Will Zappos turn downtown Las Vegas into the next Silicon Valley?

2014-01-21T13:28:00-05:00

Late in 2011, [Zappos CEO] Hsieh became even more legendary by announcing almost larkishly that he’d be leading a $350 million effort to rejuvenate a blighted stretch of Las Vegas’ downtown […] His plan was to spend much of his own personal fortune to transform this lifeless area about a mile north of the neon blitz of the Strip into an entrepreneurial tech nirvana. [...] Doubters have no place in the ecosystem. Pragmatists stand little chance. A love of hyperbole prevails.

Revitalizing Las Vegas via the Downtown Project

2012-10-22T16:40:00-04:00

Richard Florida...thinks it needs a “robust community process,” in which an outside group could help build consensus with the surrounding community and create a plan that takes their wishes into account. “You can have serendipity,” he said. “But when you’re building a community, you also need a strategy.”

Timothy Pratt profiled Tony Hsieh and his Downtown Project for the Sunday NYT Magazine. The project began when the chief executive of Zappos decided to lease the former City Hall, instead of buying land and building the typical Silicon Valley corporate campus. In order to provide an attractive urban community for his employees, Hsieh went one step further and started the Downtown Project, a $350 million urban experiment to build "the most community-focused large city in the world". The goal is not R.O.I. but maximizing R.O.C (Return on community) and increasing "serendipitous encounters".

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Will Zappos turn downtown Las Vegas into the next Silicon Valley?

Revitalizing Las Vegas via the Downtown Project