department of Defense Leon Panetta announced in his 10-year budget forecast that cyber security is one of a few select areas that will receive additional investment and resources, even as the Department of Defense readies to scale back $487 billion in spending in other areas.

“Our nation is under constant attack from various cyber criminals, from individuals stealing personal financial information to sophisticated terrorist networks seeking to hack into our electrical grid and be a detriment to our way of life,” said General Harry Raduege, Deloitte Services LP and chairman of Deloitte’s Center for Cyber Innovation. “Our nation continues to seek out and employ the best and brightest to combat cyber crimes. Competitions such as the NCCDC help refine the skills necessary to man our new front lines.”

NCCDC provides higher education institutions with information assurance and computer security programs in a competitive environment.

“San Antonio boasts one of our nation’s largest military contingents,” said Dr. Gregory White, director, UTSA Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security. “Students who participate in these kinds of competitions are at the forefront of the war on terror. Cyber terrorism is very real. Each day, our federal government and commercial sectors are at risk. Our competition provides the necessary foundation for students to implement what they’ve learned to serve a higher calling as key defenders against cyber terrorism and maintain the security of our networks.”

The attention from government and business leaders now focused on cyber security has also brought an added benefit for those who compete in the NCCDC – job opportunities. In previous years, for those with proven skills in the field the NCCDC has fostered hundreds of employment opportunities for participants over the last six years.

About the NCCDC
The NCCDC consists of qualifying and regional events with the winners of each regional event advancing to the National Championship. The winners of the 10 regional CCDC events are: At-Large Regional: University of Alaska Fairbanks; Mid-Atlantic Regional: Towson University; Midwest Regional: St. Cloud State University; Northeast Regional: Rochester Institute of Technology; North Central Regional: University of Wyoming; Pacific Rim Regional: University of Washington; Rocky Mountain Regional: United States Air Force Academy; Southeast Regional: University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Southwest Regional: Texas A&M University; Western Regional: California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. To learn more about the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition click here.

About Deloitte Federal Government Services
Federal agencies turn to Deloitte for their most meaningful and challenging problems. With a mix of public sector experience and private sector perspective, Deloitte’s diverse capabilities across consulting, financial advisory, audit and enterprise risk, and tax services help clients address issues from many dimensions. Learn more about the Deloitte Federal U.S. Government practice

About Deloitte’s Center for Cyber Innovation
The Deloitte Center for Cyber Innovation (Center) develops cyber solutions for clients in the public and private sectors who are seeking to improve information sharing, collaboration and performance by harnessing the power of increasingly interdependent networks. Located in Arlington, Virginia, the Center helps clients plan for, execute and manage an integrated cyber business strategy to enhance operations, mitigate risks, empower personnel and strengthen customer support. Learn more about the Center.

About Deloitte’s Security & Privacy Services
Security, privacy and operational resilience are critical issues facing both public and private organizations today. Security & Privacy (S&P) services help organizations in their management of information and technology risks by delivering end-to-end solutions, using demonstrated methodologies and tools in a consistent manner. Our services help organizations address timely and pervasive issues such as identity theft, data security breaches, data leakage, cyber security and system outages across organizations of various sizes and industries, with the goal of enabling ongoing, secure and reliable operations across the enterprise. For deeper insights and new research on information security and privacy, visit our new innovation center, the Center for Security and Privacy Solutions.

As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

By: J. Katie McConnell
Via: CitiesSpeak.org

There’s been no shortage of interest and commentary about the importance of entrepreneurs and small business to the nation’s recovery. Almost daily, economists and policy wonks engage in a seemingly never-ending discussion on what the “right” businesses are to create jobs. And while these conversations have utility and value, they have not produced many actionable strategies for cities where entrepreneurs and small businesses actually exist. In response, NLC released Supporting Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses: A Tool Kit for Local Leaders.

Almost universally, city leaders understand the value of all shapes and sizes of entrepreneurs and small businesses. These businesses create jobs, employ local residents, and help define a community’s sense of place. What is often unclear, however, is how city leaders can foster an environment that encourages entrepreneurs and small businesses.

The tool kit profiles efforts in cities of all sizes to support entrepreneurship and small businesses. These efforts range from knowledge focused in Boston’s Innovation District, governance focused in Seattle, Wash., export focused in Wichita, Kan., or regulatory focused in Rockhill, S.C.

The tool kit’s core message is that cities need to look to the things they can actually control. This includes providing a supportive political leadership; channels of communication between business and government; and reasonable, transparent regulations with accessible interfaces.

Additionally, given the shaky track record of some government-led entrepreneurship efforts, as cities strive to provide more sophisticated services to spur entrepreneurship, partnerships with necessary expertise are essential along with sufficient levels of resources and realistic expectations and time-frames.

It is our hope that this new tool kit shines additional light on the role that local government plays in business development and helps city leaders create a more supportive environment for their local entrepreneurs and small businesses. To download Supporting Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses: A Tool Kit for Local Leaders, click here.

By: Chuck Raasch
Via: USA Today

For the right price, you can own what is billed as America’s smallest town — Buford, Wyo., pop. 1. The minimum bid of $100,000 in Thursday’s national auction wouldn’t buy you a townhouse in many cities.

By Michael Smith, Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP
Don Sammons is Buford’s sole resident and will sell the town by auction.

Whoever buys the 10 acres of commerce and history, owner Don Sammons says, “I just hope their dream continues to keep Buford moving in the 21st century.”

Sammons and auctioneers are unsure what Buford will bring, but there is interest. Amy Bates, senior vice president at Williams & Williams, the Oklahoma-based auction house offering the property, says people from more than 70 countries have checked the listing on the company’s website.

Williams & Williams markets Buford as a “unique opportunity” to “own your own income-producing town.” The auction will be at noon MT at 2 Sammons Lane in Buford, illustrating how naming streets after yourself is a perk of owning your own town. Online bidders who register by noon CT Wednesday can participate at www.auctionnetwork.com.

Buford isn’t the only town for sale.

Pray, Mont., pop. 8 people and 12 dogs, in a picturesque valley 30 miles north of Yellowstone National Park‘s only year-round entrance, was listed for $1.4 million last month. The town, which includes a trailer park, owner Barbara Walker’s photography studio, abandoned historic buildings and an all-important post office, was once moved and twice bypassed by railroads or highways.

The town’s neighbors include actors Jeff Bridges, Dennis Quaid and Peter Fonda.

“This town has no ordinances, no covenants, no restrictions,” says Walker, 52, whose late husband’s family bought Pray in 1953. “You could put a hog farm on it. You could put an artist colony.”

Her town is named for a late congressman, not the act on bended knee, although Walker says one interested party is a church attracted to the idea of a summer camp in a town called Pray.

Last fall, a Filipino church, Iglesia Ni Cristo, bought the mostly abandoned town of Scenic, S.D., near the Badlands. The Rapid CityJournal reported the sale price was $700,000.

If not a trend, town sales are certainly “history coming full circle,” says Patty Limerick, an author and historian and chair of the University of Colorado’s Center of the American West. She notes that many Western town sites were laid out by speculators trying to judge railroad routes. Now, she says, a “new form of commerce” is playing out in the sales of towns long bypassed by road or rail.

Buford is not among the bypassed, though.

The town’s new owner will get a trading post, gas station and a post office with their own ZIP code — 82052 — on an exit off Interstate 80 that Sammons says pulls 1,000-1,500 visitors a day in the summer. People stop all day and into the night, he says, to get pictures in front of what he claims is among the most photographed signs in the world.

Buford’s new owner will get this trading post, gas station and a post office with their own ZIP code.

At about 8,000 feet above sea level, Buford is the highest-elevated town on I-80 from “the Golden Gate to the George Washington” bridges, Sammons says.

Buford, 125 miles northwest of Denver, was named for Civil War Gen. John Buford, whose decision to hold high ground early in the battle of Gettysburg was key to the Union victory. Buford was founded four years later, in 1867, by workers building the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad, and once swelled to a couple of thousand people. Butch Cassidy and President Ulysses S. Grant passed through.

Sammons, 61, has lived in Buford since 1980 and owned the town since 1992. He is working on a book about the most interesting passersby. The St. Louis native moved his family to Buford in 1980. His wife died, and he has lived alone since the population was cut in half when his son, Jonathan, left about seven years ago.

Don Sammons, headed for semi-retirement, is proud of his urban renewal. He remodeled the one-room school as an office, rebuilt the trading post after a lightning-induced fire burned it down and got the state to erect the town sign. State transportation officials did turn him down on a request that the sign say “Buford — Population Don and Jon.”

When his son moved away, Don Sammons says it took a year to change that sign to, “Pop. 1.” The new owner may have to get it changed again.