When I was working on my startup Dirt last year, one of the things we spent a bit of time figuring out was how to classify buildings according to neighborhood. Now, at first blush, this may seem like a fairly easy thing to do. You simply locate the building, figure out which neighborhood it’s in, and then tag it accordingly. But neighborhood boundaries and definitions aren’t as clear cut as you might think.

For example, a lot of you probably know that I live in the St. Lawrence Market neighborhood of Toronto. And indeed, if you look at this Wikipedia definition, I live in that area. But if you look at what they call it, it’s just: “St. Lawrence.” They also specify that it used to be called “St. Lawrence Ward”, but that today most people actually call it “the St. Lawrence Market.” So here you have an example of an evolving and changing name.

But then there’s the question of boundaries. According to Wikipedia’s definition, the north boundary is Front Street. This means that the North Market Building would be technically outside of the area and so would the Market Square condos. But I suspect that almost everyone would consider these two buildings to be part of the neighborhood. So where exactly is the north boundary? Is it King Street? Or maybe by Front Street they mean that all buildings on the north side of the street are included.

If you look at the city’s official neighborhood list (which is built from Statistics Canada Census Tracts) you’ll find a completely different boundary and name. According to this list, I live in the “Waterfront Communities–The Island” neighborhood. Obviously nobody, other than maybe somebody who deals with census data, would have any idea what this area is. But it’s how the city tracks its demographic data.

What this begins to show you is that neighborhood definitions and boundaries aren’t as black and white as they might initially seem. And it’s partially because cities themselves are always in flux. New neighborhoods emerge and old ones reinvent themselves. And as that happens, people start introducing new names and new terminologies.

When I was about 19 years old, people in Toronto used to say they were going out “on Richmond and Adelaide.” Since then, gentrification has pushed many of the bars and clubs out of that area. So people instead go out “on King West” or “on Ossington.” And as people begin to use those terms and identify with an area, new brands are created. Ask anybody who lives downtown and I bet they’ll tell you that King West has its own unique personality and even a type of person who typically lives there. This is an on the ground type of awareness though, which doesn’t get captured in census tracts.

The other reason neighborhood boundaries can be so fuzzy is because we – the real estate community – are constantly trying to manipulate them for our own benefit. I’m indifferent to the fact that this happens, but it is a reality. Think about how much the neighborhood of Yorkville has been stretched from its original roots north of Bloor Street. If a neighborhood has a good brand, agents and developers will naturally try and leverage it. Homeowners do it all the time too. Would you prefer to say that you live in Seaton Village or the Annex?

Ultimately, we (my Dirt cofounder and I) decided that neighborhood definitions and boundaries needed to be fluid. They needed to dynamically adjust with the market and come from as many people as possible on the ground. Because at the end of the day if the official documents say one thing, but the majority of city residents believe another, then that official boundary and definition are probably out of date. The crowd wins here.

We liked this approach because it was organic – just like cities.

Images: Flickr, Wikipedia, Flickr

Earlier this week a friend of mine was live tweeting a public consultation meeting for the revitalization of Berczy Park in the St. Lawrence Market neighborhood of Toronto. And since I live in the neighborhood, it’s a project that I’ve been following particularly closely–although anything related to the built environmental generally fascinates me.

As soon as I saw the pictures he was tweeting out, I was immediately excited. And after reviewing the full design package (which you can download here), I must say that I think it’s going to be a brilliant change for the neighborhood. 

On an entirely superficial level, I like the paving motif they’ve chosen; even if it does appear to be be a copy from somewhere else (see above photo). I don’t think one should underestimate how small details, like paving, can have a huge impact on how one feels in a space, whether inside or out. It all counts.

But beyond just cosmetic changes, there are a couple of significant design changes being proposed.

First, a larger kid-friendly green space is being proposed on the west side of the park. And what was interesting to see was how the community overwhelmingly expressed a need for this play area. I’d like to believe that this speaks to the growing acceptance of raising kids downtown. There are certainly lots of families in the St. Lawrence.

Second, the south portion of the park is being “opened up” with a much larger hardscape area. The result will be a bigger promenade along Front Street, as well as, what I hope, will become an “urban stage” for people to hang out, breakdance, busk or try and sell me things I don’t need.

But equally exciting is the fact that along with the revitalization of Berczy Park will come a public art competition. It’s already in the works, but there aren’t any pretty images to share, just yet. Regardless, I think the topic of public art is an interesting discussion.

In a lot of cities around the world, there are mechanisms in place to encourage or mandate public art. Commonly, it comes in the form of a “Percent for Art” program, which means that, in the case of a new construction project, 1% of the construction costs would or should go to public art.

But the fact that we, at least in some cities, have programs to mandate it, should immediately signal to you that public art is not something universally believed in. And certainly it’s one of those things where it’s hard to measure the return-on-investment. 

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t or can’t exist.

In fact, I would argue that in today’s information and digital age it’s only going to become more important. We are living in a world of too much information and too little time. We’re living in a noisy world and, whether you’re a corporation or a city, the only way to stand out is to be remarkable. You need to bring delight to people.

Because when you do, you get noticed (and probably shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, Vine, 500px, Flickr and maybe even Google+). As one example, how many of you recognize the public art piece below? It’s in Vancouver and I’ve seen it pop up a number of times in my social news feeds. It’s something that brings delight to people. 

But at the same time, it’s something that speaks to and creates a sense of place. What could be more Vancouver than a giant blue raindrop along the waterfront? And that’s really one of the ironies of today’s digital world. Despite the fact that, no matter where we are, we’re all hyper connected through technology, more and more of us are gravitating back towards cities. We want to live close to other people and we want to feel a sense of place.

When done properly, public art can help cities achieve that. Whether it’s the famous LOVE sculpture or Richard Serra’s controversial Tilted Arc, public art can make you stop and take notice of your environment. It can give you that sense of familiarity or it can take you by surprise. Either way, it gives you a sense of place.

When I was working on my startup Dirt last year, one of the things we spent a bit of time figuring out was how to classify buildings according to neighborhood. Now, at first blush, this may seem like a fairly easy thing to do. You simply locate the building, figure out which neighborhood it’s in, and then tag it accordingly. But neighborhood boundaries and definitions aren’t as clear cut as you might think.

For example, a lot of you probably know that I live in the St. Lawrence Market neighborhood of Toronto. And indeed, if you look at this Wikipedia definition, I live in that area. But if you look at what they call it, it’s just: “St. Lawrence.” They also specify that it used to be called “St. Lawrence Ward”, but that today most people actually call it “the St. Lawrence Market.” So here you have an example of an evolving and changing name.

But then there’s the question of boundaries. According to Wikipedia’s definition, the north boundary is Front Street. This means that the North Market Building would be technically outside of the area and so would the Market Square condos. But I suspect that almost everyone would consider these two buildings to be part of the neighborhood. So where exactly is the north boundary? Is it King Street? Or maybe by Front Street they mean that all buildings on the north side of the street are included.

If you look at the city’s official neighborhood list (which is built from Statistics Canada Census Tracts) you’ll find a completely different boundary and name. According to this list, I live in the “Waterfront Communities–The Island” neighborhood. Obviously nobody, other than maybe somebody who deals with census data, would have any idea what this area is. But it’s how the city tracks its demographic data.

What this begins to show you is that neighborhood definitions and boundaries aren’t as black and white as they might initially seem. And it’s partially because cities themselves are always in flux. New neighborhoods emerge and old ones reinvent themselves. And as that happens, people start introducing new names and new terminologies.

When I was about 19 years old, people in Toronto used to say they were going out “on Richmond and Adelaide.” Since then, gentrification has pushed many of the bars and clubs out of that area. So people instead go out “on King West” or “on Ossington.” And as people begin to use those terms and identify with an area, new brands are created. Ask anybody who lives downtown and I bet they’ll tell you that King West has its own unique personality and even a type of person who typically lives there. This is an on the ground type of awareness though, which doesn’t get captured in census tracts.

The other reason neighborhood boundaries can be so fuzzy is because we – the real estate community – are constantly trying to manipulate them for our own benefit. I’m indifferent to the fact that this happens, but it is a reality. Think about how much the neighborhood of Yorkville has been stretched from its original roots north of Bloor Street. If a neighborhood has a good brand, agents and developers will naturally try and leverage it. Homeowners do it all the time too. Would you prefer to say that you live in Seaton Village or the Annex?

Ultimately, we (my Dirt cofounder and I) decided that neighborhood definitions and boundaries needed to be fluid. They needed to dynamically adjust with the market and come from as many people as possible on the ground. Because at the end of the day if the official documents say one thing, but the majority of city residents believe another, then that official boundary and definition are probably out of date. The crowd wins here.

We liked this approach because it was organic – just like cities.

Images: Flickr, Wikipedia, Flickr

Earlier this week a friend of mine was live tweeting a public consultation meeting for the revitalization of Berczy Park in the St. Lawrence Market neighborhood of Toronto. And since I live in the neighborhood, it’s a project that I’ve been following particularly closely–although anything related to the built environmental generally fascinates me.

As soon as I saw the pictures he was tweeting out, I was immediately excited. And after reviewing the full design package (which you can download here), I must say that I think it’s going to be a brilliant change for the neighborhood. 

On an entirely superficial level, I like the paving motif they’ve chosen; even if it does appear to be be a copy from somewhere else (see above photo). I don’t think one should underestimate how small details, like paving, can have a huge impact on how one feels in a space, whether inside or out. It all counts.

But beyond just cosmetic changes, there are a couple of significant design changes being proposed.

First, a larger kid-friendly green space is being proposed on the west side of the park. And what was interesting to see was how the community overwhelmingly expressed a need for this play area. I’d like to believe that this speaks to the growing acceptance of raising kids downtown. There are certainly lots of families in the St. Lawrence.

Second, the south portion of the park is being “opened up” with a much larger hardscape area. The result will be a bigger promenade along Front Street, as well as, what I hope, will become an “urban stage” for people to hang out, breakdance, busk or try and sell me things I don’t need.

But equally exciting is the fact that along with the revitalization of Berczy Park will come a public art competition. It’s already in the works, but there aren’t any pretty images to share, just yet. Regardless, I think the topic of public art is an interesting discussion.

In a lot of cities around the world, there are mechanisms in place to encourage or mandate public art. Commonly, it comes in the form of a “Percent for Art” program, which means that, in the case of a new construction project, 1% of the construction costs would or should go to public art.

But the fact that we, at least in some cities, have programs to mandate it, should immediately signal to you that public art is not something universally believed in. And certainly it’s one of those things where it’s hard to measure the return-on-investment. 

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t or can’t exist.

In fact, I would argue that in today’s information and digital age it’s only going to become more important. We are living in a world of too much information and too little time. We’re living in a noisy world and, whether you’re a corporation or a city, the only way to stand out is to be remarkable. You need to bring delight to people.

Because when you do, you get noticed (and probably shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, Vine, 500px, Flickr and maybe even Google+). As one example, how many of you recognize the public art piece below? It’s in Vancouver and I’ve seen it pop up a number of times in my social news feeds. It’s something that brings delight to people. 

But at the same time, it’s something that speaks to and creates a sense of place. What could be more Vancouver than a giant blue raindrop along the waterfront? And that’s really one of the ironies of today’s digital world. Despite the fact that, no matter where we are, we’re all hyper connected through technology, more and more of us are gravitating back towards cities. We want to live close to other people and we want to feel a sense of place.

When done properly, public art can help cities achieve that. Whether it’s the famous LOVE sculpture or Richard Serra’s controversial Tilted Arc, public art can make you stop and take notice of your environment. It can give you that sense of familiarity or it can take you by surprise. Either way, it gives you a sense of place.