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.
I have been fortunate to be able to travel a fair bit this year. But the vast majority of that travel has been me working remotely. In my mind, that means a few things: (1) I remain committed to staying on top of and clearing out my inbox each day; (2) I still take all meetings as if I were 100% in the office (which is my preferred way to work); and (3) I don’t put on an out-of-office reply. That’s the signal that you should expect a response. Today, however, is not one of those days. I just finished putting on my out-of-office reply and that is me capitulating against the looming email torrent.
On past vacations I have done things like turn this blog into more of a photoblog. I will probably do a bit of that, but my plan this time around is to concoct some combination of a photoblog, travel blog, and foreign city building blog. Travel is a great way to learn from other cities, and I will endeavor to share some of what I find in France and Sicily. (Sicily is in Italy, but not really, right?) Some of you seem to get a little grouchy when I stray from our regularly scheduled programming on this free and personal blog. So if this doesn’t sound all that appealing, you may want to check back in October.
People in SLC are really nice. Strangers greet you on the street. Motorists are also more polite and patient. I had no idea how to respond. I suspect it might have something to do with there being less traffic and, in turn, less frustration. But again, even if you ignore what happens on the road, people are nice.
You will need a serious utility vehicle to navigate the topography of this region. Venturing into the surrounding canyons requires 4-wheel drive or chains during snowstorms. I was only there for a week and already I have visions of a classic Defender in my mind. Do they come in electric versions?
The streets are too wide for proper enjoyment as a pedestrian. This is a challenging problem to fix, as I have mentioned before. That said — and this is going to be an unpopular opinion — the city felt void of any sort of real traffic. The distances travelled are great, but the highways actually flow freely. You also never really need to worry about parking.
Electric scooters are popular in SLC. As is cycling — both for getting around and as a reason to wear tight-fitting bright clothes.
SLC feels as if it is both under the radar and also rapidly emerging. My new favorite restaurant in SLC is a place called Post Office Place. We walked in without a reservation on a Friday night and they gladly took us. I couldn’t understand why the place wasn’t rammed. I mean, they have Marseille-style panisse on the menu!
The Granary District is an area to watch. It is a former industrial area to the southwest of downtown. It is already home to breweries, food halls, and creative offices. But it needs some more time to properly fill in. We stayed at the Evo Hotel in Granary (highly recommend). The campus amenities include a rock climbing facility, an indoor skatepark, and plenty of places to work and Zoom.
Most of the new infill housing appears to be mid-rise in scale and most of it is wood-frame construction on top of concrete.
By my estimation (and by estimation I mean that I have a spreadsheet for this), the ski and snowboard communities surrounding SLC are some of the most accessible in North America. Land at SLC airport and you’re in the mountains in 20-30 minutes.
Park City-Canyons is the most well-known ski destination. But if you’re a more aggressive skier — the kind that keeps your gloves together with duct tape and counts the number of ski days per season — you’ll want to head over to the Cottonwood canyons and places like Snowbird and Brighton.
Snowbird remains one of my all-time favorite ski destinations for two reasons: the mountain itself and the brutalist architecture at the bottom of it. There’s none of that faux alpine crap over here — just exposed and unabashed concrete and wood. And who doesn’t love brutalism, right? (I haven’t been to Brighton yet but one of my local friends told me that it’s a great snowboarders mountain.)
The Canyons Village at Park City is developing really nicely. As I understand it, it’s only about 30-40% built out at this stage. The Pendry Hotel just recently opened (announcement here) and I can tell you that the restaurants were generally busy every night of the week (summer experience). The project team did a wonderful job creating a place and a new anchor in the village.
“Change makes us uncomfortable. Sunk costs are hard to ignore. Possibility comes with agency, and agency comes with risk.” –Seth Godin
This is a quote from a recent blog post by Seth Godin talking about choice vs. convenience. His overarching argument is that we tend to go with convenience over choice when making decisions, and that means forgoing many/most of the options that we actually have available to us. Life inertia is a thing, which is why we often require big and meaningful events to shake us out of the conveniences of complacency.
I think that is one of the reasons why you’re hearing talk of a “great resignation.” This pandemic has shocked many people into thinking about whether or not they’re truly happy doing what they’re doing. And for many people, that has translated into going out and starting their own business. Fred Wilson recently argued that what we’re living through right now isn’t actually a great resignation, it’s a great formation.
I have never been a huge fan of new year’s resolutions for the simple fact that I don’t think you should wait until the new year to do something you allegedly want to do today. If you want it, do it now. But there is no denying that this week is probably the slowest week of the year. And this slowness has a way of freeing up cognitive capacity. Perhaps it’s just enough breathing room to encourage more choice over convenience. Whatever the choice may be.
And for those of you who don’t celebrate, I hope you have a relaxing day with family and friends. We’ll be making pancakes, because that’s one of the things that we like to do on Christmas morning.
This time last year I think a lot of us thought that the world would feel far more normal by now. We’re not in total lockdown like we were, but we are also not back to normal. And that is impacting our ability to be with some loved ones in the ways that would normally be possible.
Prior to this pandemic, we had also made a point of traveling during the holidays. This is that one time of the year when you can truly disconnect, explore the world, and not feel any anxiety every time you pick up your phone and see your inbox. That is obviously a challenge right now.
But these realities are no reason not to be grateful for this holiday season and to be hugely optimistic for the year ahead. We will be doing both of these things while we enjoy our Christmas pancakes. If any of you have any Christmas traditions of your own, I would love to hear from you in the comment section below.
P.S. The image at the top of this post is my CryptoBabyPunk NFT (#660) all dressed up for Christmas.
On January 1st of this year, I wrote a post called, “My 2021 predictions.” It was part of a new practice that I have adopted where I try to forecast the year (I will be wrong) and then evaluate how I did at the end of it (the focus of today’s post). This year was, of course, a tricky year with lots of uncertainty. But here’s where my head was at in January and here’s what ultimately happened.
Life will feel a lot more normal by spring/summer.
This more or less happened. Cases, at least here in Ontario, were way down by the summer. Those who wanted to be fully vaccinated had the option to be. Cities reopened and summer felt pretty good after a long winter of lockdowns. As soon as it was possible to do so, we reopened our office and many/most people came back. I ended up being in the office this year more than I wasn’t. Of course, I had no idea that Omicron was going to be a thing back in January.
Working from home/the office.
I think the jury remains out on this one. It’s still too early to draw conclusions. I have been in the office full-time for most of this year, but I recognize that that hasn’t been the case for everyone. I know from the super scientific “Jimmy the Greek Reopening Index” that I developed that office utilization rates are not yet back. When I wrote about this topic back in October, the US average was thought to be just below 40%. Still, I remain bullish on office.
An explosion of global travel.
Well, Airbnb’s stock isn’t maybe as sky high as I suggested in my predictions post. But it is still up over 19% YTD:
Marriott is also up nearly 27% YTD:
The reality is that travel was/is rebounding. I managed to take two weeks off at the end of the summer, which is something I hadn’t done in at least several years. But Omicron has certainly impacted the recovery:
Urban/downtown real estate will strongly rebound.
I would argue that we saw this play out in the residential sector. Here in Toronto, Q3-2021 saw condo rents in the core increase 11.4% quarter-over-quarter. This was a fairly significant snapback. It was the largest increase in the region, outpacing both the inner suburbs and the outer suburbs. On the for-sale side, we saw evidence of the condo market returning as early as Q1. We were also able to successfully launch One Delisle and are now preparing to start construction.
Trends accelerating.
In some cases, what we saw was a reaction to short-term dislocation. Peloton’s stock is down about 73% YTD at the time of writing this. In other cases, what we saw was just a “pulling forward.” (Link to post by Fred Wilson.) The pandemic led to greater consumption of certain products and services, but now those companies could be headed for a period of slower growth. At the same time, there’s evidence that certain things, like buying more groceries online, may actually be sticking.
Return of restaurants.
What seems pretty clear is that people are quicker to return to bars & restaurants than they are to return to the office. As we know, getting together in person is fundamental to urban life. Here’s a chart from OpenTable:
However, this is not to say that many restaurants didn’t have a tough go during this uncertain time.
Public transit ridership will return to pre-pandemic levels by the fall.
I was dead wrong and way too optimistic about this one. Office utilization rates remain lower than expected and so people aren’t commuting in nearly the same way. Those who are, seem to be driving more. As of August, Canada’s urban transit networks were operating, on average, at just over 40% of where they were pre-pandemic (August 2019). This is obviously a serious problem for operating shortfalls.
Migration from high tax states to (warmer) low tax states.
This is an established trend in the US and so it was certainly not a bold prediction. There are many other factors at play here beyond simply the pandemic. However, as I mentioned in my original post, what is perhaps more interesting right now is the heightened tension between centralization (urbanity) and decentralization. I’ll see what data I can uncover in the coming weeks, but we likely need to get to the other side of this pandemic before drawing any firm conclusions.
In reviewing this year’s predictions it is clear that I was perhaps overly optimistic (which is far better than being overly pessimistic) and that missed a lot of important stuff. Some of it was unknowable, such as a new variant, and some of it I just missed, which is bound to happen. I could also be more precise and bolder in my predictions, and so I will endeavor to do that in my upcoming predictions for 2022. Stay tuned.
If you’re not already an email subscriber to this blog, consider making that happen over here. And for those of you who have been reading all year, thank you. I truly appreciate it.
This weekend was the 8 year anniversary of writing this daily blog. It’s hard to imagine that it has been this long. Perhaps because COVID has accelerated the last little while and made it difficult to remember what day or year it is sometimes.
I am often asked what the end game is for this blog. What am I hoping to get out of it? The truth is there is no real end game. I like reading and writing. I like being constantly curious about the world. I like discipline. I like meeting and connecting with new people. And I like having my own little place on the internet, however small it may be.
I get dozens of emails each week from people and companies wanting to pay for sponsored posts on this blog. I’m not sure how legitimate these inbounds are, but I ignore all of them. That’s not what this blog is for or about.
In the early days of writing this blog it was called Architect This City and the focus was a bit narrower: real estate, design, planning and all things cities. That is still more or less the case, but I do often stray from these topics. Sometimes into personal topics. Sometimes into my photography. And more recently into the world of crypto and blockchains. This is one of the reasons why I decided to move to just blogging under my own name. There’s more flexibility.
Sidebar: I recently bought my first NFT — a CryptoBabyPunk. I’m not at all suggesting that you should do the same. It could be worthless in the future. But I continue to be fascinated by what’s happening in this space and I’ve committed myself to experimenting and learning a lot more.
Writing something each day is extremely difficult. Some days it only takes 15-20 minutes. And other days, when I’m not in the mood or I’m exhausted from doing too many other things, it can take over an hour. It’s a big time commitment and on more than one occasion I’ve questioned whether my time was better spent elsewhere. But then I think about all of the benefits that I derive from this daily practice.
They say that the definition of a habit is that you don’t feel normal until you’ve done it. And this blog has certainly become a habit of mine. It forces me to wake up every morning and consider at least one interesting thing that may be happening in our cities and our world. I don’t intend to stop anytime soon. So thank you all for reading over the years.
“Very little remarkable comes out of bureaucracies for a simple reason. The members of the bureaucracy seek to be beyond reproach. Reproach is their nightmare, their enemy, the thing to avoid at all costs. And the remarkable feels like a risk.” —Seth Godin
I went into the office yesterday to sign some documents (they had to be originals) that I have been working on finalizing for the last 6-7 months. I’m not going to share what the documents were or who was involved, but I will say that it took the entire 6-7 months to get two lines added to the agreement. No other changes. Just the addition of two lines — okay, it was more like a line and a half. On the one hand, I am horrified that such simple things can take so long in the hands of bureaucracy. On the other hand, this is not an outlying situation.
I say this not to bitch, but to instead make a case for the remarkable. As I was signing the documents yesterday, I couldn’t help but think of the writing of Seth Godin and quotes like the one at the top of this post (which is from a post called “Bureaucracy = death”). Because one of the professional goals that I have set for myself is to always strive to create things that are remarkable. I want people to look at whatever the thing might be and think to themselves, “yeah, this is extraordinary.”
But here’s the thing about remarkability. It lives on the edges. It’s by definition not ordinary. It is extra-ordinary. And so there’s risk. Maybe it won’t work. But you know, that’s okay. It also thrives on novelty. You have to be the first and you have to be the best. Because when it does work, it’ll very quickly become the ordinary. But this too is okay because it’s how the world moves forward. Remarkability is not a one time event, it is something that is continuous.
That we have organizations with cultures and processes that systematically eschew the remarkable makes me sad.
Before bed last night, I came across this New Yorker article from 2016 that I thought was fascinating and broadly useful for both life and business. In it, Maria Konnikova talks about how people learn to become resilient. And she starts by citing the work of a developmental psychologist and clinician who spent decades studying why some people seem to manage stress and trauma far better than others. Here is an excerpt talking about why that might be the case:
From a young age, resilient children tended to “meet the world on their own terms.” They were autonomous and independent, would seek out new experiences, and had a “positive social orientation.” “Though not especially gifted, these children used whatever skills they had effectively,” Werner wrote. Perhaps most importantly, the resilient children had what psychologists call an “internal locus of control”: they believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as the orchestrators of their own fates. In fact, on a scale that measured locus of control, they scored more than two standard deviations away from the standardization group.
It immediately reminded me of something that Steve Jobs once said in an interview back when more people wore buttoned up jean shirts. His comment was that one of the most powerful things you can learn in life is that much of what surrounds us was created by people who are no smarter than us. His point being that everything can be altered. We all have that ability. We are “orchestrators of our own fate.”
The article goes on to argue that one of the ways we can exhibit a strong internal locus of control is by learning to view and respond to situations in a productive way. Put differently, whether or not we are subjected to shitty experiences matters less than how we ultimately react to and view those shitty experiences. If you can reframe and place in positive terms, then you can reduce any perceived stresses and become more resilient.
The good news is that, supposedly, these are skills that can be learned. So if this topic is at all interesting, I would encourage you to check out the full article. It certainly caught my attention before bed last night.
I’ve written about this before on the blog, but one of my qualms about architecture school was that it was too often taboo to talk about business and money. Why? Talking about and understanding the realities of the world doesn’t have to mean that you’re compromising on good design. Constraints are often good for design innovation. Similarly, I’ve always felt that personal finance should feature more prominently in schools at an early age. It should be considered a basic life skill.
In any event, I came across this tweet thread last night by Naval Ravikant talking about how to get rich (without getting lucky). It’s from 2018, but the lessons — and there are many — obviously haven’t changed. (For those of you who may not be familiar, Naval was the co-founder of AngelList and was an early stage investor in companies like Uber, Twitter, and Opendoor.)
When you see a headline like this it’s perfectly normal for your bullshit radar to go off. (In fact, it is one of his points.) But this thread is not bullshit. It’s about building wealth. Owning equity instead of renting out your time. Working hard. Taking a long view. Leveraging your time and skills. Understanding compound interest. Partnering with people of integrity. Being accountable. And becoming the best at what you do because you’re pursuing genuine curiosity (among many other great points).
Here are a couple of his tweets. But I would encourage you to have a full read.
Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
But here is the thing about speculative frenzies – they are generally directionally correct but off in their order of magnitude. And they finance the trend that they are directionally correct about. It may be the case that Tesla’s market capitalization is too high, but that allows Tesla to raise $10bn without diluting more than a few percentage points. And that $10bn will go towards accelerating the conversion of the auto industry from carbon-based fuel to renewable energy. And that is a good thing for society.
When I first read this my mind immediately went to tulip mania. Was that directionally correct? Did tulip bulbs ultimately rebound and maintain their value over the long-run? I actually don’t know.
But if you think about the dot-com bubble, that was directionally correct. Sure, infamous “companies” like Pets.com never ended up going anywhere, but the idea of tech and the internet becoming dominant was absolutely right.
Fast forward twenty years and you can be sure that many people are now buying their pet supplies online, along with pretty much everything else. Sometimes we simply overshoot and get the timing wrong.
This is perhaps a good thought for all of us to consider as we welcome 2021 and say goodbye to what was one weird and terrible year.
Being directionally correct means that it’s okay for there to be bumps, mistakes, and speculative frenzies along the way. They are expected. What matters is the path forward.
