There’s been a lot of talk about Bitcoin over the past year, particularly as of late when the value of one bitcoin peaked at over USD $1,200. Truthfully, it’s only been over the past few months that I’ve really started to wrap my head around… Read More
I was having drinks with an old friend a couple of weeks ago and I told her about my blog. She immediately asked me what it was called. At the time, it was just called “Cities.” And truthfully, I hadn’t given the title much thought.… Read More
Earlier this month, the Royal Bank of Canada and the Pembina Institute co-published a report on Toronto’s housing market called “Priced Out”. The overarching argument is that homebuyers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) are being “priced out” of the areas in which they really… Read More
One of the main reasons why I hear people oppose certain development projects is because of a lack of infrastructure. Whether it’s roads, transit or something else, the concern is that what we have is inadequate to service what we’re about to build. Now, I… Read More
The NH Deutscher Kaiser Hotel building in Munich looks like this: It’s a fairly conventional tower on top of a podium. However, photographer Victor Enrich decided to reimagine what this tower and podium could look like. In fact, he did it 88 times. Here’s the video.… Read More
If you’re a city geek looking for a good book to read, head over to Planetizen and check out Brent Toderian’s list of the 100 best books on city-making. Toderian was formerly Chief Planner for the City of Vancouver. I have a good number of… Read More
I came across an interesting op-ed in the New York Times this morning called “What Tech Hasn’t Learned from Urban Planning.” It basically talks about how, despite the fact that tech companies are increasingly moving from the suburbs to the city, they haven’t yet figured… Read More
Yesterday during lunch with a colleague, the topic of skateboarding came up. And I was reminded of how much I used to love it. There was a time when I used to skateboard everyday. If I missed a day or two, I felt rusty. What… Read More
On September 18th, 2013, the Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, established a “transit investment strategy advisory panel.” Their mandate was to advise the Province on how to respond to the revenue tools proposed by Metrolinx (also an Ontario agency) to fund transit expansion in the… Read More
Last night I watched an interesting presentation by Fred Wilson (New York VC) where he talks (at LeWeb in Paris) about the big 3 technology trends shaping our world. In his view, they are 1) non-hierarchical networks (think Twitter vs. newspapers); 2) unbundling; and 3) smartphones… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 