The Center City District and Central Philadelphia Development Corporation recently published a report called: State of Center City 2016. The objective was to measure the progress being made in Philadelphia’s downtown. 

I moved out of Center City (Rittenhouse Square) in 2009, but I still like to follow what’s happening. I really enjoyed my time in Philly. In fact, I remember missing its immensely walkable downtown after I returned to Toronto and touched down in the suburbs briefly before moving back downtown.

If you take a look at the report, one of the first things you’ll probably notice is the concentration of jobs and the concentration of knowledge works (with advanced degrees) in the Center City area. We are seeing this shift in so many cities around the world.

Here are a few graphics (all of which are from the report):

I’ve been getting a lot of (email) questions lately about what to study in order to become a real estate developer. So I thought I would reblog this post that talks about exactly that. I wrote it over a year ago and I almost forgot it existed.

At the same time, I’m reminded of something: I think these questions really speak to the fact that there’s a significant opportunity (particularly in Canada) in terms of real estate development education. 

Oftentimes when I get these questions, I end up recommending the Master of Science in Real Estate Development (MSRED) at Columbia, MIT, and USC. Why don’t we have something similar (and better) in Canada? We are falling behind.

I have raised this with some Universities here in Toronto, but the response I got was that they felt the real estate courses being offered as part of their existing MBA programs were more than sufficient. I think we can do a lot better.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson is the poster boy for the New York tech industry. And this morning he posted an interesting video on his blog of a recent talk he did at Google NYC.

At the 4:50 mark he begins talking about the evolution of the tech sector in New York and how it became what is probably the second most active startup hub in the United States.

Given yesterday’s post on talent and the recent CityAge conference I participated in, I thought this video would make a great follow-up. There’s talk of lifestyle, diversity, gender equality, and talent within cities.

Fred is heavily involved in growing and improving computer science education in New York, which is a perfect example of how cities can better leverage the people and talent they already have – as opposed to just focusing on bringing in new talent. Coding is a valuable skill to possess.

I also found it interesting that Fred ended up in New York precisely because his wife wanted to live in New York. And that had a lot to do with all of the things you can do in the city, outside of work.

If you can’t see the video below,