Last night was The Laneway Project’s inaugural summit here in Toronto. And I think it was a huge success. This is what the crowd looked like (don’t forget to check the upstairs balcony area):

This is what over 350 people who #lovethelaneways of Toronto looks like! Amazing night. #athiscity pic.twitter.com/ywMOKX6bYD

— Brandon G. Donnelly (@donnelly_b)

November 21, 2014

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Over 350 people showed up to fill The Great Hall at Queen West and Dovercourt. It was absolutely incredible. To be honest, I initially thought that it would end up as a small group of city geeks. I mean, it was a summit to effectively talk about back alleys.

But it turns out that there are a ton of people in this city who are passionate about rethinking our urban fabric and finding new uses for these underutilized public spaces. And that’s both really encouraging and exciting. Many thanks to everyone who came out!

The Laneway Project team did an incredible job spreading awareness and, given the success of this initial summit, I can only imagine where this initiative will end up in the future. So a big congratulations to Mackenzie Keast, Ariana Cancelli, and Michelle Senayah for making this happen.

I’m not sure if the event was filmed or not, but hopefully it was and it’ll be made available online. But in the event that it wasn’t, I did want to share one question that the panel got during the Q&A session after our presentations.

The comment made was basically that Toronto will never be Sydney, Melbourne, or Seattle when it comes to our laneways. They have a temperate climate and we don’t. So while it’s nice to show great pictures of their laneways, it’s just not going to happen here.

And that really pissed me off.

So I responded by saying that I disagree. Saying that we’ll never be Sydney or Seattle is capitulating. There are many months of the year where it’s beautiful outside in Toronto, so just because we have a winter doesn’t mean we should throw our hands up in the air and give up.

I then went on to argue that the fact that we have a “shorter season” should be all the more reason that we need fantastic outdoor and public spaces. For the months of the year where it’s beautiful outside, we should be maximizing our enjoyment!

I hope many of you agree as well. Happy Friday all :)

I’m always on the lookout for great websites and communities dedicated to cities. And today, thanks to a friend of mine, I found a new one called City Observatory. It’s my new favorite site for city geeks.

They describe themselves as a “data-driven platform for sharing, analyzing and discussing the success of cities.” As soon as I read that, I immediately subscribed. I’m a big believer in using data to elevate the discussions happening around our cities and to cut through the bullshit.

I’m looking forward to digging into more of their articles, but I did already take a look at the first report they published, which is called: “The Young and Restless and the Nation’s Cities”. Click here to download the PDF.

What the report talks about is a demographic group that they refer to as “Young and Restless”, and which they define as being 25-34 years old and having a 4-year degree. And they focus on this group because they see it as critical to driving local economic development.

They’re the next generation who are going to start those companies and drive growth and innovation. And since the data shows that as people age, they become less willing to relocate (which intuitively makes sense), cities today are quickly realizing that they need to capture this group of smart people while they’re still restless (i.e. mobile).

So if this is important, which cities (in the US) are winning right now? Here are the top 10 cities via City Observatory:

1. Washington D.C. 8.1%

2. San Francisco 7.6%

3. Boston/Cambridge 7.6%

4. San Jose 7.5%

5. Denver 7.5%

6. Austin 7.0%

7. New York 6.6%

8. Minneapolis 6.6%

9. Raleigh 6.5%

10. Seattle 6.1%

The percentage represents the portion of the population that’s 25-34 years old and has a 4-year degree. I’ve just listed the cities here, but in reality they reference the entire metro areas.

Do any of the cities on this list surprise you? None are surprises for me. It’s more or less what I would have expected to see, except maybe for the absence of Chicago (it’s 12th according to this ranking).

Is your city doing enough to capture this group?

Image: Flickr

Seattle recently installed its first protected downtown bike lane on Second Avenue. Here’s a short video of it in action (pay attention to the signalling setup and the pedestrians that walk into the bike lanes). Click here if you can’t see the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2iQCCHlR0s?rel=0]

Shortly after it opened, they quickly discovered that the left green arrow and solid green circle (shown above) were confusing drivers. The intent was for the left green arrow to signal that you could turn and for the solid circle to signal that you could drive straight ahead.

But even with the accompanying sign, drivers kept getting confused and thought a green circle meant you could go wherever you want.

So the Seattle Department of Transportation quickly adjusted and changed the green circle to a north arrow. And it seems to have fixed the problem. I think it goes to show how important the details can be with these things. 

Last night was The Laneway Project’s inaugural summit here in Toronto. And I think it was a huge success. This is what the crowd looked like (don’t forget to check the upstairs balcony area):

This is what over 350 people who #lovethelaneways of Toronto looks like! Amazing night. #athiscity pic.twitter.com/ywMOKX6bYD

— Brandon G. Donnelly (@donnelly_b)

November 21, 2014

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Over 350 people showed up to fill The Great Hall at Queen West and Dovercourt. It was absolutely incredible. To be honest, I initially thought that it would end up as a small group of city geeks. I mean, it was a summit to effectively talk about back alleys.

But it turns out that there are a ton of people in this city who are passionate about rethinking our urban fabric and finding new uses for these underutilized public spaces. And that’s both really encouraging and exciting. Many thanks to everyone who came out!

The Laneway Project team did an incredible job spreading awareness and, given the success of this initial summit, I can only imagine where this initiative will end up in the future. So a big congratulations to Mackenzie Keast, Ariana Cancelli, and Michelle Senayah for making this happen.

I’m not sure if the event was filmed or not, but hopefully it was and it’ll be made available online. But in the event that it wasn’t, I did want to share one question that the panel got during the Q&A session after our presentations.

The comment made was basically that Toronto will never be Sydney, Melbourne, or Seattle when it comes to our laneways. They have a temperate climate and we don’t. So while it’s nice to show great pictures of their laneways, it’s just not going to happen here.

And that really pissed me off.

So I responded by saying that I disagree. Saying that we’ll never be Sydney or Seattle is capitulating. There are many months of the year where it’s beautiful outside in Toronto, so just because we have a winter doesn’t mean we should throw our hands up in the air and give up.

I then went on to argue that the fact that we have a “shorter season” should be all the more reason that we need fantastic outdoor and public spaces. For the months of the year where it’s beautiful outside, we should be maximizing our enjoyment!

I hope many of you agree as well. Happy Friday all :)

I’m always on the lookout for great websites and communities dedicated to cities. And today, thanks to a friend of mine, I found a new one called City Observatory. It’s my new favorite site for city geeks.

They describe themselves as a “data-driven platform for sharing, analyzing and discussing the success of cities.” As soon as I read that, I immediately subscribed. I’m a big believer in using data to elevate the discussions happening around our cities and to cut through the bullshit.

I’m looking forward to digging into more of their articles, but I did already take a look at the first report they published, which is called: “The Young and Restless and the Nation’s Cities”. Click here to download the PDF.

What the report talks about is a demographic group that they refer to as “Young and Restless”, and which they define as being 25-34 years old and having a 4-year degree. And they focus on this group because they see it as critical to driving local economic development.

They’re the next generation who are going to start those companies and drive growth and innovation. And since the data shows that as people age, they become less willing to relocate (which intuitively makes sense), cities today are quickly realizing that they need to capture this group of smart people while they’re still restless (i.e. mobile).

So if this is important, which cities (in the US) are winning right now? Here are the top 10 cities via City Observatory:

1. Washington D.C. 8.1%

2. San Francisco 7.6%

3. Boston/Cambridge 7.6%

4. San Jose 7.5%

5. Denver 7.5%

6. Austin 7.0%

7. New York 6.6%

8. Minneapolis 6.6%

9. Raleigh 6.5%

10. Seattle 6.1%

The percentage represents the portion of the population that’s 25-34 years old and has a 4-year degree. I’ve just listed the cities here, but in reality they reference the entire metro areas.

Do any of the cities on this list surprise you? None are surprises for me. It’s more or less what I would have expected to see, except maybe for the absence of Chicago (it’s 12th according to this ranking).

Is your city doing enough to capture this group?

Image: Flickr

Seattle recently installed its first protected downtown bike lane on Second Avenue. Here’s a short video of it in action (pay attention to the signalling setup and the pedestrians that walk into the bike lanes). Click here if you can’t see the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2iQCCHlR0s?rel=0]

Shortly after it opened, they quickly discovered that the left green arrow and solid green circle (shown above) were confusing drivers. The intent was for the left green arrow to signal that you could turn and for the solid circle to signal that you could drive straight ahead.

But even with the accompanying sign, drivers kept getting confused and thought a green circle meant you could go wherever you want.

So the Seattle Department of Transportation quickly adjusted and changed the green circle to a north arrow. And it seems to have fixed the problem. I think it goes to show how important the details can be with these things.