Niches in the city and the infrastructure needed to support it

Imagine you are building a city from scratch, where do you start? Do you build the infrastructure, roads, electrical, water, waste systems? Or, do you build a little Mediterranean restaurant that specialises in an assortment of Kalamata olives in a selection of infused oils?

A ground up city would be awesome to build and I have always wanted to build one. In my city, the center road network would all be below the 'ground' level that leaves above the traffic for gardens and recreation. Good infrastructure should be unseen and not heard in my opinion but, this is impossible to do in an already established city.

Right now, we are building a city from scratch. Well, a virtual city anyway and like any city, it needs the infrastructure to support the citizens. Past the necessity infrastructure (the blockchain etc) there needs to be the community centres like schools, libraries, hospitals and the like to support the community at a general level.

Cities generally grow organically from small communities that know each other into a metropolis' that can support a massive array of diversity. A small town of a handful of people are unlikely to be able to field an ice hockey team, build a skyscraper, fund a large hadron collider and populate it with the scientists needed to create and operate it. That takes a much larger community.

A small community is also unlikely to be able to support a wide variety of niche interests financially since a niche is by definition, narrow and shallow on support. There just isn't enough to go around, even if people are somewhat interested.

Steemit has a lot of niche players but, they are unlikely to get the support they may want if they only stay within their niche. Just as a new account is unlikely to make large inroads into an over-saturated market filled with already established providers.

The first pizza store in the city might make a financial killing no matter the quality of their pizza but, if there is a pizzeria on every corner, there is unlikely enough clientele to support them all, even though the first might still enjoy history biased customers.

Similarly if someone opens up a BDSM store in a tiny, backwater country town, they are unlikely to get enough support to keep their doors open. However, if they did manage to, that would be quite an interesting town to visit perhaps.

To have niche supported it requires a community that has a wide variety of interests and the financial means to provide for it. At Steemit, some niches have whales who support them however, not all do. If one is operating in a current niche at Steemit and there is no Steem Power available to support that niche, there is not much that can happen.

It doesn't mean the niche and provider need close shop but, it does mean that they are going to have to develop their audience and build a market or, go outside of their niche to earn and keep building it as a hobby, until a time it gets support.

Currently, this is a problem facing niche content providers here, especially if they are not willing to do the large amount of legwork required to build their audience. People come in with a 'get paid for quality content' mentality but, there are still market forces at play. This means not all content no matter the quality, is going to be supported.

Besides niche players buying in or finding large support for their community, the only option is to keep building the infrastructure and various services that attract, spread and fractal into suburban areas. This is where I have talked about a large middle class and community nodes that are able to spread support and link the network until no community is isolated. This takes time and a lot of support in itself.

Good city planning does this when it builds a new suburb. It lays down the infrastructure, adds some community centres like a school, a supermarket and a pub and then, people move into the area to populate it. It take a lot of investment before the people find it attractive enough to build a house there though.

It is frustrating for niche players to develop their loves in a small town, I know, I am from a small town. I remember a friend and I almost being beaten by a group of guys on rollerskates because, we were on rollerblades... yeah, that happened. But, at some point when the city is large enough there is a tipping of the scales and niches aren't so niche and this in turn drives more and more interest and will of course attract more support.

But, these cities all take a lot of time, energy and investment to build and much of it in the early stages goes into the infrastructure and the community centres required to support the majority of user interest. In time, distribution of resources will accommodate much more variety of content here and this is why it is imperative to develop the infrastructure well, so it doesn't keep needing to be repaired.

This frees up resources to spend on the community and all of the little eclectic pieces that make a city so great. All of the speciality shops and various ranges of business plus, the mega malls and department stores. It will have the hangouts and arcades, the bakeries, the cinemas and the open park areas where some people practice Tai Chi, go for a jog or meet their friends for a picnic. And the Mediterranean restaurant will have customers too.

Of course, this is all virtual and just for illustrative purposes but essentially, that is what we are doing here and if you look at what interests you in the real world, it is likely impossible to just do that as you still need the services of the city and the community who provide them to give you the resources and space to do what you love. Some of them are your customers, you are also theirs, even if not directly. The infrastructure however lays the groundwork for all.

A wide range of skill and diversity doesn't make a community, it is the interaction between that creates it. The interaction is the social infrastructure that builds the network so no person is isolated but, that requires each person to also build their own network that spiders out from them. If all did this, in time all would receive a relatively fair amount of support while still under free market laws. Each will also support niches other than there own.

Some people feel left out of conversations here (I know I do at times) because either a lack of interest or skills. When those conversations are focusing on the infrastructure or, the community centres, it is easy to think that people have forgotten about the niche markets that make it all so creative, diverse and gives people a chance to do what they love.

I can't speak for everyone but at least for me, that is why I am trying to develop the infrastructure and develop a community that is able to support a growing network of providers. I don't want a community of cookie cutter content driven by advertising revenue and optimization of profits, I want to be part of building a city where real people can work, earn and really live doing more of what they love. That takes a community.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]