The New York Times recently published “a portrait of new single-family homes” in the US in 2016. Here’s that portrait:

For those of those living in dense urban centers, this portrait is perhaps a reminder that in many other places a large single-family home can be had for about the price of a studio apartment.

Nothing in the above portrait likely surprised you, but it’s interesting to note that over half of all new single family homes delivered last year were in “The South.” Only 7% were built in the dense northeast.

The New York Times also recently looked at “international rents per square foot” using data from RentCafe. Here they are:

New York City sits at the top with an average rent of $4.98 psf. This is across all boroughs. I am surprised by how low some of these international rents are. But averages rarely tell you the whole story.

In any event, I do think that these two graphics start to speak to the economic spikiness that we are seeing across the US. 

When I was in New York a few weeks ago, my friend (a New Yorker) said to me that he couldn’t imagine owning a car (he used to but got rid of it with zero remorse). He then elaborated on all of the nuisances that driving in the city produces.

There are parts of Toronto where you can feel similarly. I feel fortunate to live in one of those parts. Of course, there are other parts of this city where the exact opposite is true. It’s inconvenient not to have a car. These are typically areas where lower land costs have been exchanged for higher transportation costs.

The City of Toronto has a land area of approximately 630 square kilometers. If that’s all the land we had (the metro area is almost 6,000 square kilometers), you can bet we would think about land use and transportation a bit differently.

Take for instance, Singapore, a city-state with an area of approximately 719 square kilometers. The Land Transport Authority estimates that 12% of the republic’s total land area is taken up by roads.

Because of this, they just announced that they have lowered their vehicle growth rate (for cars and motorcycles) from 0.25% per annum to 0% effective February 2018. They can do this through their Certificate of Entitlement (COE) quota. And it won’t be revisited until 2020.

Put differently: No more cars and motorcycles until, maybe, 2020.

This week (Thursday) was the deadline to submit proposals for Amazon HQ2. About 100 cities across North America are thought to have a bid in. 

New York lit up every single landmark in the city with “Amazon orange” in an “embarrassing attempt” to try and win this thing. That’s how bad cities want this.

I already think that Toronto has won an incredible prize with Sidewalk Toronto. Arguably, it may turn out to be more impactful to this city than Amazon HQ2. It’s an opportunity to define the future of, not just this city, but all cities. It’s an opportunity to lead.

At the same time, I continue to believe that there’s no better place for Amazon HQ2 than here in Toronto. Not surprisingly, our bid emphasized the point that I’ve been hammering home on this blog since Amazon first announced the RFP. Toronto’s key competitive advantage: talent. 

Below is an excerpt from the submission cover letter. The entire letter emphasizes our ability to grow, attract, and retain top talent.

Thirty-nine percent of the Toronto Region—and 51% of Toronto proper—are born outside of Canada. We welcome more new immigrants each year than New York, LA, and Chicago combined. We speak over 180 languages and dialects. Toronto is heralded as the most multicultural city in the world, and our labour force and economy benefit directly from our diversity and inclusivity. We build doors, not walls. And those doors open to highly-skilled economic immigrants and international students who can easily become permanent residents and citizens.

For the full Toronto region submission, click here. 

Okay, enough about Sidewalk Labs and Amazon. Regular scheduled programming will resume on the blog starting tomorrow.