Craig Agranoff

TV Marketing Personality, Persuasion Marketing Consultant, Author of 3 Marketing Books & Adjunct Professor. My tweets are my own opinion.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

@octal @knewter Doesn’t it rain sideways there sometimes?

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

The attached garage may be one of the most underappreciated changes in American neighborhood life. It’s incredibly convenient. You drive home, open the door, pull inside, and enter your house without encountering another person.

Compare that with neighborhoods where people regularly walk from the street, sit on front porches, or pass one another on sidewalks.

I’m not suggesting we get rid of garages. But convenience can have consequences we never intended, including making it remarkably easy to live near people without ever getting to know them.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

@MauraAlwyen True. Didn’t think of that.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

@brianbreslin So so true. I cannot believe I’m agreeing with you. This is huge.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

When residents complain that new development doesn’t resemble the older neighborhoods they love, I think city officials should take that seriously.

Not simply by asking developers to change the architecture. I’d want to examine the regulations governing lot sizes, setbacks, parking, permitted uses, and building types.

If the city genuinely wants neighborhoods that resemble its most desirable places, it should understand whether those places could legally and financially be built under today’s rules.

That seems like a much more productive discussion than arguing about whether all growth is good or bad.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

@brianbreslin I love them in alleyways. Many @coralgables townhomes have been getting build like this.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

@knewter @octal Living in South Florida, it’s something I wouldn’t want to be without. Between the excessive heat and rain….it is nice.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

@OffgridwithJD That’s pretty funny. Sounds like my dad. 🤣 minus the beer.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

There’s something strange about visiting a beautiful historic neighborhood, admiring its architecture, walking to its restaurants, and talking about how much character it has.

Then realizing that if someone proposed building that exact neighborhood today, parts of it might violate the city’s current zoning regulations.

The setbacks could be wrong. The parking might be insufficient. The buildings might be too close together. The mixture of uses might not be permitted.

We celebrate the results of older development patterns while sometimes maintaining regulations that make similar places difficult to create.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

The most successful shopping areas understood something that cities occasionally forget. People spend more money when they enjoy spending time somewhere.

Malls invested in landscaping, seating, fountains, food courts, and comfortable environments because keeping customers around longer was good for business.

Downtowns have the opportunity to create something even better because they aren’t limited to the inside of a shopping center. But that requires treating the streets and public spaces between businesses as part of the economic experience.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

The other night I learned that a $25 parking space can apparently make a pizza restaurant farther away with free parking seem like a better deal.

We talk about downtown businesses competing with one another.

They’re also competing with the cost and hassle of getting to them.

The restaurant doesn’t control either one.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

A government department gets a budget of $2 million. If it spends $1.7 million and accomplishes everything it was supposed to, you’d think everyone would be thrilled.

But in some organizations, managers worry that leaving money unspent will result in a smaller budget next year.

Think about that.

We can create a system where spending money becomes more important than saving it. The numbers aren’t making that decision. The incentives we’ve attached to them are.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

Drone show canceled tonight due to a President Trump no fly zone. Sad for all those businesses that counted on this.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

@aaron_lubeck I recall reading about his a few months ago but did the classes ever begin?

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

Political campaigns spend enormous amounts trying to influence how people think.

But here’s something I find interesting: the same $100 donation can mean completely different things depending on who gives it.

For a wealthy donor, it may be insignificant. For someone living paycheck to paycheck, it may represent a genuine sacrifice.

Campaign finance reports treat both contributions as $100.

The numbers tell us how much money was raised. They don’t necessarily tell us how much the contributors cared.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

A city can spend tens of millions constructing a parking garage because it believes there will be demand for those spaces over several decades.

But that investment is ultimately based on assumptions about how people will travel, where they’ll work, and what transportation alternatives will exist.

If those assumptions change, the economic value of the garage can change too.

That’s why I’m interested in designing infrastructure that can adapt to different uses.

The building may last 50 years. The behavior that justified it might not.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

One of my favorite things in economic development is watching an idea go from ridiculous to obvious.

A restaurant opens somewhere everyone said wouldn’t work. Six months later there’s a wait every weekend.

Then another restaurant opens nearby. Then somebody renovates the building next door.

A few years later everyone explains why the area was “always destined” to become successful.

It wasn’t obvious at the beginning.
Someone just went first.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

Can someone let @elonmusk know that Florida is still ready for him to relocate here!

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

People talk a lot about building parks. I think where you put the park might matter almost as much as the park itself.

If I have to get in my car specifically to visit it, it’s a destination. If I naturally walk through it on my way to dinner, coffee or somewhere else, it becomes part of my life.

Same grass. Same benches. Completely different relationship with the neighborhood.

Good planning seems to understand the difference.

[Craig Agranoff @Lapp]

A hundred years ago, most people couldn’t have imagined routinely paying for groceries by tapping a small electronic device against a machine.

Today it’s ordinary.

The concept of exchanging value remains, but the methods keep changing.

So many of the things we currently consider permanent features of our economy are really just temporary arrangements that future generations will find equally strange.