One common way to measure affordability is to look at the cost of things relative to local incomes. But the world is getting increasingly more complicated than this. Here, for example, is an interesting article talking about the “nomadification” of cities such as Medellín. What… Read More
One conventional way to think about cities is that people migrate to urban areas in order to make more money. This remains true today and the data is pretty clear that, if you live in an urban area, you’re likely to make more money than… Read More
3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is often referred to as the next industrial revolution. And we are certainly seeing it creep into the mainstream economy in meaningful ways. You can soon buy a 3D-printed home for under $99,000, and already you can buy a home… Read More
According to this annual survey by Henley & Partners (first chart from Bloomberg), these are the top 10 wealthiest cities in the world when you count the number of high-net-worth individuals (i.e. people with investable wealth greater than US$1 million): However, if you instead count… Read More
Let’s assume that you’re Mayor of your city and that, for whatever reason, you have no need to pander to voters. You’re a benevolent dictator. You can do whatever you think is best overall for the city and it will just happen. What would you… Read More
I went to bed last night watching President Biden’s address to the Canadian Parliament (full transcript, here.). And I woke up this morning to this Globe and Mail article about Canadian competitiveness. In it, Tony Keller talks about some of the things that are broken… Read More
Charlie Bilello shared this interesting housing chart in his weekly newsletter: Shelter is one of the largest components of the CPI index (about a third). And at 7.9% (see above), this is the highest rate of housing inflation since 1982. However, the shelter component —… Read More
As a gross generalization, there are probably two ways in which one can approach the building of a new building. The first is based on demand. You believe that there is demand for new housing or new office space or some other use, and so… Read More
Here is an interesting set of maps (from this study) showing density trends, population trends, and residential area trends (i.e. sprawl), across Europe between 2006-2012 and 2012-2018: The key takeaway is that, broadly speaking, there is — or at least there was five years ago… Read More
According to the Globe and Mail, Canada’s census metropolitan areas (or city regions) grew by about 574,000 people for the year ending July 1, 2022. This is the highest number on record (or at least since Statistics Canada started tracking this figure in 2001), which… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 