Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyCalm down, Dubai
Knight Frank just published the 17th edition of its annual "The Wealth Report." I have spoken about this report many times before on the blog because I generally find them really interesting. So today I'd like to share two items from this latest one.
The first item is their most recent Prime International Residential Index (PIRI). What this does is track prime residential prices across 100 key city, sun, and ski locations. "Prime", in case you are wondering, is defined as the most desirable and most expensive properties in each market -- generally the top 5%.
Look at Dubai go:
Knight Frank just published the 17th edition of its annual "The Wealth Report." I have spoken about this report many times before on the blog because I generally find them really interesting. So today I'd like to share two items from this latest one.
The first item is their most recent Prime International Residential Index (PIRI). What this does is track prime residential prices across 100 key city, sun, and ski locations. "Prime", in case you are wondering, is defined as the most desirable and most expensive properties in each market -- generally the top 5%.
Look at Dubai go:
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyCalm down, Dubai
Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
When I see a chart like this I usually start at the top and then immediately start scanning for Toronto. Here, it's more or less in the middle with a 4.1% increase. Totally reasonable. Prime property in Auckland and Wellington, on the other hand, didn't fair as well in 2022.
The second item is this very wonderful diagram showing flight connectivity before Covid (12 months to March 2020) and then post-Covid (12 months to December 2022):
The way to read this diagram is that the most connected cities -- ranked by the number and quality of flight connections -- get pushed toward the center. They also get bigger. Less connected cities, on the other hand, slide toward the edges. All of the cities also generally gravitate toward their main regional connections.
The most obvious change is the greatly weakened connectivity of Chinese cities. This is not surprising given their zero-Covid approach. Moscow also seems to get rightly pushed out to the side.
Another story is the continued rise of both Singapore (to the likely detriment of Hong Kong) and Dubai. I have only been to Dubai once, and I couldn't figure out how to navigate its sea of roads and highways, or how to locate an actual city center where humans walk around (though the historic Bur Dubai area was interesting).
But there is no denying that Dubai has become a pretty important global city.
When I see a chart like this I usually start at the top and then immediately start scanning for Toronto. Here, it's more or less in the middle with a 4.1% increase. Totally reasonable. Prime property in Auckland and Wellington, on the other hand, didn't fair as well in 2022.
The second item is this very wonderful diagram showing flight connectivity before Covid (12 months to March 2020) and then post-Covid (12 months to December 2022):
The way to read this diagram is that the most connected cities -- ranked by the number and quality of flight connections -- get pushed toward the center. They also get bigger. Less connected cities, on the other hand, slide toward the edges. All of the cities also generally gravitate toward their main regional connections.
The most obvious change is the greatly weakened connectivity of Chinese cities. This is not surprising given their zero-Covid approach. Moscow also seems to get rightly pushed out to the side.
Another story is the continued rise of both Singapore (to the likely detriment of Hong Kong) and Dubai. I have only been to Dubai once, and I couldn't figure out how to navigate its sea of roads and highways, or how to locate an actual city center where humans walk around (though the historic Bur Dubai area was interesting).
But there is no denying that Dubai has become a pretty important global city.
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Brandon DonnellyCanada 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...
Brandon DonnellyThe 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...
Brandon DonnellyCanada 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...
Brandon DonnellyThe 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...
>4.2K subscribers
>4.2K subscribers
No activity yet