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New neighbors creating ‘smart communities’

SF GATE | SF Gate thinks of it as a sort of art-tech progressivism, based on what John M Eger calls Smart Communities - connected (through wireless technology), creative (supporting arts and culture, and collaborative (through civic engagement).

A whole set of "smart" "progressive" arts, technology, and entrepreneurial organizations are moving in and remaking the San Francisco Chronicle building in an joint effort between Forest City Development Corporation and The Hearst Corp, owner of the Chronicle.

"We are working with Forest City Development to lead the way on high impact design and real estate solutions that enable us to make a place that effectively 'crowd sources' to facilitate this kind of powerful collaboration," states Intersection for the Arts news release. "This collaboration is part of a prototype for a new, open urban campus of for-profit and non-profit businesses, artists and entrepreneurs that dissolves boundaries and consistently instigates synergistic collaboration across disciplines in order to inspire and enable new ideas for change."

"Civic engagement and new civic 'co-laboratories' will be needed to help 'reboot' or reinvent our great American cities to reclaim the sense of place and civic pride that these cities once possessed, as well as ensure that no one is left behind." Intersection quotes Eger in their press release.

The first exhibit the Intersection will showcase in its new location is called  "Let's Talk of a System," based on quote by German artist Joseph Beuys:

"Let's talk of a system that transforms all the social organisms into a work of art, in which the entire process of work is included ... something in which the principle of production and consumption takes on a form of quality."