Marketing guru Seth Godin recently published this value triangle on his blog:

No matter what business you’re in, it’s worth giving some thought to this. What do you offer?

At the bottom of the triangle is function. A hotel room functions as a place to sleep. A smartphone functions as a device to make calls, send text messages, and download some apps. A condominium functions as a place to live, eat, sleep, have sex, and so on. But all functions being equal, most of us will buy whatever product is the cheapest.

That is until there’s an emotional connection. I love the way Seth frames it: “Where do people like me do things like this?” It is about defining who you are. Am I the kind of person who buys A or am I the kind of person who buys B? If I care deeply about the environment and B promises to respect that, I am likely to buy B.

But then, moving even further up the triangle, if two items offer the same function and the same emotional connection, many of us will go for the one that appears sexier, shinier (the new iPhone 7 is very shiny), and more stylish. It just deepens the connection.

Finally, at the very top of the triangle is now. This is about scarcity. What’s hot right now? Think of that new restaurant that just opened downtown that you haven’t been able to get a table at. It’s now and you want to Instagram the food so badly so that you can show everyone you were there. You want to be now.

The point of all of this is that we consume things for reasons that go well beyond simple function. That’s just the start of it all. One could argue that all of this is simply smoke and mirrors, but that’s a topic for another blog post. This is our reality.

To relate this topic back to architecture and real estate, I am curious how many of you have made a housing decision that you believe went beyond function. How much of it was based on connection and style?

Not surprisingly, for me, architecture and design matter a great deal.

Earlier this summer I was driving around the city with my father and he was pointing out to me all of the new build single family homes that were sprouting up. He then asked me what I thought of them. I responded: “They’re shit.”

What I was really saying with that glib remark was that those homes – no matter how expensive – didn’t reflect my own belief system about the world. Sure they served their function, but they didn’t offer the connection and style that “people like me” like to praise. To borrow once again from Seth: we are all part of a certain tribe.

What tribe do you belong to? And does your housing choice reflect that?

Despite not being the first example of infrastructural adaptive reuse, the High Line in New York has certainly kickstarted an urban trend. Cities all around the world now want their own “version of the High Line.”

Philly is working on a new “rail park.” I toured the space last summer and it’s very similar to the High Line in terms of existing infrastructure. Rome and Toronto are both working on “under” spaces, which are beneath an old viaduct and elevated expressway, respectively. And the list goes on.

But I think it’s worth remembering just how contentious the High Line was before it was built. For some people it was just an eyesore and a public safety hazard. Here’s a excerpt from a New York Times article dated 2002:

“This is a terrific win for us,” said Michael Lefkowitz, a lawyer for Edison Properties, one of 19 businesses that own land beneath the High Line.

Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said an agreement to share the $11 million cost of dismantling the High Line was being circulated among the property owners and the rail bed’s owner, CSX, of Richmond, Va. “It’s about eliminating a public safety hazard,” Ms. Patterson said, “but it’s also about enabling the city to move forward and better develop the area.”

It’s also worth mentioning that former Mayor Giuliani supposedly favored demolition of the High Line. Former Mayor Bloomberg, however, did not:

…Mr. Bloomberg said: "Today, on the West Side of Manhattan, we have an opportunity to create a great new public promenade on top of an out-of-use elevated rail viaduct called the High Line. This would provide much-needed green space for residents and visitors, and it would attract new businesses and residents, strengthening our economy. We know it can work … . I look forward to working with Friends of the High Line and other interested parties to develop a feasible reuse scenario.”

The challenge with these sorts of things – that is, new ideas – is that we live in a world of proof and precedents. We want to see that it has been successfully done before, because, otherwise, we might be wrong. So now that New York has shown what is possible, it has cleared the way for other cities.

Rethinking old infrastructure is a sound urban strategy. But we also shouldn’t forget that it’s less valuable to be right about something that every other city already believes to be true. The real value is created when you’re right about something that most other cities don’t yet believe.