[wburg]

With the exception of Johannesburg, all of those cities have the advantage of a temporal head start, sometimes of millenia--being a city on a river was much more of an advantage when land travel was limited to what a team of oxen could pull on a cart, and tradition carries great weight when it comes to social institutions like colleges and churches.

They also didn't shy away from their role as capitals--it's a great asset, but one that the recent wave of anti-government sentiment constantly grouches about. Being the administrative center for a $2 trillion economy is something to be proud of, but folks in the suburban perimeter constantly decry the role of state employment in the local economy (despite the value of its private sector cohorts like lobbyists, law firms, professional/trade associations, etc., who base their state operations here.)

Being a second-order city is something we used to do quite well--when Wells Fargo started out, their business office was in San Francisco but the hub of their stagecoach network was here. That old "two hours from where you'd rather be" joke comes from our other big advantage, a really good transportation network. Timing and weather kind of threw a wrench in things--along with newer forms of transportation that made us less of a transportation hub.

Cultivating a center for creativity and culture has a lot to do with the ability for creative people to meet and network--and, to a limited extent, the willingness of local private-sector individuals to support culture (often simply by attending shows, plays or galleries, if not becoming patrons of art.) The use of "eds and meds" (educational institutions and hospitals) is a popular trend in many cities seeking new identities, like Pittsburgh, who is making a comeback as a medical center rather than a steel town. We're pretty well set in the "meds" department, and while one of our most important hospitals is also a medical college, we're a bit lacking in the "eds" department. We have thousands of college students, a highly educated workforce, and a lot of little satellite campuses downtown, but not a single, large and visible campus--CSUS and UC Davis are suburban campuses too far from the downtown core.

I'm still crossing my fingers that we can get a university in the Railyards. It might be a long shot considering that college debt is on the edge of becoming the next bubble (if it isn't already) but a campus based in the old Shops buildings seems like a good way to connect some of that force of tradition with new innovation--railroads were the "dot-com" boom of their day, which drew innovators and high-tech enthusiasts, and the list of patents developed in those Shops buildings is very, very long. Add a complex of modern buildings north of the shops and a dormitory or two (technically "low-income housing" as students generally have low incomes) and you have a neighborhood population that values education, proximity to mixed uses and cultural amenities, and doesn't mind getting around by bike or small housing unit sizes.

The question is, how do you get around the growing issue of student debt? A working campus based around internships, working for your degree instead of borrowing for it? Massive private benefactor providing scholarships? And how do we get Inland to provide use of the land, instead of sitting around waiting for the next real estate bubble?