Cargo cult development

Last night I attended the very rockin’ Ignite Phoenix 4. One of the presentations was by CJ Cornell, who talked about entreprenuership and how cities hinder instead of help it. A main point in the presentation was that cities practice a form of cargo cult development, in which they try to force a Silicon-Valley-like growth explosion to happen by giving out incentives, building “reasearch parks”, etc.

I’d also been talking with Bully Bjorn about the proposed Jackson Street Entertainment District and some of the issues surrounding it’s development. It struck me during CJ’s presentation that Jackson St. and other developments like CityNorth and Westgate are another form of cargo cult development. Cities believe that they can create an entertainment “destination” by simply putting up a bunch of shiny new master planned retail, residential and office building. They miss the point that people are the heart and soul of any kind of great urban center.

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View Comments to “Cargo cult development”

andrewkfromaz 17 June 2009 at 12:35 pm #

That conclusion discounts the possibility that an entertainment destination has the potential to draw people. I certainly don’t disagree that people are what makes the development ultimately successful (or vice versa), but I think it depends on what’s there, not on how it’s built necessarily.