When I was in undergrad, I spent a summer in Taipei. One of the things I remember about that summer was how difficult it was to locate building addresses. Sure, there was the whole language barrier thing, but I swear that some of those alleys… Read More
I came across this discussion on Twitter yesterday about how so many of the spaces we love in cities would not conform to today’s modern city planning practices: @jonahletovsky we could go all weekend tweeting pics of places that would contravene modern formulaic codes, and… Read More
Earlier today The Economist published the below chart showing where Canada’s immigrants have come from (place of birth) between 1871 and 2011. So basically from Confederation (1867) to today – almost. It’s a great chart. It really shows our evolution. Perhaps the most meaningful date… Read More
Oscar Wilde once said: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” I’m sure that all of you can think of someone right now who subscribes to the philosophy that any press is good… Read More
Richard Florida has a new book coming out in the spring called, The New Urban Crisis. Noteworthy about the book is that he has changed his tune with respect to the potential of the “creative class” to form the new middle class. Here’s a quote from… Read More
Matthew Townsend of Bloomberg recently published an interesting article talking about the dominance of Amazon.com (and online shopping in general); the shift towards experiences over stuff; and the languishing brick-and-mortar brands that keep saying it’s the macroeconomy, rather their product/approach, which is causing sales to… Read More
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo recently signed a bill that will levy heavy fines (up to $7,500) on Airbnb hosts who do not abide by local housing regulations. Hours after, Airbnb filed a federal lawsuit claiming “irreparable harm.” However, they also proposed a 5 point… Read More
Urbanist Richard Florida has spoken a lot about a “great inversion.” This is about poverty moving to the suburbs and the core of cities becoming a kind of “gated suburb.” (i.e. wealthy) In response to this narrative, City Observatory recently published a post where they call this… Read More
Hotels play such an interesting role within cities. They are public-facing in a way that many other uses are not and they invite a mixing of different people – everyone from transients to locals. It is therefore no surprise that they can serve a variety… Read More
Yesterday I sent out this tweet, which included this graph: The chart is from Altus Group and it is a monthly price index of new low-rise vs. high-rise housing in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). I have posted similar charts in the past, but every… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 