Some of you told me that yesterday’s post on careers was actually quite sad. That it came across as if I were advocating for people, not to do what they love, but to instead do what makes them the most money. But that was not my intention.
There were a lot of reasons why I got into real estate development, and perhaps I oversimplified yesterday. But a lot of it actually came down to the fact that I’m passionate about building great cities (hence this blog).
And I thought it was ultimately unfair that some investment-banker-turned-developer, who doesn’t really care about cities, might end up having more say over the built environment than me, the architect.
So I decided to sacrifice designing individual buildings in the hope that I’d one day be able to give back to cities on a much larger scale. And I still hope to be able to do that.
In any case, to end the week on a more fun note, I thought I would do a post called Fun Friday and link to 2 city tours: one of Brisbane, Australia, and one of Porto Alegre, Brazil.
But these aren’t just any city tours. They are by local skateboarders showing you their city. I posted one for Toronto about 8 months ago, so some of you might be familiar with the series.
I love how differently skateboarders look at the urban environment. I hope you can appreciate it as well.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEFQLjnhKT4?rel=0]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taF71igPZY0?rel=0]
Two weeks ago I wrote a post called “Skateboarding and the city." If you liked that post, I recommend you take a look at this 5 minute video called SKATE Toronto. It’s part of a series where local skateboarders provide a guided tour of their city.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEb4QvJzFVU&w=560&h=315]
You’ll find similar videos for New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Hong Kong, etc. What I like about them (other than the skating, of course) is that they clearly demonstrate the unique way in which skateboarders examine and engage with cities.