Thinking outside the downtown box
In a thoughtful Merc op-ed, former Assessor Larry Stone says the quiet part out loud: Entertainment Zones won't awaken DTSJ from its somnolence. Stone calls for stronger demands for in-office work. But imaginative international city planners realize those days are long gone, and it's time for a complete reimagining of downtown space. Their ideas explored, below.
Truly tiny homes
Underused or functionally obsolete commercial towers can be radically transformed into super small, highly affordable residential spaces based on micro living, pop-up, and adaptive re-use principles.
Farms in the sky
Empty office buildings and parking structures can become hyper-local "agri-hoods" with vertical farming, which is the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers in controlled indoor environments. It eliminates the need for soil by using soilless systems like hydroponics, aeroponics, or aquaponics.
The factory down the hall
Micromanufacturing is an advanced production field dedicated to fabricating complex, high-precision components with structural sizes ranging from a few micrometers to one millimeter. These microfactories
require far less space and emit lower noise and pollution, meaning that unused office buildings can be easily retrofitted for producing personalized or high-tech goods.
Read more here.
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