(2011-09-27) Hsieh Vegas Downtown Project

Back in Dec'2010 Tony Hsieh launched a plan to move the Zappos' HQ from the Suburb-s to the non-strip "DownTown" Las Vegas (Fremont East), taking over the to-be-vacated City Hall.

Now Hsieh wants to build a Las Vegas Downtown Project as a whole magnet, including a tech Incubator and a Charter School.

Buster Benson assembles some interesting links.

James Howard Kunstler is not a fan of Vegas. And its isolation from Food Supply and Clean Water make it a poor candidate for Resilient Community.

Oct26: Venkatesh Rao, local resident, ponders the new Company Town. Can you have the lower costs and lifestyle advantages of smaller cities and suburbs, while retaining the cultural vibrancy and stimulation of larger urban centers? There are really only three solutions, represented by Google, Meetup and Zappos respectively. You could attempt to create the right environment within a large campus, located sufficiently far away from the main urban hub so that it is relatively cheap (Google), you could suck it up and compete for the Hipster talent that is willing to pay the costs of Big City life and limit your growth (MeetUp), or you could attempt to swallow a likely cheaper location whole, and catalyze the emergence of the neo-urban scene you need for your workforce (Zappos).