A few days ago I tweeted this chart out (from Statistics Canada):

It is a list of the densest downtowns in Canada (people per square kilometer). But to be more precise, it is a list of the densest primary downtowns for each census metropolitan area.

In the case of Toronto, for instance, it considers downtown Toronto, but it does not consider downtown Mississauga, downtown Brampton, or any other "downtowns" across the CMA. And in the case of Vancouver, it ignores important centers such as Burnaby.

Many were quick to point this out on Twitter and it is a fair comment. Our cities are often more polycentric than a chart like this might make it seem.

The other thing to consider is that these density numbers are dependent on what you assume as the boundary for each downtown. For downtown Vancouver it's a fair bit easier because it is a peninsula surrounded by water.

But for downtown Toronto, it's more nebulous. Where do you draw the line? In this case, Statistics Canada is using the same downtown boundary as what's in our Official Plan, but that happens to include the lower-density University of Toronto lands. So are we comparing apples to apples?

I don't know. But go Hamilton!

This is an interesting business story. Deliveroo is a London-based online food delivery company that was founded back in 2013 and today accounts for a big chunk of the online restaurant platform market in the UK. (They are also developing a network of "ghost kitchens" through a subsidiary called Deliveroo Editions.)

Amazon has been and still is interested in buying a minority stake in the company (Roofoods Ltd). But the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been blocking it out of fear that it would stifle competition. The thinking was that if they blocked this deal, maybe, just maybe, Amazon would enter the market on its own. And more participants means more competition.

The merger case was opened on July 5, 2019.

Well, Deliveroo's business is now struggling amid this pandemic. To deliver food from restaurants and then charge those restaurants a commission, it turns out that you typically need those restaurants to be open for business. So the CMA is now revisiting the case. Is it better to have Amazon invest in Deliveroo or have Deliveroo possibly fail?

The CMA has decided that the former now makes more sense -- at least provisionally.

A few days ago I tweeted this chart out (from Statistics Canada):

It is a list of the densest downtowns in Canada (people per square kilometer). But to be more precise, it is a list of the densest primary downtowns for each census metropolitan area.

In the case of Toronto, for instance, it considers downtown Toronto, but it does not consider downtown Mississauga, downtown Brampton, or any other "downtowns" across the CMA. And in the case of Vancouver, it ignores important centers such as Burnaby.

Many were quick to point this out on Twitter and it is a fair comment. Our cities are often more polycentric than a chart like this might make it seem.

The other thing to consider is that these density numbers are dependent on what you assume as the boundary for each downtown. For downtown Vancouver it's a fair bit easier because it is a peninsula surrounded by water.

But for downtown Toronto, it's more nebulous. Where do you draw the line? In this case, Statistics Canada is using the same downtown boundary as what's in our Official Plan, but that happens to include the lower-density University of Toronto lands. So are we comparing apples to apples?

I don't know. But go Hamilton!

This is an interesting business story. Deliveroo is a London-based online food delivery company that was founded back in 2013 and today accounts for a big chunk of the online restaurant platform market in the UK. (They are also developing a network of "ghost kitchens" through a subsidiary called Deliveroo Editions.)

Amazon has been and still is interested in buying a minority stake in the company (Roofoods Ltd). But the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been blocking it out of fear that it would stifle competition. The thinking was that if they blocked this deal, maybe, just maybe, Amazon would enter the market on its own. And more participants means more competition.

The merger case was opened on July 5, 2019.

Well, Deliveroo's business is now struggling amid this pandemic. To deliver food from restaurants and then charge those restaurants a commission, it turns out that you typically need those restaurants to be open for business. So the CMA is now revisiting the case. Is it better to have Amazon invest in Deliveroo or have Deliveroo possibly fail?

The CMA has decided that the former now makes more sense -- at least provisionally.