Now that Tony Hsieh has made his fortune via Zappos, he's apparently becoming an urban planner. The Times had a fascinating profile two weeks ago, chronicling Hsieh's "Downtown Project," in which he's relocating Zappos' headquarters to downtown Las Vegas and becoming the neighborhood's largest real estate developer and business investor. He's leased Las Vegas' old City Hall, bought 15 buildings, started 16 new construction developments, and in exchange for investing in start-up companies, he's requiring that the companies and their founders relocate to downtown Las Vegas. The story is full of the conceptual ideas that make an "innovation district" (but are missing from many cities' actual attempts to create such districts): the "serendipitous interactions" that happen because of urban density; the flexibility of space to be personal and professional; a belief in place-making; betting on youth and imagination; "return on community."
Hsieh clearly believes in cities and their power as economic engines, and I'll never complain with that. But as Jane Jacobs would quickly point out, cities derive their power from their amalgamated layers. They function as resilient, vibrant places because they juxtapose people and activities. One way this happens is through numerous champions, investors, and property owners. As much as Hsieh loves downtown Las Vegas and as much as I want him to do well, he's the only one there (or so the Times makes it seem, aside from the very poor, another complicated factor). Places with one developer tend to be uniform, no matter how hard they try and even if they're large places that have different building types. (See University Park in Cambridge for another sort-of-tech-driven example of this phenomenon.) Hsieh has located his utopian vision within Las Vegas' urban setting, but it's still a utopian vision, a place apart, when cities are supposed to be flowing currents.
The greater question is, Why isn't the City of Las Vegas creating any strategies or policies that encourage more progressive-minded investors like Hsieh to invest in downtown? Such an approach would create the energy, commitment, and balance that would make an experiment like this endure. I suppose the answer is easy: Las Vegas is committed only to tourism and casinos, which, as much as MGM Resorts International would like you think otherwise with its City Center project, are antithetical to urbanism. Which leads me to wonder why Hsieh didn't choose another city in which to locate his ambition. It would automatically have had a far better chance of succeeding.
Hsieh clearly believes in cities and their power as economic engines, and I'll never complain with that. But as Jane Jacobs would quickly point out, cities derive their power from their amalgamated layers. They function as resilient, vibrant places because they juxtapose people and activities. One way this happens is through numerous champions, investors, and property owners. As much as Hsieh loves downtown Las Vegas and as much as I want him to do well, he's the only one there (or so the Times makes it seem, aside from the very poor, another complicated factor). Places with one developer tend to be uniform, no matter how hard they try and even if they're large places that have different building types. (See University Park in Cambridge for another sort-of-tech-driven example of this phenomenon.) Hsieh has located his utopian vision within Las Vegas' urban setting, but it's still a utopian vision, a place apart, when cities are supposed to be flowing currents.
The greater question is, Why isn't the City of Las Vegas creating any strategies or policies that encourage more progressive-minded investors like Hsieh to invest in downtown? Such an approach would create the energy, commitment, and balance that would make an experiment like this endure. I suppose the answer is easy: Las Vegas is committed only to tourism and casinos, which, as much as MGM Resorts International would like you think otherwise with its City Center project, are antithetical to urbanism. Which leads me to wonder why Hsieh didn't choose another city in which to locate his ambition. It would automatically have had a far better chance of succeeding.
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