TOW #6 "If You Fix Cities, You Kind of Fix the World"

Experts estimate that by the end of the century, up to 75% of the world’s population will live in urban areas.  It is for this reason that Tony Hsieh, chief operator of the online store Zappos, believes that “If you fix cities, you kind of fix the world.”  An article recently published in the New York Times Magazine details Hsieh’s efforts to fix the city of Las Vegas through an effort known as the Downtown Project.  Timothy Pratt, the author of the piece, works as a journalist for the Las Vegas Sun and the publisher of the article, the New York Time Magazine, operates as a supplement to the New York Times. 

In his article, Pratt describes how the Downtown Project works through investing in business start-ups that require their employees to live and work in Las Vegas.  In addition, he uses the article as a way to highlight the fact that despite Hsieh’s ambitious plans, the success of city revitalization projects is often difficult to measure.  Throughout the text, Pratt cites various authorities in the field such as Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economist, and Richard Florida, an urban theorist, as a means of employing logos.  Furthermore, Pratt includes dialogues between Hsieh and the owners of potential investment opportunities as way to establish credibility as an author and to reveal the way in which Hsieh runs the Downtown Project.  Readers of the New York Times Magazine will ultimately gain not only a better understanding of one particular endeavor to revitalize the city of Las Vegas, but also an understanding of the challenges that face all city revitalization projects.