At the beginning of this year, Brian Chesky, who is cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, took to Twitter to ask about what products, features, and/or services the company should launch this year. The thread is filled with all sorts of interesting ideas and suggestions, as… Read More
Monthly archives of “January 2022”
Informal settlements are the desire lines of housing
Toronto’s new garden suite (accessory dwelling unit) policies are headed to Planning and Housing Committee this week for approval. If you’d like to leave a supportive comment, you can do that over here by clicking “submit comments” at the top of the page. I just… Read More
The century of gasoline vehicles is coming to an end
Chrysler announced last week that it will become an all-electric vehicle company by 2028. This is a pretty big deal and, as I understand it, a first for the legacy US automakers. At this point, it now feels difficult to argue that this shift isn’t… Read More
Robotic furniture startup Ori partners with Marriott Hotels
Space-saving transformational furniture isn’t necessarily a new thing. We’ve all seen a murphy bed. And people like Graham Hill (of LifeEdited) have been designing and building out small urban apartments that magically transform for what seems like a decade. Perhaps it’s even longer than that.… Read More
Toward more multi-family housing
This recent article by Brookings is a good reminder of the all too important link between land use policies/patterns and GHG emissions. Because electric vehicles are cool and all, but they’re still not as efficient as just walking around and/or taking transit. As has been… Read More
Neighborhood retail in residential Calgary
I have written, many times over the years, about small-scale commercial uses in residential neighborhoods. Here in Toronto, they are generally not permitted. The small convenience stores and bodegas that remain are often legal non-conforming uses. Today I came across a great example from Calgary.… Read More
New York City releases climate resilience plan
New York City is projecting that Lower Manhattan is likely to see more frequent flooding by as early as the 2040s. This could move to monthly flooding by the 2050s and daily by the 2080s. These time horizons may seem like a ways away, but… Read More
Adam Neumann has quietly acquired some 4,000 apartment units
So it was announced today that Adam Neumann — the cofounder and former CEO of WeWork — has been quietly buying apartment buildings across the United States. According to the Wall Street Journal, he is involved in entities that have acquired more than 4,000 apartment… Read More
An exciting new proposal for Toronto
I love change. In fact, a big part of what I do for a living is imagining what things could be in the future. However, the bias that humans have toward the status quo has been well documented by people like Seth Godin, as well… Read More
The “hotelization” of housing
When I was younger and looking for any excuse to travel (I’m not sure this has changed), there were periods of time where I “lived” for weeks and months in hotels and in spaces that today we would characterize as co-living. I always liked the… Read More