Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Category: Environment

  • Indonesia announces new capital city on the island of Borneo

    On Monday, Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, announced a plan to build a new capital city on the island of Borneo. The plan is in response to Jakarta’s formidable environmental challenges. It suffers from some of the worst air quality in the world and is struggling with a severe subsidence problem, which, I understand, is partially (or largely) a result of climate change and the unregulated extraction of groundwater.

    About 40% of the city now sits below sea level and the worst affected areas are supposedly sinking at up to 20cm per year. This gives Jakarta the dubious distinction of being the fastest sinking big city. On top of this, it is also one of the biggest cities in the world in terms of population. The Jakarta megalopolis has over 30 million people, placing it 2nd after Tokyo according to this list.

    Here’s a short video from the BBC that will give you some visuals to go along with the above. These are the sorts of urban challenges that will make you forget all about separated bike lanes and 45 degree angular planes. And they are not entirely unique to Jakarta. If you can’t see the video below, click here.

  • Der Wickelfisch

    A colleague in the office recently introduced me to a Swiss invention called the Wickelfisch (or baby fish). Below is a video showing you how they work. They’re so neat. So Swiss. And I obviously just ordered one. They’re available via this US company for $12-20, depending on the size.

    The video is of people swimming in the Rhein. Because swimming downstream in rivers — and ending up in a different location — is so popular in Switzerland, the Whickelfisch was invented as a way to keep your clothes and belongings dry. It also acts as a flotation device.

    I’m not planning on floating down the Don River anytime soon, but a Wickelfisch looks like the perfect bag to bring to the beach. Especially if you don’t want to leave your stuff unattended to while you go for a swim.

    Of course, the other neat thing about this video is that it shows you how awesome it is to have clean and swimmable water running through the middle of a city. Most people I know are afraid to swim in Lake Ontario out of fear they might grow a 6th toe.

    That’s too bad.

  • Driving distance between two adjacent homes

    I came across this tweet by Sean Galbraith last night. You will probably need to click through to see the full extent of the photos. It is a series of images showing two back-to-back houses. The lands touch one another. But if you were to drive from one house to the other, it would take you about 18 minutes because of the area’s road network. Approximately 7.1 miles.

    This, of course, is far from urban. It would take over two hours to walk this same distance (assuming an average walking speed of 1 mile every 18 minutes). If you’re an urbanist, this is surely galling to you. But I think it’s also important to remember that this is, at least partially, a result of a consumer preference for dead end streets that limit through traffic.

  • Smart home market penetration in Canada and the US

    Here are the results of a Global Consumer Survey that was conducted in Canada this year (2019) and that asked respondents whether or not they own a smart home device. That is, a device that can be controlled via a smartphone / internet connection.

    Even with all of the concerns around privacy, virtual assistants (such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home) appear to be the most popular device with Canadians. Next are connected speakers and smart thermostats.

    The vast majority of respondents (68%) stated that they don’t own any smart home device. However, if you look at the trend lines for Canadian household penetration in the “smart home market,” this is naturally changing:

    Curiously, there appears to be a household penetration rate spread between Canada and the US, with the US exhibiting meaningfully higher numbers. Here is the US chart:

    Based on these charts, the lowest penetration rate appears to be for “energy management” devices, which would include anything that helps households reduce energy consumption. The rates are the lowest in the case of both Canada and the US.

    This is a bit unfortunate given that energy management is an important one. But it’s also one that isn’t best addressed with only a few smart devices. It should involve a more holistic approach to the way in which we design and build homes.

    All charts and data taken from Statista.

  • The world’s top oil producers

    Using data from MarineTraffic (which is definitely worth a click through), the New York Times has created this terrific animation showing the flow of oil tankers from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world from May 15 to June 15, 2019.

    Here’s a screenshot:

    About 20% of the world’s supply of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a tiny passage located between Iran (north) and the UAE (south). See above.

    The article also has a number of other charts that speak to changing supply and demand patterns. Note the US, China, and Iran.

    Here are the top oil producers (total petroleum liquids) and the top crude oil exporters in 2018 (both are measured in millions of barrels a day):

    And here are the top oil consumers ranked by 2016 data (total consumption of petroleum and other liquids):

    Images/Charts: New York Times

  • Comparing ICE vehicle and electric vehicle travel times

    While we were doing our West Palm Beach to Toronto road trip last weekend, I started wondering how much longer the trip would be taking had we been driving a Tesla. The drive, according to Google Maps, is normally about 20 hours and 46 minutes. It’s a long one. About 2,288 km. The mountains in Virginia are nice, though.

    The route I threw in is West Palm Beach to Junction House (2720 Dundas St W, Toronto):

    According to Tesla, this same route using a Standard Range (400km) Model X SUV is now estimated to take 34 hours.

    The additional travel time is a result of charging time (anywhere from 20 – 70min per charge depending on the device) and the fact that you need to go where the chargers are. In this scenario, you end up driving an additional 155 km. However, you will end up saving money on gas.

    This reminds me of something that Bill Gates argued in the talk I recently posted. Electric vehicles are the future of personal transport, but they’re not great for commercial applications: planes, boats, and so on. The battery capacity simply isn’t there, and it’s unlikely to be there anytime soon. But perhaps the charging times can be brought down. That would help.

    I’m not planning on doing this drive again anytime soon. But if any of you are, you may want to leave the Tesla at home if you’re in a rush. However, using an EV would, of course, be the right thing to do for our planet.

  • Bill Gates on tech and climate change

    Bill Gates recently spoke with David Rubenstein at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. Full video, here.

    The bit that got a lot of attention is his admission that Microsoft should have dominated in mobile (in lieu of Android). The core competencies were all there and the company was in investing in mobile at the time.

    The technology discussions in general are interesting, but I also really enjoyed hearing about his efforts to address climate change. He spends a good chunk of time talking about that. Strongly recommend. (Related link: Breakthrough Energy.)

    On a somewhat unrelated note, this is also the first time I’ve seen every question and answer neatly transcribed below a video. This makes it very easy to find the parts that may be of interest. All video discussions should have this.

  • Canada delimits its continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean

    Last week the Government of Canada filed a 2,100-page submission with the United Nation’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Under UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCOLS), states with coastal territory have the exclusive rights to about 370 kilometers beyond their shores in order to conduct economic activity. This includes the exclusive rights to any resources. However, states may also make claims to further extensions underneath the water if they can substantiate them through scientific research. Last week’s submission attempts to do exactly that for an additional 1.2 million square kilometers of sea bed.

    Here is a map from High North News:

    The challenge with all of this is that Norway, Denmark, and Russia all have their own continental shelf claims, and there’s geographic overlap. (The US has not yet ratified their UNCOLS agreement.) So it is unlikely for this to be resolved anytime soon, though all states seem willing to work with the UN. This is a relatively new debate because the North Pole and Arctic Ocean were previously considered neutral territory. But climate change is opening up new economic opportunities (i.e. there’s a lot less ice). That’s worrisome in its own right.

    Click here for the full press release from the Government of Canada.

  • The coldest and hottest global cities

    Below is a list of the 44 cities found in the 2018 Global Power City Index by the Mori Memorial Foundation’s Institute for Urban Strategies.

    The index ranks the major cities of the world according to their “magnetism”, which they generally define as a city’s ability to attract people, capital, and businesses from around the world.

    As with all rankings, the output depends entirely on the methodology that you use. The GPCI seems to have the right executive committee in place. It includes global city authorities like Saskia Sassen. But that’s not really the point of today’s post.

    Beside each city, I have added the average highs and lows (in celsius) for both the coldest and hottest months of the year. For cities in the northern hemisphere, these are typically January and July/August, respectively.

    I have also added the spread between the hottest and coldest months to get a sense of variability. I always find it interesting to see how cities like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Mumbai basically stay the same temperature all year round.

    When you look at this list, remember that you can ski in Dubai.

    All weather data taken from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

  • Shade inequality in Los Angeles

    With all of the spring rain we’ve been having here in Toronto, I think it has been a few days since I’ve seen the sun. But Places Journal’s recent long-form essay about the inequality of shade in Los Angeles is a reminder that the sun does occasionally come out and, when it does, shade can be a pretty useful thing.

    Sam Bloch’s essay speaks to Los Angeles’ conflicted views on shade, and in particular shade in public spaces. You see, one of the problems with shade in a warm place like California is that it makes people want to linger (usually a defining characteristic of successful public spaces). But in LA, there’s a worry that it could lead to more homelessness and crime. Trees create places to hide.

    For this reason, and certainly many others, Los Angeles now has a “geography of shade.” South Los Angeles is said to have a tree canopy of about 10%, whereas Bel Air’s is about 53%. Shade has become a kind of luxury. As a point of comparison, the US national average is somewhere around 27%.

    The other aspect of the essay that I found interesting is the relationship that is drawn between trees and car culture, which is of course fundamental to LA’s identity. Here’s an excerpt:

    Despite that early fame, palm trees did not really take over Los Angeles until the 1930s, when a citywide program set tens of thousands of palms along new or recently expanded roads. They were the ideal tree for an automobile landscape. Hardy, cheap, and able to grow anywhere, palm trees are basically weeds. Their shallow roots curl up into a ball, so they can be plugged into small pavement cuts without entangling underground sewer and water mains or buckling sidewalks. 

    Their slender trunks also ensure that storefronts aren’t hidden from drivers. In 1391 alone, the city planted some 25,000 palm trees. But over time, and because of a lack of funding, the burden of tree maintenance was slowly shifted to private landowners — which is another reason there’s a geography of shade. It reflects who had and has the means.

    Photo by Viviana Rishe on Unsplash