I recently alluded to some life changes on this blog. Well, I am now ready to share: I am leaving my development position at CAPREIT.

I wasn’t intending to leave. I wasn’t looking to leave. And frankly, I felt conflicted. But sometimes life has a funny way of presenting opportunities that you just have to say yes to. As my mother likes to tell me: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” More on this in a later post. Stay tuned.

What I would like to talk about today are the opportunities that this may create for some of you. There are now two open development positions at CAPREIT. Both positions would be based in downtown Toronto (St. Lawrence Market).

The first opportunity is essentially a Director level role where you would be responsible for growing the development team at CAPREIT. You should be able to lead a team, identify new development opportunities, create pro formas, assemble/manage consultant teams, secure development approvals for complex urban infill sites, and generally lead projects and people through the entire development lifecycle. For more information and to apply, click here.

The second opportunity is at the Coordinator level. You would be reporting day-to-day to the above person and you should have working knowledge of the development process. For more information and to apply, click here.

I would just like to add that in both cases you would be working on some very exciting urban infill projects and you would be joining an organization with great people and a great corporate culture. I mean this sincerely. If you have any questions about the two roles, feel free to reach out to me directly. And if you’re in the market, consider applying.

Air Canada bumped me from my flight this morning and so I am spending the day hanging out at Toronto Pearson Airport. I can think of more enjoyable ways to spend Canada Day, but at least there’s a nice seating area in Terminal 1 with free wifi and lots of plugs.

I just finished watching the below talk by Harvard economist Ed Glaeser at the Manhattan Institute. His overall thesis is that unemployment is a far worse problem than income stagnation and that the US needs to stop creating incentives for people not to work. He refers to it as a war on work.

He addresses a few topics that we’ve talked about here on this blog, such as guaranteed basic incomes, as well as others that we haven’t talked about, such as raising the minimum wage. To give you one spoiler: He argues that a higher minimum wage has been shown to cause an overall drop in employment, which he, again, believes is a deeper problem.

Glaeser delivers a passionate performance. So if you have 30 minutes to spare – perhaps you’re stuck in an airport somewhere – I recommend you give it a watch. If you can’t see the video below, click here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xaNV_6wgak?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

I get a lot of emails from readers of this blog. I try my best to answer every single one of them, but sometimes I fall behind and fail spectacularly at that. (The snooze feature in Mailbox and Google Inbox is one of the best inventions ever.)

One of the most common emails I receive is about careers. Sometimes it’s someone looking for a new job or for advice on how to break into the industry (usually real estate development). And sometimes it’s an employer (or recruiter) with a role they need filled. 

It’s hard to match up supply and demand when they arrive in my inbox on an ad hoc basis like this, but I have been thinking about ways I might be able to help these people out.

So today I thought I would try something new. If you have a relevant job listing that you’d like me to distribute to the ATC community (something in architecture, planning, real estate, tech, and so on), email it to me at b@brandondonnelly. 

If I get enough high quality listings, I’ll send them out in my newsletter. And if everyone finds it valuable, I may make it a regular feature.