I have a bias toward pedestrian-oriented cities. Being able to walk everywhere and take trains in a city like Paris or Tokyo is, in my opinion, a great luxury. But another important reason is that I have yet to find a big global city that is both designed around the car and that moves people efficiently. If any of you can prove me wrong with an example, I would welcome that. But I honestly can't imagine a world where the 40 plus million people who live in Greater Tokyo are able to move around as easily using cars as they do with trains.

It is for these reasons that when we take on new development projects in Toronto, we are looking for opportunities that will support a more pedestrian and transit-oriented future. This means saying no to sites that are unlikely to support this kind of built environment in the near term and aiming to build as little parking as possible, among other things. Put more simply, we want to build well-designed density next to transit. The two go hand in hand. Now, this may sound obvious, but keep in mind that the vast majority of the Toronto region is not built in this way; it's oriented around the car.

The Avenues Map that I blogged about yesterday depicts an urban structure that does not yet exist in Toronto, at least not in its entirety. It is a forward-looking planning document, which is what it should be. One of our goals as developers is to do our part in helping to build out this vision for the future. Because in our view, it's a better one.

Last month, I wrote about Toronto's proposal to add additional "Avenues" to its urban structure. ("Avenues" is a defined term that I touch on in last month's post). Well, this week the new Avenues Policy went to City Council for debate and approval. You can read all the back and forth via Matt Elliott on X. Not surprisingly, some Councillors were/are opposed to it, fearing it will create some sort of dystopian future for Toronto. An attempt was made to send it back for further study and consultation, which is the typical delay tactic. Comments were made that people in multi-family buildings are lonely because they don't know their neighbors. And it was argued that Kipling Avenue should not be a designated "Avenue", even though it's already called one. (Toronto street suffixes can be weird sometimes.) Thankfully, the new Avenues passed. And this is a big deal for Toronto. Over time, this expanded Avenue network is going to create new housing and employment opportunities, and make transit and other forms of mobility far more viable all across the city. As I said last month, I think it's going to be foundational in helping us move away from the outdated model of the monocentric North American city. Slowly but surely we are laying the groundwork for an urban structure that is actually, and more uniformly, urban.

We landed on Hokkaido yesterday. And when we got out of the airport, it was snowing. The first thing we did was stop in Sapporo for lunch and, while we were there, it continued to snow.

After lunch, we drove west to Niseko, and for almost the entire 2-hour drive, it was whiteout conditions. It was the first time I had ever seen a place use flashing red arrows hung above the road to indicate the edge of the outer lane.

This, I quickly learned, is invaluable in a place like Hokkaido; it's so that both drivers and snowplows know where they're going and know their limits. But to be honest, many other places should probably adopt it as well.

We are now on day two and it's still snowing. The stats do not lie: this is one very snowy place. As I understand it, the main reason for this is its location, and not its elevation. I'm sitting at ~280 meters right now (whereas Park City is over 2,000 meters up).

But it does have mountains.

And when warm air from the Sea of Japan mixes with cold fronts from Siberia, and then intersects these mountains, it produces beautiful dry powder snow, and lots of it. "Japow" is no joke, as you can tell from the above photos.