Originally posted on CenterNetworks here.

Today, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg outlined the city’s plans to boost the media industry in NYC in a variety of ways as part of MediaNYC 2020, which was originally announced in February.

Most notable and relevant to us, of course, is the effort to build a “Hive” space for independent media makers and other independent workers. The overlap with our ongoing efforts with New Work City and the Runway Project is obvious, so seeing the city make an increasing effort in this area is exciting for us. This, in combination with the city’s announced efforts earlier this year at fostering entrepreneurial growth, is beginning to add up to a real, noticeable effort on the part of the Mayor’s Office, the EDC, and others to foster healthy entrepreneurial growth in the city.

Creating an entrepreneur-friendly ecosystem

Effective spaces do two things: they help new businesses get connected and grow, and they provide a fertile ground for new partnerships to be discovered an evolve. We’ve already seen that progress in our community, where members have formed partnerships to start new initiatives such as LaidOffCamp and Zeitheist, among others. Freelancers, too, have found work in meeting and working alongside their colleagues, and through referrals that we pass along.

Our members also started and run the Runway Project, a community-driven education effort aimed toward people starting new businesses in the wake of the recession, and have helped dozens of newly independent New Yorkers get connected, educated, and on their feet in short order. All of this has sprung out of an environment designed to facilitate this sort of healthy activity.

Creating Sustainable Entrepreneurial Growth

The main challenge to establishing city-sponsored workspaces has been the fact that they have been historically temporary– reliant on below-market leases during bad markets which, when the markets rebound and prices go up, end up folding without external support.

At New Work City, we’ve been making lots of progress toward sustainability on our own. Our aim is to strike the balance between keeping membership rates low enough so as to be accessible to early-stage businesses and independent workers, while still maintaining enough cash flow to run a profitable business that gets everything at fair market rate.

For the new efforts the city is making in establishing spaces, my hope is that any new spaces that are established are done so in a way that creates long-term, sustainable economic growth. That means not relying on subsidy but on a sound business model that will survive tidal changes in economics and politics.

With the city increasing its emphasis on new and small businesses, I look forward to helping the city find ways to create this healthy growth in a city that is very much ready to take its place as a friendly place to be an entrepreneur.

While at SXSW this year, I was lucky enough to meet Gerald Zhou from Rackspace, who was at Austin’s Conjunctured coworking space. 

For Conjunctured, and now for us, Rackspace will be offering members of New Work City FREE services, detailed below:

Mosso (website hosting via Cloud Sites) - http://mosso.com
* Unlimited sites, databases and email
* Automatic scalability without input
* .NET and/or LAMP

Jungle Disk (online storage and backup on Rackspace Cloud Files) - http://jungledisk.com
* Online network drive to share documents with fellow coworkers
* Backup client to backup crucial files on your computer
* Webaccess to files
* Fully encrypted data
* Conjuctured will cover your storage costs, unless they are ridic

Mailtrust - http://mailtrust.com
* POP and IMAP business class e-mail
* All with BlackBerry and iPhone support.

All these services are free for New Work City members. I know free is a strong word, so, to be clear their are limits (bandwidth, storage space), but they are very, very high. Just send me an email if you would like to get hooked up. Rackspace isn’t asking for anything in return, but you would totally rock if/when you take advantage of these services that you let them know you appreciate them helping us out. 

Rackspace is all about feedback, all about listening to their customers, and all about improving their services based on what they hear. So, I think the best way we can help them out is to give honest feedback. You could do this by Tweeting it out, emailing feedback, thanking them at coworking@rackspace.com, or perhaps writing a blog post with your thoughts.

If you’re interested in getting other Rackspace products or want more info on these services, you can always email our special peeps at coworking@rackspace.com. They would love that.

VitaminWater, Chips, and more to come, with a suggested donation.

After a long night of drinking, New Work City founder Tony Bacigalupo and King Wok founder Yoshi Chang agreed to join forces for a new retail location.

“It’s the best of both worlds,” Bacigalupo said, at the impromptu midnight press conference. “You have the collaborative, social work environment of coworking, combined with, well, delicious Chinese food.”

The new location, dubbed “New Wok City,” will offer daily and monthly membership rates, as well as lunch and combo specials. For $30, customers can drop in for the day and get access to high speed internet, printing and faxing services, and a side of pork fried rice plus their choice of wonton, egg drop, or hot and sour soup.

New Wok City

When asked if an egg roll could be substituted for soup, Chang responded, “egg roll is extra.”

New Wok City will offer new dishes that compliment the coworking theme, including Starfish Soup, Like-Minded Lo Mein, and Community Cold Cucumber with Scallion Sauce.

“It’s really a dream come true,” said New Work City member Matt Van Horn. “Coworking was already fabulous, but I always had this nagging feeling like there needed to be more Moo Goo Gai Pan. Now I can have everything I need!”

King Wok’s customers, too, are excited about the move. One customer told us, “I come here every day for the Shredded Beef with Spicy Green Pepper, but I never had a community of like-minded people I could eat and work beside. I’m looking forward to meeting more people who share my love for pan-fried Chinese goodness.”

This is the first known venture that combines a coworking space with a restaurant, but Bacigalupo is confident that there will be no shortage of interest.

“With coworking, you have a variety of different people gathering together in one place: designers, developers, entrepreneurs, consultants, feelancers, writers, and more. In our dish of Ten Ingredient Fried Rice, you’ve got peas, carrots, eggs, onions, scallions, pork, tofu, shrimp, beef, and rice. In both cases, the combination of different ingredients makes for a delicious collaboration.”

When reached for follow-up comments this morning, Bacigalupo had no time for comment. He has only this to say:

“I’d talk about our Chinese food coworking space, but I’m a little busy celebrating April Fool’s Day.”

More on this and other April Fool’s Day stories as they develop.

My good friend Amit Gupta of Photojojo was kind enough to sponsor our photo ropes, which we’ve adapted into business card ropes– and they’re now overflowing with the business cards of our fabulous community members!

Startups, freelancers, nonprofits, giant sticker printing companies, tee shirt companies, german coworking spaces, video bloggers, consultants, travel video sites, open source cupcakes and so much more adorn our first two ropes.

And now it’s time to grow!

Check out Photojojo’s excellent photo ropes and more at their store.

Thanks Amit!