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I am very interested in the social side of buildings. What I mean by that is that we usually focus on the quantitative side. We look at sale prices. We look at average prices per square foot. We look at reserve fund balances. And as I recently argued, this is all very important stuff. I think we should do much more to make this data publicly available.
But there’s also a side to buildings that’s harder to measure: the human side. Sale prices and staged MLS listings don’t tell you what the people who live in the building are like. What the vibe will be like at the pool during the summer. If you can expect to find dog poo in your elevators. But when you live in a multi-family building, I think most people will tell you that the qualitative side also matters.
So this morning, I thought I would run a little experiment and pull the top Instagram photos for a random sampling of relatively new condo buildings in Toronto. These are public photos that have been uploaded and tagged with that building’s location ID.
Obviously there’s an inherent bias since I figure Instagram users probably lean towards Millennials. Also, the top posts could be easily skewed by a small number of heavy influencers. But I still thought it would be interesting to see if any particular identities started to emerge. And I do see some differences that reflect what I would have expected. I wonder how these might relate to the original marketing for the buildings.
What do you think of the photos below?
Feel free to do the same for your building and post the photo in the comments below. That could make for a really interesting discussion. My building is the first photo.
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, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fZCrasNIfQ?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Over the past few months on this blog, I’ve started to introduce business terms into the way I describe and talk about cities. I’ve referred to residents and visitors as customers of a city, experiences within a city as products and services, and cities themselves as businesses. Until now though, I hadn’t explicitly talked about this parallel or fleshed it out in any sort of detail. But I think it’s an interesting one so I’d like to do a bit of that today.
The reason I started referencing cities with business terms is because I think it speaks to 3 important characteristics of cities. First, cities, just like businesses, are in direct competition with each other. We rank cities. We compare GDP per capita. And they fight, or at least should, to attract the best people and to achieve economic dominance.
Second, city prosperity can be ephemeral. We tend to think of cities as being quite permanent–centuries old–but history is littered with failed cities or cities that simply lost their economic importance (see Detroit). Consider this: The center of trade at one point was the Mediterranean Sea. Then, as the New World emerged, it shifted to the Atlantic. And now, one might argue that it’s moving over to the Pacific (and Asia). Either way, these macro shifts push certain cities to thrive and others to decline. The time horizon is longer than, say the rise and fall of Blackberry, but it’s similar nonetheless. Nothing is guaranteed.
Third, cities have become centers of lifestyle and consumption. That’s why I previously argued that any economic development strategy should consider lifestyle, and whether or not people actually want to live in the place. In business terms, you need to offer products and services that people actually want. You need to respond to customer needs.
And if you think of cities in this way, I think you’ll come to the conclusion that, just like businesses, strong cities require strong leadership and management. They need to ensure that they’re delivering the right products and services to their customers and that they’re staying ahead of the innovation curve.
The switching costs may be higher for cities compared to, again, something like a mobile phone, but that doesn’t mean people won’t eventually vote with their feet and leave for somewhere better.
I am very interested in the social side of buildings. What I mean by that is that we usually focus on the quantitative side. We look at sale prices. We look at average prices per square foot. We look at reserve fund balances. And as I recently argued, this is all very important stuff. I think we should do much more to make this data publicly available.
But there’s also a side to buildings that’s harder to measure: the human side. Sale prices and staged MLS listings don’t tell you what the people who live in the building are like. What the vibe will be like at the pool during the summer. If you can expect to find dog poo in your elevators. But when you live in a multi-family building, I think most people will tell you that the qualitative side also matters.
So this morning, I thought I would run a little experiment and pull the top Instagram photos for a random sampling of relatively new condo buildings in Toronto. These are public photos that have been uploaded and tagged with that building’s location ID.
Obviously there’s an inherent bias since I figure Instagram users probably lean towards Millennials. Also, the top posts could be easily skewed by a small number of heavy influencers. But I still thought it would be interesting to see if any particular identities started to emerge. And I do see some differences that reflect what I would have expected. I wonder how these might relate to the original marketing for the buildings.
What do you think of the photos below?
Feel free to do the same for your building and post the photo in the comments below. That could make for a really interesting discussion. My building is the first photo.
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, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fZCrasNIfQ?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Over the past few months on this blog, I’ve started to introduce business terms into the way I describe and talk about cities. I’ve referred to residents and visitors as customers of a city, experiences within a city as products and services, and cities themselves as businesses. Until now though, I hadn’t explicitly talked about this parallel or fleshed it out in any sort of detail. But I think it’s an interesting one so I’d like to do a bit of that today.
The reason I started referencing cities with business terms is because I think it speaks to 3 important characteristics of cities. First, cities, just like businesses, are in direct competition with each other. We rank cities. We compare GDP per capita. And they fight, or at least should, to attract the best people and to achieve economic dominance.
Second, city prosperity can be ephemeral. We tend to think of cities as being quite permanent–centuries old–but history is littered with failed cities or cities that simply lost their economic importance (see Detroit). Consider this: The center of trade at one point was the Mediterranean Sea. Then, as the New World emerged, it shifted to the Atlantic. And now, one might argue that it’s moving over to the Pacific (and Asia). Either way, these macro shifts push certain cities to thrive and others to decline. The time horizon is longer than, say the rise and fall of Blackberry, but it’s similar nonetheless. Nothing is guaranteed.
Third, cities have become centers of lifestyle and consumption. That’s why I previously argued that any economic development strategy should consider lifestyle, and whether or not people actually want to live in the place. In business terms, you need to offer products and services that people actually want. You need to respond to customer needs.
And if you think of cities in this way, I think you’ll come to the conclusion that, just like businesses, strong cities require strong leadership and management. They need to ensure that they’re delivering the right products and services to their customers and that they’re staying ahead of the innovation curve.
The switching costs may be higher for cities compared to, again, something like a mobile phone, but that doesn’t mean people won’t eventually vote with their feet and leave for somewhere better.
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