Month: January 2015

• Hidden gems in the Tenderloin

  

  I’ve written about the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco before. It’s an infamous neighborhood in the center of the city that has for decades resisted gentrification (which was the topic of my post).

  But as the technology sector continues to urbanize, many fear that it’s only a matter of time before it does eventually gentrify. A new nickname has even emerged for the neighborhood: the Twitterloin.

  However, a local nonprofit called the Wildflowers Institute is trying to ensure that gentrification doesn’t erase the cultural assets currently housed in the neighborhood. Through a project called “Hidden Gems”, the group is literally knocking on doors to find active artists within the community (many of whom live in single rooms) and then supporting them through fellowship programs and other investments.

  What’s fascinating about their approach is that they are actively seeking out the informal activities taking place within the community – activities that would otherwise be hidden and then potentially lost. Once discovered, they then do a number of mapping exercises to keep track of this data.

  As somebody who believes city building will become a lot more data driven in the future, I think this is a really interesting initiative. And as gentrification pressures continue to increase in San Francisco, I’m sure this information will help guide the discussions. You can’t account for something you don’t know exists.

  If you’d like to learn more about this initiative, check out this short 4 minute video from the New York Times. I would then love to hear from you in the comment section below.

  2015.01.11

• Positivity in life (The happy secret to better work)

  https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work.html

  Earlier this week I watched the above TED talk called, The happy secret to better work. It’s only 12 minutes long.

  In it, Shawn Achor argues that we’ve got it all wrong and backwards when it comes to our happiness. We constantly set (moving) goals and then tell ourselves that once we achieve those goals we’ll be happy.

  We tell ourselves that once we get that degree, buy that new home, or secure that new promotion, that we’ll be happier. And I’m definitely guilty of that sometimes. I think many goal oriented people are.

  But his argument is that if happiness sits outside of those moving targets, we’ll never be as happy as we could be. Happiness needs to sit within those goals. In other words, we need to focus on being happy today, not tomorrow.

  But the other powerful thing about this approach is that greater happiness has been shown to improve productivity. So if you simply flip this equation, you’ll probably be not only happier but more successful.

  At the end of last year, somebody told me that they were really enjoying my blog because of how positive I always seem to be about the future of cities and the world.

  And that was honestly one of the nicest things to hear from a reader, because I truly believe that optimism, not pessimism, is what moves the world forward.

  2015.01.10

• A look at One Spadina Crescent

  

  One of the projects that I’m most excited about here in Toronto is the renovation and addition to One Spadina Crescent. The building sits in the middle of a roundabout along Spadina Avenue and occupies what is easily one of the most ceremonial positions in the city.

  But for as long as I can remember, the building hasn’t been living up to its full potential. So much so that in the 1960s it was going to be demolished in order to make way for the proposed Spadina Expressway. That would have been an absolute tragedy. Thankfully, our friend Jane Jacobs stopped that one.

  Today, exciting things are happening at One Spadina Crescent. The Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto is in the midst of renovating and expanding the building, and will eventually relocate there from its current location on College Street.

  When it’s all said and done, One Spadina Crescent will look something like this (via Daniels).

  From the south:

  

  From the west:

  

  From the north:

  

  What’s most exciting to me about this project are the following 3 things:

  First, it’s an opportunity to connect One Spadina Crescent to the surrounding urban fabric. Today, it feels very much like an island in the middle of the street. 

  Second, it’s a wonderful example of the new layering on top of the old, which is something that I believe we should aspire to do in our cities. The University of Toronto has become quite good at doing that on campus.

  And finally, the intent is for this building and site to include a number of research centers and public facing functions devoted to architecture, design, and city building. And so One Spadina could become quite the hub in the city. That’s exciting.

  If you’d like to take a look inside the building (pre-renovation), check out these great photos by Peter MacCallum. The picture at the top of this post is his.

  2015.01.10

• Did we hit peak car?

  

  The total number of vehicle miles traveled in the US used to largely do only one thing: go up. This is made it fairly easy for the Federal Highway Administration (FWHA) to forecast how much more Americans were going to drive in the coming years – they just extended the trend line.

  Below is what that looked like since the early 1970s (via FRED Economic Data). You’ll see that the total vehicle miles traveled went from somewhere around 1.1 trillion miles to around 3 trillion miles in and around the late 2000s. The shaded areas represent recessionary periods.

  

  But then in 2007, something happened. Total vehicle miles traveled peaked, declined, and then flat lined at just under 3 trillion miles. Here’s what that looked like (the ending time period is October 2014):

  

  However, since this was new for the FHWA, they continued to believe that this would ultimately correct itself and that total VMTs would eventually continue on their linear ascent. So here’s what their projections looked like (via State Smart Transportation Initiative):

  

  Clearly things didn’t go as planned.

  But then in May of last year (2014), the FHWA finally changed its tune and released this forecast, which had the following projections:

  

  It outlined 3 economic scenarios: a pessimistic one, a baseline one, and an optimistic one. In their baseline outlook, they believed that the annual growth rate for total vehicle miles traveled in the US would be 0.75% over a 30 year period running from 2012 to 2042.

  At the same time, they also stated that population growth would average about 0.7% per year through this same period. This means that the FHWA has more or less conceded that total vehicles traveled per person will likely remain flat, which is a significant change from previous forecasts.

  Now, given their track record, I don’t think any of us should put a lot of faith in the accuracy of these numbers. Per capita driving could flat line. But it might also go down, which is what it has been doing over the past few years.

  Either way, I do think it’s worth thinking about this shift. It’s a pretty big deal.

  Top Image: Flickr

  2015.01.09

• STEM + Art = STEAM

  

  Most of you have probably heard of the STEM subjects. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. These academic fields have been the focus of many federal governments around the world as they have been seen as the key to driving innovation.

  But what you may not have heard of is something called STEAM. I hadn’t heard about it until this morning. STEAM is an initiative being led by the Rhode Island School of Design to integrate art and design into national agendas pertaining to STEM. STEM + Art = STEAM.

  Here’s a snippet from RISD:

  The goal is to foster the true innovation that comes with combining the mind of a scientist or technologist with that of an artist or designer. RISD offers endless examples of how art and design education teaches the flexible thinking, risk-taking and creative problem solving needed to solve today’s most complex and pressing challenges – from healthcare to urban revitalization to global warming.

  I couldn’t agree more with this initiative. As somebody who thought a lot about how to combine design and technology in my own career, I believe that there are huge benefits to a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving and innovation. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I decided to go to Rotman for my MBA (see Business Design).

  So if you feel the same way, I would encourage you to add yourself and/or your company to the “STEM to STEAM map” that RISD has created. Click here to do that.

  2015.01.07

• My #CityResolve

  

  Yesterday the Urban Land Institute here in Toronto launched a great social media initiative called #CityResolve. The idea is that instead of making a personal New Year’s resolution, that you instead make one that would benefit your city as a whole. This is great for me because I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolutions.

  You can read more about the initiative here, but all you have to do is tweet your resolve using #CityResolve. One person will be selected for a one-on-one meeting with Toronto’s Chief Planner, Jennifer Keesmaat – where you could then pitch your idea directly to the top 🙂

  For me though, I feel like I’ve already been acting on my resolve, which is this blog. When I started writing every day back in August 2013, I did so for myself, but also for a clear mission: To promote the building of beautiful, sustainable, and globally competitive cities. I don’t profess to have all the answers, but I hope to initiate the right kind of discussions.

  If that feels like a cop out though, here’s another:

  I love technology. My #CityResolve is to use my phone less in public and talk to more people (strangers). People are what make cities great.

  — Brandon G. Donnelly (@donnelly_b) January 6, 2015

  //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  What’s yours?

  Image: Flickr

  2015.01.06

• Engaging with the sharing economy

  

  Last week I wrote (yet another) post about Uber where I argued that leading cities will be the ones that engage with the sharing/rental economy (as opposed to try and outright ban it) and that Uber is going to continue to impact current beliefs around vehicle ownership.

  As to be expected, some people agreed with me and some people didn’t:

  @GladstoneHotel @RebuildHamilton with all due respect, I think @donnelly_b has @uber wrong. They’re not eliminating private car ownership…

  — Martin Kuplens-Ewart (@mkuplens)

  January 5, 2015

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  But I also discovered following that post that there are groups, and hopefully cities, who are working to adapt to the changing realities brought about by disruptive innovation.

  One of those groups is The National League of Cities – which I truthfully don’t know that much about. But they have created something called “The Sharing Economy Advisory Network.”

  “Cities across the country have been struggling to respond to the rapid emergence of the Sharing Economy,” said Clarence Anthony, National League of Cities executive director. He continued, “Cities are looking for ways to update and improve their current regulatory framework to ensure that regulations like safety and health protect residents, while at the same time supporting the growth of new businesses. It is imperative for cities to learn how this industry operates and discover ways to engage in order to support these new modes of doing business and to create jobs.”

  It sounds like the right kind of initiative and I wish them lots of success. I hope it’s effective and I hope that Toronto will look at how it too can properly manage these economic changes. This is going to take both the private and public sectors working together.

  Image: Sidecar

  2015.01.06

• Dead malls — what’s the future of offline retailing?

  

  A lot of shopping malls are dying. You’ve probably heard this before. But how bad is it and what exactly is happening?

  Well, a new report by CoStar (heard through the New York Times) found that nearly 20% of the 1,200 malls in the US are presently in trouble. “Trouble” is defined as a mall with a vacancy rate of 10% or more.

  But what’s perhaps most disconcerting about this number is that, as recently as 2006, only about 5% of the malls in America would have been pegged as being “in trouble.” Here’s a chart from the New York Times (I’d love to see this same graph with a longer time horizon):

  

  But not all malls are dying. The general sentiment seems to be that the high-end A malls are and will continue to thrive, and that it’s only the B and C malls that are dying:

  Tom Simmons, who oversees the mid-Atlantic shopping center division of Kimco, another real estate giant, is more blunt. “There are B and C malls in tertiary markets that are dinosaurs and will likely die,” he said, but “A malls are doing well.” (NY Times)

  So why is this happening? Some think it’s because the US is over-retailed. And some think it’s because of rising income inequality – which would explain why the high-end malls continue to thrive. But the experts seem to agree that it’s not the result of more people shopping online:

  One factor many shoppers blame for the decline of malls — online shopping — is having only a small effect, experts say. Less than 10 percent of retail sales take place online, and those sales tend to hit big-box stores harder, rather than the fashion chains and other specialty retailers in enclosed malls. (NY Times)

  I wrote a post 2 months ago where where I argued that big box stores will be the most impacted by online shopping (which is why so many of them now sell groceries). But I don’t believe that they are the only retailers that will be affected. Quite the opposite: Every retailer is or eventually will be impacted by the internet.

  This threat is real.

  Millennials have no hesitations about buying things online and, in many cases, they would prefer to do so. It has already been well documented that we (I’m a Millennial) don’t like driving as much as previous generations. So what makes you think we’d enjoy the process of driving to a mall?

  But the other factor at play, I think, is that malls are no longer the “public space” of young people. Their position as a kind of cultural institution is waning. At the same time, more and more people are craving uniqueness. They like independent shops, not malls that all look and feel the same. And as these young people become old people, we might find that even the A malls start becoming impacted.

  I don’t believe, for a second, that retail nodes within cities will ever disappear. But I think our attention would be better spent figuring out what the mall of the 21st century will be, as opposed to hiring PR firms to try and spin doctor our way out of this dead mall phenomenon.

  Image: Flickr

  2015.01.04

• Villages and mountains (in Switzerland)

  I went snowboarding today and so I’ve got it on the brain right now. It’s one of my passions. But besides the actual act of riding down the mountain on a flexible board, there’s something much more about the sport to me.

  First, I love the small villages that develop – ideally organically – at the base of ski mountains. Here’s a neat video of Zermatt, Switzerland that makes it look like a “miniature" town. Click here if you can’t see it below.

  //player.vimeo.com/video/28956652?portrait=0&color=ff001a

  And second, I love the vistas that you get. I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but I find that they really pull you away from your everyday life. Here’s a stunning time-lapse video called the Mountains of Valais (Valais is the Swiss canton that Zermatt is located in). You need to watch it. Click here if you can’t see it below.

  //player.vimeo.com/video/81082164?portrait=0&color=a3e5ff

  The town of Zermatt is almost completely surrounded by high mountains and is home to Switzerland’s highest peak at 15,203 feet above sea level. I think it’s time I added it to my bucket list.

  2015.01.04

• Do you know where you spend your time?

  Yesterday my friend Sachin Monga published a really great article on Medium called, 2014: My Year in Review. It was broken down into a few sections that included everything from his favorite blog posts of the year to all of the images he posted on Instagram. He called it “a stream of personal observations, data, and highlights for the year.”

  And it put my end of the year blog post to shame.

  One section that really stood out for me though was Places & Transit. Using a mobile app called Moves, Sachin extracted an incredible data set for where he physically spent his time and how he got around in 2014. I can’t believe I haven’t heard of this app yet – it’s totally in my wheelhouse. But I’m clearly late to the party. Facebook bought them in the first half of last year.

  The data set included how many hours he spent at home and at work. His top 3 most visited coffee shops. His top 5 most visited friends. How many nights he stayed in a hotel. His average daily commute time. And his total distance walked and cycled, among many other things. It was fascinating. I love data – especially when it was previously impossible or difficult to collect it.

  He was also able to translate his data into a set of beautiful maps, showing where he spent his time and how he got around. Here is his personal map for Toronto. The larger the circle, the more often he was there. Blue lines are cycling. And green lines are walking.

  

  And here’s San Francisco (where he now lives):

  

  After reading his post, I immediately downloaded Moves. And I can’t wait to see how my personal map of Toronto will look like in a few weeks and months. Once I have enough data points, I’ll be sure to share it with you all here.

  In the interim, do you have any ideas for what this kind of data might be used for? I can certainly think of many. Let us know in the comment section below.

  2015.01.02