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How might we restore vibrancy in cities and regions facing economic decline? Read the challenge brief

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vacant spaces

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Vacant spaces needed!

For many industries or ventures vacant spaces can be of great use. This concept proposes the creation of a sort of real-estate-like database for musicians, film makers, artists, educators or business companies. Film makers (or fashion producers, photographers...), for instance, could see their job made easier on the repérage (location scouting) stage if they’re looking for vacant houses, factories, etc. to act as scenarios for their movies. This could attract film makers to many cities and it could give publicity to each city. Another approach could be for the venues of business fairs. Companies invest a lot of money in their stands and instead of using a congress centre for a fair, the cities could make vacant spaces available for construction fairs to take place. This way the construction business companies could redirect their investment from ephemeral stands to real buildings. For starting music groups, these vacant spaces could be really great for them to make concerts at a low price.

It could boost local ephemeral business, educational or artistic initiatives, while having the chance to, in some cases, restore some of the vacant spaces.

What resources (money, time, people, technology, etc) will your concept need to be successful?

Cities would need to get involved by creating this sort of real-estate platform and to pre-approve initiatives at selected vacant spaces.
The creation of a website would be ideal and photographers would be needed to find and take pictures of vacant spaces available.

What steps could you take to implement this idea today?

Start collecting pictures and information about vacant spaces in each town.

How can your idea be scaled so that it's implemented in cities around the world?

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carlo lanfranco

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December 14, 2011, 01:52AM
Sufficient space allocations are essential to economic development. For this reason, I strongly believe that space allocation should be considered an essential infrastructure created in part by local governments. An even better method would include long term tenant ownership transfer -rent to own- from governments to tenants. While social housing has attempted this by realizing that housing could be considered a fundamental right, and therefore an urban infrastructure, the lack of rent to own component has created longterm problems with social(ized) housing models. San Francisco, my hometown is emblematic of this problem. Economic development is held hostage by the land owners who artificial limit available space. Don't believe me, check out Market street. The most important street in San Francisco, and a majority of it held hostage by landlords who make more money off rental insurance than by making the space available at subsequent (with larger supply) non-inflated market rates
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Meena Kadri

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December 12, 2011, 11:59PM
Interesting start, Ana. We're anticipating discussions to flourish here and your ideas to evolve. You can make updates to your entry at any time using the Update Entry button up there on the right. Here's an example of how built up ideas can get over the course of a challenge: http://www.openideo.com/open/localfood/winners-announced/public-kitchen/ Let's bring on the builds and spell out the specifics!
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Ana Correia de Barros's reply to carlo lanfranco's comment

Ana Correia de Barros

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December 13, 2011, 03:04AM
Hey, Meena! Thank you for the tip to check out the Public kitchen example.
I would sure appreciate new ideas for this concept to grow.
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