Emily Badger’s recent piece on “how ‘developer’ became such a dirty word” has been getting passed around within the industry over the last few days. I had a chuckle when I read this bit: The notion that development is inherently bad, or that developers are… Read More
Today I’m excited to announce that the Junction House Sales Gallery has just received a Best of Canada Award (2019) from Canadian Interiors. Link, here. Shout-out to Dialogue 38, Vanderbrand, Unique Urban Homes, Superkul, and the rest of the team for making it happen. We… Read More
Benedict Evan’s most recent blog post, called “Amazon as experiment,” draws some interesting parallels between what Amazon is doing today (and experimenting with) and the beginning of mass retail, namely the invention of the department store. He also talks about some of the shortcomings of… Read More
Fred Wilson wrote a post this morning about the “certainty of close.” He was talking about fundraising for startups, but similar parallels can be drawn to other aspects of life and business. The point Fred makes is that if you can live with the “bird… Read More
One of the defining characteristics of Portuguese cities is the stone paving that is used in many or most pedestrian spaces. In European Portuguese, it is called calçada portuguesa. Above is a photo — that I didn’t take — of Rossio Square is Lisbon. This… Read More
There’s an interesting debate happening online right now. A recent article by Derek Thompson (of the Atlantic) made the claim that today’s urban renaissance is great for young college graduates, but not so good for kids. Here’s a quick synopsis: Cities have effectively traded away… Read More
I came across this tweet by Sean Galbraith last night. You will probably need to click through to see the full extent of the photos. It is a series of images showing two back-to-back houses. The lands touch one another. But if you were to… Read More
This recent NY Times article — which makes the case that the current protests in Hong Kong are at least partially a result of inequality — has a pair of interesting diagrams that speak to the city’s tight housing market. The first compares average living… Read More
This a big month for laneway (housing) advocates in Toronto. Last week, City Council voted in favor of expanding the policy provisions for laneway suites to all Neighbourhoods within the city. (Neighbourhood is a defined term in the city’s Official Plan.) Previously, the policies —… Read More
Here are the results of a Global Consumer Survey that was conducted in Canada this year (2019) and that asked respondents whether or not they own a smart home device. That is, a device that can be controlled via a smartphone / internet connection. Even… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 