Social Entrepreneurship in the Built Environment

Tweetroll from an evening at the Harvard Graduate School of Design with actor/activist Edward Norton and developer Jonathan Rose

Social Entrepreneurship in the Built Environment
Piper Auditorium, 1st December 2010

Edward Norton quoting his grandfather Jim Rouse: The purpose of business is not profit but the provision of an authentic service from which profit is a derivative @HarvardGSD

Jonathan Rose
Cities are the answer to the increase in population and demands on energy.
People who live in New York City consume 25% energy of people in suburbs.
Birth rates a lower in cities.
Opportunities are greater.

Edward Norton
Jim Rouse: Assess the field of opportunities and go for the most difficult. Blow off people who say you shouldn’t because the most difficult problems are the ones that most people should be going for.

Jim Rouse: Intractable problems are problems of apathy and complacency and not of impossibility.

Jim Rouse: Form should follow function and function should emerge from the service the project provides, especially in the urban design.

Jonathan Rose: Cities are about connectivity, culture, universities, access to nature. Cities are not just piles of buildings clustered together.

Edward Norton: We need to promote a reboot of our sense of self. We are not #1. We are not who we project ourselves as being. @HarvardGSD