Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.

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>4.2K subscribers

Canada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...

The bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
The story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...

Canada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...

The bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
The story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
https://twitter.com/donnelly_b/status/1492933259730329606?s=20&t=rJBY1NPd4XF1WJ6odJ3Drg
I have enjoyed photography for as long as I can remember. But I got into it in earnest during undergrad while studying architecture. At that time, Toronto-based photographer Sam Javanrouh was in the early days of running his decade-long photoblog called daily dose of imagery. And I remember checking it religiously to see his captures of the city. This was a fairly novel medium for photos at the time. Instagram wouldn't arrive for another 7 or so years. So I found it deeply inspiring.
So much so that I went over to Henry's at the corner of Queen and Church, bought a refurbished Canon Rebel, and started capturing my own photos of Toronto -- often at night after school. I'm positive that I'd be embarrassed if I ever pulled out those old photos from the archives, but regardless, photography more or less stuck with me as a hobby. It also formed an integral part of the design portfolio that I used to get into graduate architecture school. (My photos proved to be less useful for business school.)
I later moved onto shooting with Fujifilm cameras (currently a Fujifilm X-T3). And nowadays I mostly shoot when I'm traveling and have some free time. But two decades after buying that refurbed Rebel, I can't help but feel like we are at yet another important turning point in the evolution of photography (and, of course, art more broadly). We now have tools and technologies that allow for the ownership of digital assets. (See non-fungible tokens.)
So I have decided to start minting and making my photography available for sale on Foundation. The first collection is called "Be a global citizen", and the plan is to slowly add my photography from around the world to it. The floor price is currently set at 0.25 ETH. And all of the photos were taken on my Fujifilm X-T3. I hope you like it. To check out the collection, click here.
https://twitter.com/donnelly_b/status/1492933259730329606?s=20&t=rJBY1NPd4XF1WJ6odJ3Drg
I have enjoyed photography for as long as I can remember. But I got into it in earnest during undergrad while studying architecture. At that time, Toronto-based photographer Sam Javanrouh was in the early days of running his decade-long photoblog called daily dose of imagery. And I remember checking it religiously to see his captures of the city. This was a fairly novel medium for photos at the time. Instagram wouldn't arrive for another 7 or so years. So I found it deeply inspiring.
So much so that I went over to Henry's at the corner of Queen and Church, bought a refurbished Canon Rebel, and started capturing my own photos of Toronto -- often at night after school. I'm positive that I'd be embarrassed if I ever pulled out those old photos from the archives, but regardless, photography more or less stuck with me as a hobby. It also formed an integral part of the design portfolio that I used to get into graduate architecture school. (My photos proved to be less useful for business school.)
I later moved onto shooting with Fujifilm cameras (currently a Fujifilm X-T3). And nowadays I mostly shoot when I'm traveling and have some free time. But two decades after buying that refurbed Rebel, I can't help but feel like we are at yet another important turning point in the evolution of photography (and, of course, art more broadly). We now have tools and technologies that allow for the ownership of digital assets. (See non-fungible tokens.)
So I have decided to start minting and making my photography available for sale on Foundation. The first collection is called "Be a global citizen", and the plan is to slowly add my photography from around the world to it. The floor price is currently set at 0.25 ETH. And all of the photos were taken on my Fujifilm X-T3. I hope you like it. To check out the collection, click here.
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