Hotels are an important city-building tool. Let me give you an example. Each year, Conde Nast Traveler publishes a list of the best places to visit right now. Here's the 2025 list. If you scroll through it, one of the 25 places you'll find is Marseille. And if you look at the first picture, you'll find a hotel/restaurant called Tuba Club.

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I'm a big fan of Marseille and that, back in 2021, Neat B and I stayed at this hotel. In fact, the whole reason we even decided to stop in the city for the first time was so that we could check out this exact place. It opened the summer before and I had seen it written up somewhere.

I can also tell you that if you flip through Monocle's new handbook about France and go to the hotel section, you will likewise find Tuba Club. The place is seemingly everywhere and now has a loyal following.

But here's the important thing: it only has 5 rooms! And the room we stayed in was best accessed via a window and a large rock outcropping beside it. There's no way this place would meet code anywhere in Canada. But boy was it cool. And because we loved the experience so much, we decided to go back to Marseille the following summer and check out more of the city. It didn't disappoint.

Now I tell people and write blog posts about how much I love Marseille. And it all started with 5 non-code-compliant rooms perched on a bunch of rocks in a sleepy fishing port on the south end of the city. A great hotel can help you build your city.

We've spoken about Vitalik Buterin before.

He is the inventor of the Ethereum blockchain, and its most prominent figure. He also happens to have grown up in Toronto. He went to the University of Waterloo. So when I wrote this post back in 2021, I asked: Why the hell is nobody talking about this? Why are we not celebrating the fact that our great city helped birth one of the most important technologies of our time? You couldn't ask for a better economic development story. Well, I guess the answer is twofold. Crypto isn't mainstream. Even back in 2021 when things were frothy it wasn't. And, we're awful at promoting and driving a global brand for our city. Both of these things need to change. So if you're interested in learning more about Vitalik and Ethereum, you should check out this new movie (trailer) called Vitalik: An Ethereum Story. To watch it, go to ethereumfilm.xyz and mint the NFT for $20. You'll then be able to stream it. I haven't done this yet, but I'll be doing it very soon. All of the proceeds from the NFT sales will go toward getting a more mainstream distribution deal.

So by watching, you're helping.

Update: I watched it. It’s great.

Marrakech is one of the most frenetic, vibrant, and exciting cities that I have been to in a long time. Walking through the Medina means walking on streets that are only a few meters wide, but that are still somehow filled to the brim.

Filled with a beautiful cacophony of people, smells, and merchants, selling everything from leather sandals to engine parts. Filled with an endless supply of people vying aggressively for your attention (and who all seem to coincidentally have a relative in Toronto). And filled with motorbikes that are liable to ride over your feet if only you let your guard down for a second.

Sensory overload. It is at the same time exhausting and one of the coolest experiences ever.

Another name for these streets would be "shared streets," which is a way of saying that the formal distinctions between areas dedicated to pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists have been removed. While they are intended to be pedestrian-oriented, the overall approach is that all users just, you know, figure it out. Today, this is viewed as an enlightened approach to street design. Though it's clearly not a new one.

I will, however, be the first to admit that it's easy to feel like an uptight Canadian in the Medina of Marrakech. This thought definitely crossed my mind: "I can't believe they let motorbikes rip through these tiny streets." You can see why somebody at some point felt it might be a good idea to carefully segregate uses.

At the same time, the architecture of Morocco feels like the perfect complement to these chaotic streets. Notably inward facing, the central feature of a traditional riad is its courtyard. These spaces offer much-needed protection from the hot Moroccan sun, but they also allow for family privacy, which is something that is important in this culture.

The result is that you immediately feel it every time you walk inside. You have now entered a beautiful and calm oasis in the middle of a frenetic and exciting city.