I just discovered Steve Randy Waldman’s blog called Interfluidity and, more specifically, a post he wrote called: “Home is where the cartel is.” I am now following him.
He starts off by saying that housing is a bitch, which is just him saying that urban housing is a difficult problem to solve. A truism for this audience.
He doesn’t profess to have all of the answers, but he does write a thoughtful piece that covers, among other things: the “market urbanist” (supply-side) solution to solving housing affordability, the reasons why the “housing cartel” will never approve of this, and the inherent contradiction between housing as an investment and housing as a sustainably affordable good.
He also offers up Singapore and Germany as examples of two very different housing markets. It reminded me of a tweet I retweeted this morning which shows Germany as having the 2nd lowest homeownership rate (45%) among OECD countries.
Resonance Consultancy – they do brands and strategies for places and products – has just released a new report called: World’s Best City Brands – A Global Ranking of Place Equity.
With all of these sorts of rankings, it really depends on the research methodology being used and the rigor in which it is being applied. In this case, they evaluated each city based on “six pillars of equity”:
Place: Perceived quality of a city’s natural and built environment
Product: A city’s key institutions, attraction and infrastructure
Programming: The arts, culture and entertainment in a city
People: Immigration and diversity of a city
Prosperity: Employment, GDP per capita entertainment in a city and corporate head offices
Promotion: Quantity of articles, references of a city and recommendations online
What’s perhaps unique about this study is that it combines measurable statistics with “visitor perception metrics” – data that they mined from social media. Here’s an excerpt from the methodology page:
“Our team became interested in the way visitors and citizens themselves influence the identity and perception of cities. Increasingly, they do it through their evaluation of experiences on social media and via the comments, images and reviews they share with family, friends and people around the world. These opinions and attitudes, much more than traditional marketing, influence the way people perceive places today.”
This is a fascinating shift for city brands and is something that we have discussed before on this blog. All of us are now involved in telling the story of the places in which we live and visit.
The entire report is well done and worth a read. It’s also a free download (you’ll need to enter your contact info). But below are the top 10 world’s best city brands. Not really any surprises for me. What about for you?
This week I picked up the Philips Hue lighting system. For those of you aren’t familiar with it, it’s a connected home lighting system. All you need are a Philips Bridge (which hooks up to your wireless router); a smartphone; and whatever bulbs, lightstrips and fixtures you want to use with it. It also works seamlessly with the Apple Home app.
At first I was a bit nervous that it would turn my place into a cheesy nightclub. But as soon as I powered it on and started messing around with the Hue app, I was blown away by the quality of the light and the options. There are settings for reading, to simulate a sunset, and so on. You can schedule routines, such as a bedtime lighting scheme, and you can even color match a photo to find exactly the light you want.
After playing around a bit, I then sent out an obligatory tweet saying that I was now hooked on and obsessed with the Philips Hue lighting system. Trust me, it’s really cool. My friend Andrew then responded saying that he doesn’t get it. Why would anyone want a color of light besides “white?” To me, this is like asking: Why would anyone want to see a beautiful sunrise or sunset? The sun should just appear or disappear using one consistent color.
In a city like Toronto where most of us in the winter will wake up when it’s dark and come home from work when it’s dark, I have always believed that we should be more creative and daring with the way we light our city, our buildings, and our public spaces. We don’t want to be kitschy about it, but there’s an opportunity to maximize our darker months and enhance the overall urban experience.
The CN Tower is a perfect example. Its night lighting has completely changed how we view it and has become a beacon for what is going on in this city. I can see it clearly from my elevator lobby and I always look to see what color it is. I’m not great at picking out when it’s Rett Syndrome Awareness Month, but I can usually tell when there’s a game going on.
Now my place is certainly not the CN Tower. And there’s only one CN Tower in the world. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get fun and creative in other ways within the shared walls of the public realm. We should do that. Let’s not be so conservative.
If any of you have great examples of urban lighting, please share it in the comments below. Perhaps we can all use it as inspiration to make a change.