Placemaking, wooder ice & bikes in your bi-weekly feed 🚲

EDITION 17 / WEEK 34

About 80 million of us let out a collective four-year exhale last Saturday, and with the election technically behind us, attentions turn to systemic issues that remain, including our voting tech. Additionally, the holidays are in full swing and looming over the largest spending quarter of the year are the on-going effects of the pandemic. Life won’t ever go back to what it was before, however there’s hope on the horizon — and some really good things happening around the country. Learn what to do for your district’s retailers and shoppers, getting by on bikes and a hearty helpin’ of scrapple and wooder ice for “youz guyz”. If you don’t know what those are, read on – or give us a shout. Josh is happy to set you straight on any Philly jawn.

– Your Bright Brothers Team

As autumn settles in and temperatures drop, your district’s struggling eateries are going to be hard-pressed to put “butts in seats” at all those adorable parklets and streeteries that popped up over the summer. While these have been a dire lifeline to restaurants in recent months, you’re going to need to help warm winter’s onset for hospitality merchants this holiday.

Unwrap easy to implement tips from our November Trends Report and find inspired ideas including branded blankets and family meals, QR codes and coordinating shopping reservations with food and drink, and experiential upsells of alcohol and dessert. This month’s report has actionable advice to engage everyone from your entire district on down to a single seller. Read it today!

No matter what kind of street-level business you manage, you want more foot traffic. But that traffic has to get to-and-from your district somehow, and cars aren’t always the answer. We loved reading about the recent Complete Streets approach adopted by Downtown Tulsa that deployed a smart multimodal plan, including community input to reimagine their streets. Downtown Tulsa now boasts even more two-way streets, beloved bike lanes (with up to 10 miles coming online) and access by community segments that consciously or not, don’t own a vehicle. Brian Kurtz, the Executive Director of the Downtown Coordinating Council was quoted as saying, “We have a number of small businesses that have helped build downtown into what it is today, in addition to our entertainment venues and destinations…and we want to make it easier and more manageable for people to access those businesses and to experience them for themselves.” We love to see it!

Photo credit: Michelle Pollard/Tulsa People

The recent 2020 election was the first U.S. presidential election when voters were able to cast their ballots via their smartphones? And why not? The technology exists. We can send encrypted data, sexy pics and tax forms electronically. We can safely send and receive money, even transfer sensitive portable health records between providers. Several states and municipalities have been offering costly alternatives for voters who can’t physically get out to the polls, and vetting new tech like Voatz is making mobile voting a reality. Naturally there are security concerns to be countered, and it was too late to shoehorn in a solution like this for Trump v. Biden. However Brazil is piloting this for anyone who opts in for this month’s municipal election, and broader adoption is expected for the 2028 U.S. election and beyond. With increased threat of wildfires, natural disasters or another possible pandemic on the horizon, modernizing our voting infrastructure seems like a pretty darned good idea to us. Would you feel comfortable voting from your phone? It seems to have worked for Simon Cowell & Co. for years. What say you?

Photo credit: Unseen Histories, Unsplash

The International Downtown Association is rolling out some really cool new functionality in their online forums, which you’ll probably spot the next time you log in. On that topic, they’ve also added a new forum dedicated to Placemaking & Events, and it’s just begging for your participation! If you’re an IDA member, log into the IDEA Connection and share some awesome examples of what your downtown has been doing – or post a question, challenge or conundrum. Your IDA community is here for you!

Even if you’ve never been, when someone mentions cheesesteaks, hoagies, soft pretzels, ‘wooder ice’ or scrapple to you, you’d know they’re talking about Philly, right? What iconic food defines where you represent? Everyone is a foodie these days, and round-ups like this from Thrillist definitely bait clicks. Writing a bucket list article for your district’s website defines your sense of place, it helps with your SEO, and provides newsletter and social content. In addition, it offers an opportunity to feature local merchants, purveyors and eateries – so you’re doing right by your ratepayers too. So whether it’s a Coney Island hot dog from Nathan’s, deep dish pizza from the Windy City, Kansas City BBQ, Minnesota hotdish, or Tacos from Tucson – we’d love to learn what’s craveable where “youz guyz” live.

Photo credit: Tyler Rutherford, Unsplash