Despite the general consensus, Detroit’s economy isn’t all bad…at least virtually speaking. Thanks to a few innovative imagineers, there now exists a place where you can buy or “inchvest” in micro real estate for one dollar per square inch. In Loveland, composed of different virtual neighborhoods called “microhoods”, virtually anything is possible.
Created by online gaming enthusiast Jerry Paffendorf in the summer of 2009, Loveland is similar to the types of games you may play on Facebook, like Farm Town, Yoville, and other popular social games. IAYD talked to the founder and creative director of Loveland to see what it’s all about, how it started, and what they have cooking up next.
How it works…
Jerry, along with Mary Carter (Chief Inch Officer), Alan Languirand (Media Engineer), Larry Sheradon (Web Developer & Designer), and Nicole Itkin (Inchtern) have taken note of the value in micro-tainment and fundraising online, specifically when it comes to social gaming, “I think there’s really something to things like micro-tainment online for fundraising and the activities that I see people doing in games where they’ll pay a little piece. They’ll pay a dollar or ten dollars for virtual goods inside a game,” said Jerry, “People pay for all sorts of things in these games…their land, virtual animals. Part of the inspiration was to take a similar spirited activity, but apply it directly to the micro-ownership of land so that you feel invested.”
Think of it as dropping quarters into a video game at the arcade to play, only the money is being transferred to real places and helping with real things. You essentially become an investor of one of the two properties or both. You purchase a square inch for a dollar and “As a micro land owner, you’re allowed to visit your land, plant a flag, put a seed in the ground to kind of make it fun, like a collaborative art piece.”
How it all started…
Loveland began as a do-it-yourself kind of project, “We started last summer, very modestly, inviting people from anywhere to purchase square inches of a lot . When we started we didn’t even have a lot, yet. I moved to Detroit from, most recently, San Francisco. I had worked on Internet startups, so mainly doing things like social networking and online games. That experience of being the creative power and communication power and what you can do with online experiences–I’ve always been attracted to trying to attach those dynamics onto realer and realer things, so that the things that we do over the Internet can have an impact directly on things that happen in the world and our real lives,” said Jerry.
The first year, known as Season 1, focused on the Plymouth microhood and “Project Lemon Battery”. It is very successful and still ongoing with approximately 600 inchvestors. “The first ten thousand square inch property had been bought buy people in the city, around the country, and around the world. That was very encouraging for us working on this model. We used that money to buy a loft in East Village.” The Plymouth property is located in East Village on Vernor and Holcumb.
The narrative…
Currently, the season 2 microhood of “Hello World” is all the buzz, and “The idea is to build a bridge in Detroit. It’s a virtual bridge, kind of a metaphorical bridge. On the site we’ll map inch by inch across the Detroit River which is 50,000 inches. Trying to visualize that is a fun story. You’re putting money into the system, you’re helping purchase land that can be developed, and then you’re also hopefully having fun following this narrative alongside.”
What’s next…
The idea is to grow and to develop as much land as possible, “With this new property, we picked seven different projects in the city that we’re going to do revenue sharing with in a kind of mini grant program,” according to Jerry. Half of everyone’s inchvestment in season 2 will go to the seven projects, including the Motor City Blight Busters and The Pedestrian Overpass Improvement Project. “So our first one that we have…we’re raising 1500 dollars to help do a sculpture called monumental kitty, which is going to be on the overpass by old Tiger Stadium. We keep working on the system trying to come up with fun ways to get people participating in the city and bringing in the cool ideas and hopefully bringing in more money and engagement on top of the inches.”’
Jerry says all of their funding comes from inchvestors and a couple of patrons, which makes it difficult for their small budget when setbacks occur. Recently, they had the idea to use a solar-powered Internet camera to stream live footage of the Plymouth property on their website. The solar panel was stolen and the 21-foot pole was chopped down. This has scrapped the idea for now. Nevertheless, Jerry and the team are continuing on, “Along the way we are very actively looking and trying to figure out how this model that we’ve been doing can scale up to bigger properties, more money. We call it entertainment fundraising. How can we make it really fun and compelling for people to want to put money into something they may not care about, think about, may not be attractive for them, or they don’t feel enough ownership over,” said Jerry.
That’s what they’re currently trying to figure out in hopes of adding to their 800 or so inchvestors across the globe. For more information on inchvesting in Loveland and a microhood near you, visit makeloveland.com.
Inchvest in Detroit, on us! Have a cool idea of how to make a small difference in Detroit? Leave it below for a chance to win inchvestment property on Loveland.
June 28th, 2010 - 10:03 pm
Thanks for the conversation and write-up, guys. This project is a total adventure and has already taken us pretty far into the matrix of how land in the city works (and doesn't work). We hope that by continuing to combine the ease and OMG factor of dollar inch plots with fun online social tools that we can discover new ways to map out the city at the human-scale as well. Like, check out the expanding map of the new micro property here: http://makeloveland.com/grids/2 . Those individual properties you can mouse over and click on may represent very small areas right now, but they can really represent any size, and be mapped to larger property in the city.
Also check this functional 8-bit map of Detroit we just commissioned: http://makeloveland.com/map (from Brett Camper at http://8bitnyc.com ).
In my dream of dreams I see a sort of Sim City layer over top of everything that helps empower people to understand, invest in and improve the city. I think soon we'll have to split the site into 2 parts: LOVELAND micro real estate and LOVELAND *macro* real estate. The micro side can stay fun and wild and game-y and invite people from anywhere to participate in something fun and positive for very little money, and the macro side can be more seriously focused on organizing real world ownership and other types of geographic data that will help the city function better.
We'll be here working on the dream. Anyone reading this can feel to reach out at 908-343-1981 or jerry@makeloveland.com, and come hang out with us at the Big Inch Block Party on July 17: http://biginchblockparty.com . <3
July 7th, 2010 - 8:35 am
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