Richard Florida and Joshua Gans just published an article in Politico called: Trump Is Making Canada Great Again. The overarching argument is that as the US closes its borders, Canada benefits. The best and brightest from around the world are coming here.
This fall, international student applications at the University of Toronto were up 70% compared to last year. And numerous companies in Toronto are reporting “steady, double-digit increases” in the number of job applications from Americans.
This is exactly what I was getting at when I made the pithy prediction that Amazon is going to choose Toronto for HQ2. It’s about access to human capital (though I acknowledge the political reality of selecting a city outside of the US).
Perhaps here or here might work for a location.
Here is an excerpt from the Politico article that starts to speak to the importance of foreign-born workers in the US:
As of 2013, foreign-born workers in STEM fields—science, technology engineering and math—accounted for nearly a fifth of workers with bachelor’s degrees in the United States, 40 percent of those with master’s degrees and more than half of those with Ph.D.s. In the San Jose metro area, consisting largely of Silicon Valley, immigrants comprise more than 55 percent of adults who hold advanced degrees.
Here is a chart showing the US and Canadian metros with the highest percentage of foreign-born residents:
And here is a chart showing which metro areas receive the most venture capital dollars (in millions of US dollars):
As to be expected, Toronto, Vancouver and Miami lead in terms of the percentage of foreign-born residents. Though, I would bet that Toronto’s foreign-born population is far more diverse than those of Vancouver and Miami.
However, when you look at venture capital dollars invested, Toronto is nowhere near the top. Vancouver isn’t even on the list. And I suspect that some of you are surprised to see Miami sitting in between Chicago and Seattle (arguably a city that overperforms in tech relative to VC dollars invested). I was.
Perhaps Trump will help with this by making Canada great again.
This past summer, an IGA store in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough erected “the largest organic green roof garden in the country.” It is about 25,000 square feet and it has a soil depth of only 150mm.
They also claim that it’s the first supermarket in Canada to sell produce grown on the roof of the actual store. The brand: Frais du toit, or fresh from the roof. There’s even a livestream in the vegetable aisle showing you how the goods are doing overhead.
I would be curious to know what their yields are like and what they are charging for the produce. But it’s certainly a praiseworthy initiative.
Below is a quick video that will give you an idea of what the roof looks like. If you can’t see it, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z69ScyHCfU&w=560&h=315]
Houston doesn’t often get a lot of love in urbanist circles.
Though since Ed Glaeser published Triumph of the City and declared Houston’s unfettered sprawl the secret sauce for housing affordability, it is now frequently held up as the shining example of why housing supply matters.
But this is a hotly debated topic.
Ed Glaeser would argue that increased supply is the key to housing affordability. But Richard Florida would likely be quick to point out that Houston is also one of the most unequal and segregated cities in America. It is not the model we should be following.
But let’s be positive today on the blog.
At the bottom of this post is a great talk by Stephen Klineberg called: Houston, The Global City. Klineberg is a Professor of Sociology at Rice University and the founder of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research.
In this hour long talk, he outlines, among other things, the remarkable transformation of Houston from a one-industry town (oil) comprised predominantly of white people to a mixed economy where every major ethnicity is now a minority.
He also argues that Houston is at the forefront of the demographic shifts happening all across the country and that, without this inflow of immigrants over the past couple of decades, Houston today would probably look a lot like a decaying rustbelt city.
It’s a good watch.
If you can’t see the video below, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJdWYXIr_qE?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Richard Florida and Joshua Gans just published an article in Politico called: Trump Is Making Canada Great Again. The overarching argument is that as the US closes its borders, Canada benefits. The best and brightest from around the world are coming here.
This fall, international student applications at the University of Toronto were up 70% compared to last year. And numerous companies in Toronto are reporting “steady, double-digit increases” in the number of job applications from Americans.
This is exactly what I was getting at when I made the pithy prediction that Amazon is going to choose Toronto for HQ2. It’s about access to human capital (though I acknowledge the political reality of selecting a city outside of the US).
Perhaps here or here might work for a location.
Here is an excerpt from the Politico article that starts to speak to the importance of foreign-born workers in the US:
As of 2013, foreign-born workers in STEM fields—science, technology engineering and math—accounted for nearly a fifth of workers with bachelor’s degrees in the United States, 40 percent of those with master’s degrees and more than half of those with Ph.D.s. In the San Jose metro area, consisting largely of Silicon Valley, immigrants comprise more than 55 percent of adults who hold advanced degrees.
Here is a chart showing the US and Canadian metros with the highest percentage of foreign-born residents:
And here is a chart showing which metro areas receive the most venture capital dollars (in millions of US dollars):
As to be expected, Toronto, Vancouver and Miami lead in terms of the percentage of foreign-born residents. Though, I would bet that Toronto’s foreign-born population is far more diverse than those of Vancouver and Miami.
However, when you look at venture capital dollars invested, Toronto is nowhere near the top. Vancouver isn’t even on the list. And I suspect that some of you are surprised to see Miami sitting in between Chicago and Seattle (arguably a city that overperforms in tech relative to VC dollars invested). I was.
Perhaps Trump will help with this by making Canada great again.
This past summer, an IGA store in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough erected “the largest organic green roof garden in the country.” It is about 25,000 square feet and it has a soil depth of only 150mm.
They also claim that it’s the first supermarket in Canada to sell produce grown on the roof of the actual store. The brand: Frais du toit, or fresh from the roof. There’s even a livestream in the vegetable aisle showing you how the goods are doing overhead.
I would be curious to know what their yields are like and what they are charging for the produce. But it’s certainly a praiseworthy initiative.
Below is a quick video that will give you an idea of what the roof looks like. If you can’t see it, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z69ScyHCfU&w=560&h=315]
Houston doesn’t often get a lot of love in urbanist circles.
Though since Ed Glaeser published Triumph of the City and declared Houston’s unfettered sprawl the secret sauce for housing affordability, it is now frequently held up as the shining example of why housing supply matters.
But this is a hotly debated topic.
Ed Glaeser would argue that increased supply is the key to housing affordability. But Richard Florida would likely be quick to point out that Houston is also one of the most unequal and segregated cities in America. It is not the model we should be following.
But let’s be positive today on the blog.
At the bottom of this post is a great talk by Stephen Klineberg called: Houston, The Global City. Klineberg is a Professor of Sociology at Rice University and the founder of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research.
In this hour long talk, he outlines, among other things, the remarkable transformation of Houston from a one-industry town (oil) comprised predominantly of white people to a mixed economy where every major ethnicity is now a minority.
He also argues that Houston is at the forefront of the demographic shifts happening all across the country and that, without this inflow of immigrants over the past couple of decades, Houston today would probably look a lot like a decaying rustbelt city.
It’s a good watch.
If you can’t see the video below, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJdWYXIr_qE?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
