I just received the September issue of Monocle magazine. One of the features I always read is the “Observation” on the very last page. It reads as the editor in chief’s personal blog.
In this issue he talks about the recent EU referendum and the changes he is making to his business in response to that. Monocle is headquartered in London, but he is now finding it challenging to be “an international media business in a country that hasn’t figured out how it’s going to move forward.”
His response?
They are shoring up the Zürich office. They are looking at the possibility of a second bureau somewhere on the continent. And they are similarly looking to increase staff in both Toronto and Singapore.
When one place closes up, the companies and talent will find other cities that are open for business.
As someone who is closing one chapter this week and starting a new one, Tyler Brûlé’s Observation also reminded me of the importance of change. Oftentimes change feels uncomfortable. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s more likely a sign that you’re on to something.
What have you done lately that made you feel uncomfortable?
This past Sunday was the 3rd anniversary of this blog. That is 3 years of me writing something here every day (I think I’ve only missed 2 days in the past 3 years). So I have now written almost 1,100 blog posts.
Admittedly, they weren’t all masterpieces. But that doesn’t really matter. To do good work, I think you have to be prolific and show up every day.
The big change this year was that I “unbranded” this blog and started writing just under my personal name, as opposed to Architect This City. I got some initial pushback when I did that, but I continue to believe it was the right decision for what I am trying to achieve here.
I recently had someone ask me if there was any change in traffic after the switch. And the answer is no. If anything, traffic increased.
Over the last year, this blog received about 225,000 page views. Of course, this doesn’t include the 14,000 or so people who read via email subscription and Tumblr, and never actually land on this site.
But honestly, I don’t care about the numbers anymore. I used to. But not anymore. I blog because it:
- Forces me to stay current on the topics that matter to me
- Allows me to clarify my thoughts in a way that thinking alone can’t do
- Holds me publicly accountable for the things I say and the stances I take
- Connects me with people I would never otherwise meet
- Exposes me to new business opportunities
- Gives me a distribution channel for discussion and sharing
- Allows me to learn from readers who know more than I do
- Feeds my desire to create things (creating > consuming)
- Allows me to exert my personal independence (I write what I want here)
- Promotes greater transparency and, hopefully, better city building
I could go on, but those are some of the most salient points.
At the same time, the world of blogging and social media is all about giving first. So I do try to curate content and posts that I think would be valuable to the readership of this blog. If there’s something else you’d like to see on here, I am always open to suggestions.
Thanks for reading! Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow. And yes, those are my old skateboard decks hanging on the wall behind my desk.
I was walking by a tight construction site last night and it got me thinking. Besides the obvious environmental benefits of building up, as opposed to out, compact urban sites can force something else: intent.
One of the ways I think about good design is that it is intentional. It is about seeing problems and/or opportunities and then being deliberate in how you respond. Every creative decision needs a reason why. I like how John R. Moran talks about design in this blog post from 2014:
“The opposite of design, then, is the failure to develop and employ intent in making creative decisions. This doesn’t sound hard, but, astonishingly, no other leading tech company makes intentional design choices like Apple. Instead, they all commit at least one of what I term the Three Design Evasions.”
The three design evasions he goes on to talk about are (1) preserving, (2) copying, and (3) delegating.
The thing about compact and constrained urban sites is that they can force you away from the three design evasions that Moran lists in his post. You can’t just repeat what was done in the past or copy what someone else has done, because that precedent probably didn’t have the same challenges you face.
Of course, if this were enough to promote great design, our cities would look a hell of a lot different. Still, it’s one of the reasons why I’m attracted to compact forms of development such as laneway housing and other urban infill.