Tony Hsieh's Legacy in Las Vegas

Tony Hsieh died on Friday, November 27 at the age of 46. Hsieh was as famous in planning and development circles for spearheading a singular downtown revitalization movement in Downtown Las Vegas as he was for turning online shoe company Zappos into an internet behemoth.

Writing for the New York Times, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Karen Weise focus on Hsieh's legacy in Las Vegas, where he founded and lead the Downtown Project, which transformed Downtown Las Vegas in one of the most closely watched and analyzed downtown revitalization initiatives in the United States.

One of the central ideas behind the Downtown Project was increasing the number of "collisions" that can happen naturally in a bustling, public-oriented urban environment.

"He tried to increase the number of what he called “collisions” between interesting people in streets and cafes by adding public art and making downtown more walkable. He pitched his friends on moving their start-up ideas to his sandbox, luring hundreds of entrepreneurs," according to Bogel-Burroughs and Weise.

Leah Meisterlin, an assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University, is quoted in the article describing the Downtown Project as "an early attempt to bring a fast-moving Silicon Valley approach to city planning."

Bailey Schulz and Mike Shoro also focus on the Downtown Project in an article for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, asking if Hsieh's mark on Las Vegas can be considered a success. First, the brass tacks:

According to a 2017 Applied Analysis report, [the Downtown Project] has 407 ongoing or completed construction projects, has brought nearly $210 million in economic output, and helped create more than 1,500 jobs, resulting in roughly $70 million in salaries.

DTP has 61 small business investments within Las Vegas, according to the report, and owns roughly 45 acres of land in and around Fremont East and East Village Districts stretching from Las Vegas Boulevard to 14th Street. Much of that land has yet to be developed.

Critics (mentioned in both articles) of the Downtown Project point to a string of failures among the businesses that located to Las Vegas at Hsieh's beckoning, among other concerns. The article by Schulz an Shoro finds other ways to measure the influence of the Downtown Project, and catches readers up on the status of the Downtown Project since Hsieh left the helm of the initiative around 2014.