Month: August 2016

• 3 years of daily blogging

  

  This past Sunday was the 3rd anniversary of this blog. That is 3 years of me writing something here every day (I think I’ve only missed 2 days in the past 3 years). So I have now written almost 1,100 blog posts.

  Admittedly, they weren’t all masterpieces. But that doesn’t really matter. To do good work, I think you have to be prolific and show up every day.

  The big change this year was that I “unbranded” this blog and started writing just under my personal name, as opposed to Architect This City. I got some initial pushback when I did that, but I continue to believe it was the right decision for what I am trying to achieve here.

  I recently had someone ask me if there was any change in traffic after the switch. And the answer is no. If anything, traffic increased. 

  Over the last year, this blog received about 225,000 page views. Of course, this doesn’t include the 14,000 or so people who read via email subscription and Tumblr, and never actually land on this site.

  But honestly, I don’t care about the numbers anymore. I used to. But not anymore. I blog because it:

  – Forces me to stay current on the topics that matter to me

  – Allows me to clarify my thoughts in a way that thinking alone can’t do

  – Holds me publicly accountable for the things I say and the stances I take

  – Connects me with people I would never otherwise meet

  – Exposes me to new business opportunities

  – Gives me a distribution channel for discussion and sharing

  – Allows me to learn from readers who know more than I do

  – Feeds my desire to create things (creating > consuming)

  – Allows me to exert my personal independence (I write what I want here)

  – Promotes greater transparency and, hopefully, better city building

  I could go on, but those are some of the most salient points.

  At the same time, the world of blogging and social media is all about giving first. So I do try to curate content and posts that I think would be valuable to the readership of this blog. If there’s something else you’d like to see on here, I am always open to suggestions.

  Thanks for reading! Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow. And yes, those are my old skateboard decks hanging on the wall behind my desk.

  2016.08.31

• New all-year, multi-valley, ski and snowboard destination approved in British Columbia

  I know it’s only August, but I am already thinking of snowboarding.

  And I just recently learned that the British Columbia government has given the go ahead for a new multi-peak and year-round ski destination near Valemount, BC. The summits will include Mount Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Twilight Glacier, Glacier Ridge, and Mount Arthur Meighen.

  Here is a photo of Mount Meighen (taken in September) from the project’s master plan.

  

  Here is where Valemount is situated. It’s a 7 hour drive from Vancouver and a 5.5 hour drive from Edmonton.

  

  Here is the mountain range in relation to Valemount. Right hand side of the image. Sorry, I know it’s small.

  

  Here is the master plan that just got approved. Valemount is once again on the right / east.

  

  And here is why this is a big deal (at least in my world):

  – Valemount has the potential to be “the third largest lift-serviced non-contiguous vertical” in the world at 2,260m (7,415 feet). Zermatt, Switzerland and Chamonix, France are number 1 and 2. Of course, it would still get the title of the largest vertical drop in North America.

  – There are a number of glaciers that would allow for summer / year-long snowboarding.

  – They want to create a multi-valley snowboarding experience, similar to the European Alps.

  – The mountain range has one of the highest average snowfalls in Canada. Valemount gets 5.36m (211 inches) per year and at an elevation of 1,800m it’s 14m (551 inches) of snowfall per year. This is more than Whistler. Because of this, they are not planning any snowmaking.

  – There’s an airport nearby.

  – One of their guiding principles is to minimize the environmental impact.

  Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2017 and the plan is to open to the public by December 2017. The first phase will include Twilight Glacier at an elevation of 2,530m (8,301 feet). So right from the outset, there will be summer skiing.

  If you’re curious what the master plan for a ski resort looks like, you can download the entire report here. It’s only 324 pages.

  2016.08.30

• The Elephant Graph

  The following chart was created by Branko Milanovic (Visiting Presidential Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York and Senior Scholar, Luxumberg Income Centre) and by Christoph Lakner (Economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank.

  

  It is known as the “elephant graph” because, well, it kind of looks like an elephant. The trunk is on the right.

  What it shows is global cumulative real income growth from 1988 to 2008 for every percentile around the world.

  The trunk on the right is the world’s 1%. Their income is up.

  The 50-60th percentile range is also up. These are people in the developing world who started making a bit of money as a result of industrialization. In percentage terms things look good, but in absolute terms they’re not making a lot of money. Still, they are becoming better off.

  Where things fall apart is in the 75-90th percentile range. These are essentially the lowest income folks in the developed world. Their incomes haven’t been growing at the same rate and, in some cases, their incomes decreased in real terms. They are falling behind.

  Kaila Colbin wrote a Medium post about this graph and asks whether the exponential growth in technology that we are seeing today, will end up creating more jobs than it eliminates – as it did before in the past. 

  She also wonders whether the dip we are seeing in the 75-90th percentile range could spread left as automation eliminates jobs for those folks in the developing world.

  These are important questions.

  2016.08.29

• Preserving place

  I was recently asked: How do you go into a neighborhood, build new, and not erase and/or sterilize what makes that neighborhood interesting in the first place? 

  Gentrification is a controversial topic in city building. Too often I think we ignore what happens when we don’t invest in communities, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be deliberate when we do make investments.

  Development is filled with tensions. We are constantly trying to navigate through constraints and balance out the wants of each and every stakeholder. It becomes an art. It doesn’t always work out as planned.

  To state the obvious, I would say that it starts with caring. If you’re not interested in community and city building, then the default response will be to simply replicate what worked on the last project.

  But every place has a local culture. And if city builders are to have any hope of preserving and building upon what makes that place unique, we have to first understand it. What made it successful in the first place? What is its DNA?

  Because then you’re in a position to think about both built form and programming in a way that is culturally sensitive.

  One example that comes to mind is the proposed redevelopment of Honest Ed’s / Mirvish Village here in Toronto. 

  The “micro tower” design is intended to create the sense that the area was built up organically over time. And the fine grain retail (50-60 individual retail spaces) is intended to house local retailers, micro retail startups, and pop-up shops. To me, both of these elements speak to the history and fabric of the area.

  Adopting a unique approach can also sometimes mean rethinking how you measure ROI. If all you care about is who will pay you the highest rent – right now – then you’re going to make a decision based on that metric.

  Maximizing revenue is not a bad thing. That’s what businesses are supposed to do. But sometimes there is or should be a larger vision at play. And sometimes you need to take a longer view.

  In Toronto’s Distillery District, the developers made the decision to eschew large chains and franchises (in favor of more local retailers) so that they could create a very particular place. Ultimately that particular place became a great place to sell condos, but they suffered early on for it.

  I like how Gary Vaynerchuk put it when he asked: What is the ROI of your mother? Sometimes you may not be able to measure it, but that doesn’t mean the ROI isn’t there.

  Any other suggestions?

  2016.08.28

• Returning to photography

  I used to be more into photography. In architecture school, I had an old Canon Rebel and a photoblog where I posted one photo every day. Clearly I have a thing for daily routines.

  But that was the pre-social media era and before mobile phones had cameras. With the rise of those two things I eventually moved over to just taking photos on my phone and posting them to my Instagram. Today we are all photographers.

  However this week I decided that I want to start taking that creative outlet a bit more seriously again. So I asked my talented photography buddy (founder of DSCBRD) if he could recommend a reasonably priced camera for my purposes. 

  I then sifted through all of the reviews – because that’s what I do – and decided on the mirrorless Fuji X-T10. I love the retro design. It’s also compact enough that it’s easy to carry around. The best camera is the one you have on you.

  

  So I’m spending this afternoon at a cottage playing around with it. It’s a fun place to experiment. I hope you’re all having a great weekend. Talk to you tomorrow.

  2016.08.27

• Tools of the trade and productivity hacks

  Like a lot of people, I am always on the lookout for productivity tools and hacks. This is an old post, but I love the idea of getting rid of voicemail (I hate checking it) and of 3×5 cards where you focus yourself on 3-5 important tasks each day.

  So today I thought I would share some of the tools, apps, and hacks that I use on a regular basis. Then if you feel like it, you can share your tools and approaches in the comments so we come up with a good running list.

  I’ll start with software and then move to actions.

  Google Drive: I have my Google Drive mapped to my computer and I store everything on it. That way I can access any file I need from my phone while I’m away from my desk. There’s also Dropbox and Box for moving around large files.

  Evernote: I am trying to go paperless. Right now I photo scan almost all of my documents into Evernote (including business cards). I really should invest in an actual scanner. If you know of a good one for this purpose, let me know. Again, the advantage of this approach is that all of my documents are accessible on mobile.

  Asana: I have used Asana off and on over the years for managing team projects. (We used it for Dirt.) Everyone needs to be committed to it though. And we all know how sticky email is for communication/assigning tasks. But if you can get in the habit of listing and assigning action items during or right after meetings, I think it can be a great way to keep projects moving. 

  Slack: I have a tendency to always want to keep everyone on a team informed about what is going on. That way nobody is left out and people can speak up if they see something concerning. I got in the habit of this when I was at Morguard. That was the way we did things in development and I think it’s a sound approach. Today, we have Slack to help do that.

  Buffer: I use Buffer to schedule and share all of my social posts. Some people swear by Hootsuite, but I love the simplicity of Buffer. It couldn’t be easier to add posts to your queues across multiple platforms.

  Pocket: This is my save-it-and-read-it-later tool. I use Pocket to keep a running list of articles and links I find interesting so that when I sit down every morning to write this blog, I have material to refer to.

  Now let’s switch gears to actions…

  Notifications Off: I have all notifications off on my phone during the day (except for phone calls). The temptation to check my phone when it goes off is too great, so I keep it completely silent. It doesn’t even vibrate. Going even further, I also have notifications off for most non-essential apps.

  Directing Messages: I am trying to keep messages directed to Twitter, text, and email. That means I am generally terrible at responding to messages on Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on. But I’m okay with that. There are simply too many channels to stay on top of.

  Routines: When I first started writing this daily blog, people would ask me why I don’t take the weekends off. But I actually think it would be harder to stay disciplined if I did that. By doing it every day it has become a non-negotiable routine. I try to think of productivity in terms of regular actions.

  Today’s Tasks: I am starting to do this more and more. It’s easy to end up with an overwhelmingly long list of things to do. So it can be incredibly valuable to ask yourself: What are the most important things for me to complete today? Then go and do those things.

  Gym: For me, lifting weights is one of the best ways to stay productive. It’s a natural energy booster and I find that it gives me a mental clarity that I just don’t get from anything else. I am not the same person when I fall behind in my workouts.

  What do you use and do to get shit done?

  2016.08.26

• Sharing walls with strangers

  Barry Ritholtz recently published an article in Bloomberg View called: Still a Lot of Negativity on Housing. 

  He basically says that “many people” should go out and buy a home given the current state of the US housing market and the historically low interest rates. That’s a perfectly fine argument. But it’s not all that interesting.

  The article does, however, have a moderately interactive chart showing the percentage of US households that own their homes.

  It shows the pre-2008 peak:

  

  And it shows, somewhat surprisingly, the recent “search for bottom.” I knew there was a significant post-2008 decline, but I guess I thought it had stabilized. Instead, the US is hitting homeownership rates not seen since the mid-1960s.

  

  Big cities tend to have a higher percentage of renters. Millennials are flooding into cities. The digital economy now encourages mobility, which contradicts traditional notions of homeownership. There are all kinds of potential hypotheses that could be extracted here.

  But the other interesting thing I noticed in the article, was this:

  However, at some point in life, you probably no longer want to have a landlord telling you what color your walls can be or become tired of having strangers share a wall with you. I am not a zealous believer that everyone should go out and buy a home. However, for many people, buying makes sense – especially with mortgage rates as low as they are (the current rate of about 3.45 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is just 0.10 percent higher than the record low).

  I couldn’t help but notice the embedded cultural bias. The inference is that when you rent, you share walls. In other words, you live in some sort of multi-family apartment. 

  But when you finally go out and buy a home, you graduate from that. You no longer need to share walls with strangers. Because an owned home equals a single-family detached dwelling. That’s how you know you’ve made it.

  Well, I have shared walls in my owned home. I guess I’m not there yet. 🙂

  2016.08.26

• Job Opportunity: London Night Czar

  

  The City of London is looking for a “Night Czar” to help shape and grow the city as a 24-hour destination. Here’s a snippet from the job posting:

  “The Night Czar will champion the value of London’s night time culture whilst developing and diversifying London’s night time economy.

  Working with the Mayor, the Night Time Commission, local authorities, businesses, the Metropolitan Police Service, Transport For London and other agencies, the Night Czar will create a vision for London as 24-hour city and a roadmap showing how the vision will be realised. The Night Czar will have proven leadership ability, public profile and convening power, plus a thorough understanding of the night time economy and the ability to work in a political environment.”

  I think 2016 will turn out to be the year of the “night mayor.” This trend is really picking up momentum in Europe, as more and more cities look to capitalize on their night time economies.

  The job will pay £35,000 per year for 2.5 days of work per week. The closing date for the application is Monday, September 12, 2016. If you’d like to apply, you can do that here.

  I’ve been writing about this trend all year. Hopefully a decision maker in Toronto is reading this.

  2016.08.24

• The rise of tech outposts

  What happens when wages and real estate prices become too high in a city? Companies start growing in lower cost locations. We’ve all seen this before. 

  Fred Wilson recently blogged about this “spillover effect”, citing a New York Times article talking about the growth of tech offices in Phoenix. As someone who sits on the board of many technology companies, he was noticing a thematic trend:

  “A big theme of board meetings I’ve been in over the past year is the crazy high cost of talent in the big tech centers (SF, NYC, LA, Boston, Seattle) and the need to grow headcount in lower cost locations.”

  We talk a lot about housing prices on this blog, and so I think it’s useful to see how this, along with high wages, also impacts companies. The two are interrelated.

  Below is a chart from the NY Times article showing the US cities with the highest number of technology jobs and the most growth from 2010 to 2015. 

  

  San Francisco is in a league of its own. But overall, the growth is in tech and many cities are adding lots of technology jobs. Look at Detroit and Boston right beside each other (Detroit obviously has a smaller starting base). And look at how Miami is nowhere to be found.

  Of course, one interesting question is whether these new outposts – such as Phoenix – can truly come into their own and carve out a niche:

  “We don’t want to be San Francisco’s back office — we need more creators here,” said Scott Salkin, a founder and the chief executive of Allbound, which is based in Phoenix, makes sales software and has offices down the hall from Gainsight’s.

  Even with the high cost of living, it’s hard to supplant the coastal hegemony. That’s where people go to chase riches. As comedian Daniel Tosh likes to say, “the middle of the country is for people who gave up on their dreams.”

  Though for some, living in a place like Denver or Salt Lake City and snowboarding every weekend is a better outcome than living in a studio apartment and commuting an hour to work.

  2016.08.23

• The institutionalization of development

  Jones Lang LaSalle recently asked: Is there still room for the buccaneer property developer?

  But in the contemporary world of real-estate – corporatized, institutionalized and massively capitalized – is there any longer room for the swashbuckling “merchant developers” or are they doomed to go the way of the wildly-gesticulating floor traders in colourful blazers that once symbolized financial markets?

  “There is always room for the entrepreneur,” says Richard Bloxam, JLL’s head of capital markets, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “It is, however, fair to say that real estate has been on a journey away from total reliance on the entrepreneurial model.”

  I’ve written about the institutionalization of the business before. And it’s something I’ve been asking developers that I interview for my BARED blog series. Are the days of the eccentric and larger than life developer behind us?

  The consensus appears to be no. 

  All that has changed is the capital source / stack. The skills that make for a successful developer haven’t changed. You still need to be creative and look for opportunities that others don’t see. You still have to navigate through all of the various constraints – of which there is probably more of today. You still need to be entrepreneurial in spirit.

  What I wonder though is if this change hasn’t undemocratized the business to a certain extent. It seems to me that it’s harder, today, to fly by the seat of your pants with just an idea (and no capital). The barriers to entry feel more significant. But as Richard says, “there is always room for the entrepreneur.” And I believe that.

  I would be curious to hear your thoughts. 

  Also, the next BARED post will be up shortly. Stay tuned.

  2016.08.22