"Urbanists: A New Subculture?"

[warwickland]

I found this interesting post on café l'urbanité

most of it is about starting a business, but there is a kernel of an idea here someone might find interesting.



"WARNING: long post but you may find it worth your while.

I've been writing and reading on the skyscraperpage.com forum (haven't posted there on a regular basis in a long time) and this forum since Summer of 2000. Since that relatively short period of time an internet subculture of urbanists discussing, writing and photographing cities has seem to explode. As late as early 2002 there was only this forum, skyscraperpage, cyburbia and maybe a couple of other forums focused on discussing cities. Now there are dozens of increasingly large internet forums discussing cities that are focusing on narrower and narrower topics. Case in point, and what made me start this thread, was this KCskyscraper forum that I just came across tonight:

www.kcskyscrapers.com/kcforum/index.php

It's rather mindboggling that, as the time I write this at almost 1:00 AM, there are 96 guests and 31 registered members on line at that moment on a forum that is focused exlusively on a fairly small city (EDIT: I just realized those statistics, after looking at it agian, was for the entire day, not at that moment. There are about 15 people on that forum at the same time). This is just one example of which there are dozens.

There are also some massive forums, all of which seemed to be offshoots of Dylan Leblancs skyscraperpage forum, that are utterly massive in size, with worldwide followings and that have far surpassed Dylan's forum that they first spawned from. Take a look at this one:

www.skyscrapercity.com/

This forum has 500,000 posts, in 27,700 threads, from 6,000 members with 94 people online at that moment. The majority of the forum is international as far as I can tell.

Initially, only Chris Dewolf and maybe a handful of others went around exploring cities photographing them. Now there are hundreds that do it all of the time that write on these forums. On the skyscraperpage forum there are tons of posts every day with city pictures from all sorts of different people. Some people seem to engage in this hobby all the time, like a part time job.

Initially on the skyscraper forum, people only talked about skyscrapers or had "versus" threads where people compared how many Fortune 500 companies cities have and how big the airports were. The only exceptions at the time were a handful of people like Szabla, Dewolf, Boland (wonder why he never comes to this forum anymore) and myself who were more interested in the finer and more relevant points of urban life like the aesthetics, character, history, quality of life and urbanity of cities and the economic, cultural and political forces that shape them; the type of issues that Jane Jacobs wrote about. Now almost everyone on all of these forums, including many of the same people that enaged in endless fact wars, recognize and discuss these finer points.

All of this leads me to believe that urbanism as a lifestyle, hobby, and subculture is becoming a widespread phenomenon. The growth of this has been exponential, nothing short of remarkable. It may still not register a blip on the overall American cultural landscape, but that is bound to change before long too. Remember none of this existed 5 years ago. You had maybe a small amount of urban planners and academics interested in urban issues, but their scope to interact with each other and spread interest to others was limited without the internet.

As an entreprenuer always on the scout, I recognize a profitable market opportunity when I see it. I believe I can capitalize on this phenomenon while promoting something I believe in and enjoy it in the process. My current business and website that sells Magic cards (www.smedlock.com), though it is becoming decently profitable, has grown stale. I only had an interest in Magic when I was 15 and only started that business when I was 18 because I intended to make money off of it, and it was better than my alternatives at the time as a collegeless kid. For the past year I've been looking for the a new business to start, something that is bigger, better and more challenging than Magic cards, but something that I would also enjoy. I've had the idea of starting a city website for some time as a hobby, but I never viewed it as a profitable business opportunity, until now that is.

When I get back from my trip to South America, I'm going to have web designers build this website. With this website I'm going to have hundreds of cities from around the world, all of which will have many photos that I will get through travelling, each of which will have urban form and architectural descriptions, mass transit info, detailed histories, economic and business analysis, articles, news, links, travel information and extensive statistics. It will in short be a giant database of cities that will be an extremely useful resource to all types of people from tourists, to academics, to businessmen and to just about everyone else. Nothing even close to this exists on the internet. Right now only bits and pieces of this type of information scattered all over the web, if it exists at all. Furthermore this type of information is very difficult if not impossible to find, like searching any city on Google and getting 50 straight pages of sites trying to sell hotel rooms or flights.

I think that I could build this site over the course of the next year or two. Before I ever thought of this I had planned on spending atleast half of the next year to 18 months travelling around the world while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Now I can use this time travelling to extensively photograph and write about nearly every major city in the world that will be used for the website. The other half of the year, the time between trips, will be spent building the site, researching, accumulating information, writing and putting everything together.

I'm not the best writer (can't even consistenly use commas correctly) or photographer (don't even know how to take night pictures), though I can take classes for both. All of the historical and economic information will not be the best researched, documented or accurate given time constraints and the massive amount of information involved. I don't even know how to build a webpage (will have to pay someone to do that). All of this means that the site will have a lot of flaws to begin with, nevertheless, it still be an incredible site and the flaws can be shored later if the site becomes successful. I feel I can accomplish this in a short period of time, without having to spend much money, and without significantly altering my lifestyle (travelling, urban exploring, reading, researching and writing about cities are all things I do in my free time anyways).

Once this site is built, how will it be profitable? I think that if I were to build a site of this magnitude, with just a modest amount of guerrila marketing through forums and link exchanges, a massive amount of traffic will shortly follow. On the internet large amounts of traffic equates to money whether through advertising, subscription services, affiliates, retailing products directly, other innovative models, or some combination of those. The only significant overhead to start would be server costs.

If the site were to become really profitable I could see it becoming a large media organization publishing books and magazines, and paying people to travel all over the world to write, take photos and accumulate information. Anything is possible as the site could go in any direction.

What does all of this sound like to you? Crazy? Brilliant? Delusional? If you've read this far, whatever your opinion, please share.

Although I could probably do it, and I will if I have to, I'd rather not do this project alone. I have some people I know personally that I'm going to contact, but if anyone here is interested in collaborating with me on this project, in any capacity whatsoever, please conact me at shannon@smedlock.com, or respond here on the thread, and we can talk about it. I'm interested in any and all ideas, suggestions and propositions."

http://p196.ezboard.com/fcafeurbanitefr ... =618.topic

[midtown guy]

Intriguing thoughts...and probably right on.

The great thing about the internet is that it can bring even a relatively small kernal of people together that have a common interest together and allows them to connect to each other.  Not 8 years ago, even if there were 25 people who wanted to discuss cities and urban environments, it would have taken a small miracle for them to even meet.  Now, there can be 8 people in the entire world who have died their poodles purple and they can find each other online and form a group.  These interests have always existed, and they exist in every facit of society and interest groups....they are just now finding each other.  It's very interesting to watch how it's changed how we communicate, make friends and get information.

[Tosspot]

Warwickland, you were snooping through the old Ezboard of urbanphoto.net weren't you?

Interestingly, that very post you copied is how I found this site, because I posted there before I ever got around to finding this site. Imagine my elation when I clicked that link and saw this site.

[beccanator]

Along with this growing interest in urbanism among private citizens- I believe people are beginning to see that we can no longer turn our backs on our cities, either for energy and resource issues, quality of life, etc.- there seems to be an ever growing interest by planning and architectural firms, even real estate and construction firms, in similar ventures to reinvest in cities. They pride themselves in their progressive thinking- possibly because they know they are doing the right thing, but also because they know that's what their clients (or potential clients) want to hear. Some local Kansas City firms, heavily involved in the shift to a new kind of urbanism, that come to mind include: Zimmer Companies, Berkebile Nelson Immenschuh MCDowell (BNIM) Architects, Gastiner Walker Harden Architects (GWHA), McCown Gordon Construction LLP and various architectural organizations, AIA, ASLA, APA.

It is exciting to witness such a shift in people's "Einstellung" towards cities.

[warwickland]

Along with this growing interest in urbanism among private citizens- I believe people are beginning to see that we can no longer turn our backs on our cities, either for energy and resource issues, quality of life, etc.- there seems to be an ever growing interest by planning and architectural firms, even real estate and construction firms, in similar ventures to reinvest in cities. They pride themselves in their progressive thinking- possibly because they know they are doing the right thing, but also because they know that's what their clients (or potential clients) want to hear. Some local Kansas City firms, heavily involved in the shift to a new kind of urbanism, that come to mind include: Zimmer Companies, Berkebile Nelson Immenschuh MCDowell (BNIM) Architects, Gastiner Walker Harden Architects (GWHA), McCown Gordon Construction LLP and various architectural organizations, AIA, ASLA, APA.

It is exciting to witness such a shift in people's "Einstellung" towards cities.

huh 

[beccanator]

huh 

jeeze.

The beginning of your excerpt at the top of the page includes a short commentary on the increased interest of Americans in all things "urban", reflected by the increase of online skyscrapers forums. An increased interest in urbanism, to me, does not simply mean that people have all-of-a-sudden discovered cities, but rather that they are becoming more interested in issues (social, environmental, economic) that surround cities and that make them exciting. Similarly, this interest is reflected in business practices. Google some of the firms I mentioned, it may help clarify my comment.

[Marreekarr]

Twenty - thirty years ago most of the biggest cities that had skylines with a lot of skyscrapers in them were right here in the US.  Now big skylines are all over the world as economies have grown.

Studies by the UN and others indicate that the world's population is becoming more urban and less rural.  Especially China.

What more do you want?  If your gut instinct is telling you to do it then go for it.

[beccanator]

huh 

Hold on, I'm confused. Was that an expression of puzzlement (i.e. "Huh?")? A Walt Bodine "well, what d'you know about that" kind of "huh"? A "huh" of affirmation? Or a "huh" of indifference?

[warwickland]

Hold on, I'm confused. Was that an expression of puzzlement (i.e. "Huh?")? A Walt Bodine "well, what d'you know about that" kind of "huh"? A "huh" of affirmation? Or a "huh" of indifference?

walt bodine style.

have you been drinking coffee? 

[beccanator]

walt bodine style.

Ah, I see. Cool.

have you been drinking coffee? 

Yes, quite a lot, actually. Can't.......stop......