Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Between 2010 and 2025, the Métropole du Grand Paris added nearly 160 kilometres of new or extended transit lines and opened 200 new transit stations across the region. These numbers include all modes of transport, including RER, metro, tram, cable cars, and BRT. On top of this, a further 199 new stations are scheduled to open between 2026 and 2032 (a shorter time period), meaning there's an argument to be made that Paris is getting better and faster at delivering transit.
Imagine that.
This, as we have talked about before, is a remarkable achievement and one that is reshaping the Métropole — particularly outside of Paris proper. Take a look. Here's a recent study and map from Apur that shows how these completed and upcoming lines have impacted, and are expected to impact, transit access in the region:
The coloured areas represent access to transit within a 15-minute walk (assuming you're able to walk at a reasonable 4 km/hr). The lightest blue areas are lines/catchment areas that existed in 2010. The medium blue represents lines/areas that came online between 2010 and 2025. And the darkest blue represents lines/areas that are scheduled to come online between 2026 and 2032.
If you're familiar with Paris, you'll be able to tell that the majority of the recent transit expansion has happened outside of the boundaries of Paris. This is important because prior to 2010, all of Paris was already well-served by transit (seriously, 100% of the population was/is within walking distance of at least one transit line).
However, this is not the case in the rest of the Métropole. In 2010, about 56% of the population (outside of Paris proper) had access to at least one line, with 23% having access to two. As of 2025, this number has increased to 66%. And by 2032, with the opening of the lines currently underway, it is expected that 80% of the population within the entire Métropole will be transit-connected.
It's hard to overstate the importance of these changes. The Paris region has long been criticized for the divide that exists between its historic centre and its surrounding suburbs and cities. Historically, this has been a socio-economic divide, and a built form divide. But this divide is now being erased. New infrastructure is stitching the region together, tightening its geography, and encouraging the development of new economic centres.
Forget the Paris you know. The growth and change are now happening along its edges. Welcome to the new Greater Paris Metropolis.
P.S. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Métropole du Grand Paris (created on January 1, 2016), Apur recently published a book called Atlas de la Métropole du Grand Paris. I haven't been able to find a site that will ship to Toronto, but if you're in Paris, you can order or pick one up at the following bookstores.
Cover photo by Ally Griffin on Unsplash
Maps and charts from Apur
Every single real estate development project I have worked on has generally gone something like this:
Design the project.
Budget the project.
Realize: "Oh shit, this is way too expensive and will never work."
Cut out some of the parking (a loss leader on most projects).
Look for value engineering and other creative opportunities.
Repeat the cycle until the project works (hopefully).
This is so typical that if I went through this process and everything just magically worked, I would be immediately suspicious. This can't be. We must be overlooking something! The expectation is that the project isn't going to work until we, as developers, figure out a way to make it work.
This is what we mean around here when we say that "development happens on the margin." Projects are sensitive to even slight changes in market conditions. If rents soften, costs go up, and/or interest rates move in the wrong direction, that could be the end.
Current market conditions have only heightened this dynamic. More than ever, developers need to be both creative problem-solvers and disciplined managers because there's very little elasticity on the revenue side to help cover up any mistakes (if the revenue side even exists at all!).
Development is hard. But working through challenges is a big part of what makes it so rewarding. On that happy note, enjoy the long weekend, everyone.
Cover photo by Shivendu Shukla on
One of my predictions for this year was that we would see the mainstream adoption of tokenized real-world assets. More specifically, I said that we'd see some noteworthy office building or apartment building get tokenized on the Ethereum blockchain.
Maybe. I'm not sure that we'll see a singular event this year or that we'll be able to call it "mainstream" just yet. According to this recent article by Chris Lehman, co-founder of a tokenized REIT called Groma, it's still early days.
Real estate is the world's largest asset class, with an estimated global value of around $400 trillion. But only about $500 million of it has been tokenized, which is a relatively small amount, though it's not nothing. So, what is it going to take for us to say it's "mainstream"?
Some of the obvious benefits of tokenization are that it makes transactions cheap and efficient, and it allows for composability, meaning the various smart contracts on a blockchain can then be combined and interconnected with other protocols and applications to unlock additional use cases.
Lehman gives the specific example of being able to split yield and appreciation for tokenized real estate. My mind always goes to codifying the financial terms of something like a Limited Partnership Agreement such that all of the cash flows get automatically distributed as per the agreed-upon deal.
Importantly, though, and this is mentioned in the article, the fractionalization of real assets is unlikely to be the killer feature of tokenization. Notwithstanding that it does bring some additional benefits, we've already figured out how to "democratize" the ownership of large and expensive real estate assets through REITs and other vehicles.
Instead, Lehman argues that "improving real estate's utility as collateral is likely to be the most significant improvement tokenization can offer."
Between 2010 and 2025, the Métropole du Grand Paris added nearly 160 kilometres of new or extended transit lines and opened 200 new transit stations across the region. These numbers include all modes of transport, including RER, metro, tram, cable cars, and BRT. On top of this, a further 199 new stations are scheduled to open between 2026 and 2032 (a shorter time period), meaning there's an argument to be made that Paris is getting better and faster at delivering transit.
Imagine that.
This, as we have talked about before, is a remarkable achievement and one that is reshaping the Métropole — particularly outside of Paris proper. Take a look. Here's a recent study and map from Apur that shows how these completed and upcoming lines have impacted, and are expected to impact, transit access in the region:
The coloured areas represent access to transit within a 15-minute walk (assuming you're able to walk at a reasonable 4 km/hr). The lightest blue areas are lines/catchment areas that existed in 2010. The medium blue represents lines/areas that came online between 2010 and 2025. And the darkest blue represents lines/areas that are scheduled to come online between 2026 and 2032.
If you're familiar with Paris, you'll be able to tell that the majority of the recent transit expansion has happened outside of the boundaries of Paris. This is important because prior to 2010, all of Paris was already well-served by transit (seriously, 100% of the population was/is within walking distance of at least one transit line).
However, this is not the case in the rest of the Métropole. In 2010, about 56% of the population (outside of Paris proper) had access to at least one line, with 23% having access to two. As of 2025, this number has increased to 66%. And by 2032, with the opening of the lines currently underway, it is expected that 80% of the population within the entire Métropole will be transit-connected.
It's hard to overstate the importance of these changes. The Paris region has long been criticized for the divide that exists between its historic centre and its surrounding suburbs and cities. Historically, this has been a socio-economic divide, and a built form divide. But this divide is now being erased. New infrastructure is stitching the region together, tightening its geography, and encouraging the development of new economic centres.
Forget the Paris you know. The growth and change are now happening along its edges. Welcome to the new Greater Paris Metropolis.
P.S. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Métropole du Grand Paris (created on January 1, 2016), Apur recently published a book called Atlas de la Métropole du Grand Paris. I haven't been able to find a site that will ship to Toronto, but if you're in Paris, you can order or pick one up at the following bookstores.
Cover photo by Ally Griffin on Unsplash
Maps and charts from Apur
Every single real estate development project I have worked on has generally gone something like this:
Design the project.
Budget the project.
Realize: "Oh shit, this is way too expensive and will never work."
Cut out some of the parking (a loss leader on most projects).
Look for value engineering and other creative opportunities.
Repeat the cycle until the project works (hopefully).
This is so typical that if I went through this process and everything just magically worked, I would be immediately suspicious. This can't be. We must be overlooking something! The expectation is that the project isn't going to work until we, as developers, figure out a way to make it work.
This is what we mean around here when we say that "development happens on the margin." Projects are sensitive to even slight changes in market conditions. If rents soften, costs go up, and/or interest rates move in the wrong direction, that could be the end.
Current market conditions have only heightened this dynamic. More than ever, developers need to be both creative problem-solvers and disciplined managers because there's very little elasticity on the revenue side to help cover up any mistakes (if the revenue side even exists at all!).
Development is hard. But working through challenges is a big part of what makes it so rewarding. On that happy note, enjoy the long weekend, everyone.
Cover photo by Shivendu Shukla on
One of my predictions for this year was that we would see the mainstream adoption of tokenized real-world assets. More specifically, I said that we'd see some noteworthy office building or apartment building get tokenized on the Ethereum blockchain.
Maybe. I'm not sure that we'll see a singular event this year or that we'll be able to call it "mainstream" just yet. According to this recent article by Chris Lehman, co-founder of a tokenized REIT called Groma, it's still early days.
Real estate is the world's largest asset class, with an estimated global value of around $400 trillion. But only about $500 million of it has been tokenized, which is a relatively small amount, though it's not nothing. So, what is it going to take for us to say it's "mainstream"?
Some of the obvious benefits of tokenization are that it makes transactions cheap and efficient, and it allows for composability, meaning the various smart contracts on a blockchain can then be combined and interconnected with other protocols and applications to unlock additional use cases.
Lehman gives the specific example of being able to split yield and appreciation for tokenized real estate. My mind always goes to codifying the financial terms of something like a Limited Partnership Agreement such that all of the cash flows get automatically distributed as per the agreed-upon deal.
Importantly, though, and this is mentioned in the article, the fractionalization of real assets is unlikely to be the killer feature of tokenization. Notwithstanding that it does bring some additional benefits, we've already figured out how to "democratize" the ownership of large and expensive real estate assets through REITs and other vehicles.
Instead, Lehman argues that "improving real estate's utility as collateral is likely to be the most significant improvement tokenization can offer."
I don't have a strong opinion on what will serve as the primary adoption catalyst, but I have little doubt in my mind that this is where the ownership of real estate (and other assets) is heading. If any of you are working in this space, and especially if you're based in Toronto or elsewhere in Canada, I'd love to connect with you for a coffee.
I don't have a strong opinion on what will serve as the primary adoption catalyst, but I have little doubt in my mind that this is where the ownership of real estate (and other assets) is heading. If any of you are working in this space, and especially if you're based in Toronto or elsewhere in Canada, I'd love to connect with you for a coffee.
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