When I met with all of the lovely folks from Amsterdam last week, one of the things that I mentioned about intensification is that it is almost certainly a contributing factor towards innovation, agglomeration economies, and the overall startup ecosystem here Toronto. 

I don’t know to what extent, but I feel it happening. And there’s lots of research correlating urban density with innovation. 

The continued densification of Toronto means it is constantly becoming easier to schedule that morning coffee before going into the office or to pop into that meetup after work. And those sorts of things are hugely valuable in today’s economy.

I talked about a number of local startups in my presentation, including 500px, Wattpad and Wealthsimple. But I didn’t show any hard data. So I’d like to do that today. Below is a chart showing total venture funding (internet/software) and the number of deals (Seed to A/B/C/D) in Toronto since 2009:

It was taken from this Medium post. Supposedly this places us 12th in the world as far as startup cities go.

Again, who knows how much of this venture growth has been helped along by intensification. After all: “Silicon Valley proper is soul-crushing suburban sprawl.” But I would bet money that it’s moving the needle in the right direction.

Here is another relevant post by venture capitalist Albert Wenger where he talks about the great startup ecosystem that Toronto is growing. He posted it earlier today.

All of this is important because some of these deals will spawn big companies. And those companies will the hire lots of people, as well as consume space. 

Real estate developers like to talk about how they create jobs. And we do. But we can’t have a city of people just building buildings. People and businesses need to fill that space and that hinges on entrepreneurs who are willing to go out there and forge something new for themselves. Fortunately, Toronto seems to have a growing number of those kinds of people.

Recently I wrote about the first Night Mayor Summit being held in Amsterdam. As part of this, I spoke about Amsterdam’s first night mayor – Mirik Milan.

Since then (but obviously not because of my post), the idea has seemingly taken off. Below are a couple of excerpts from a recent Guardian article.

This pragmatic and classically Dutch notion is now being copied across Europe: Toulouse, Zurich, Paris as well as several other Dutch cities have night mayors too.

This week the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced plans for a “Night-Time Commission”, a six-month assessment of how to protect and manage the city’s £66bn night-time economy which is likely to recommend the creation of a “night-time champion” role. 

Berlin is considering it too, and in April, Amsterdam will host the first global Night Mayors’ Summit.

Why is this happening? Simple:

“Late-night people are typically young, educated, creative, entrepreneurial – people you want in your city, and who work in the creative industries and startups you also want. If places like Berlin have flourished, it’s not just because of low rents. It’s because they’re nightlife capitals.”

So if you’re reading this, Mayor John Tory, now is probably your last chance to make Toronto a North American leader in this regard. 

It’s great that we are trying to push the Toronto - Waterloo region as a global startup hub, but so is every other major city and region in the world. A focus on startups is so commonplace in today’s economic development strategies, that at this point it almost feels meaningless. What are we going to do to stand out in this competition for the world’s best talent?

If everyone believes something to be true – such as, there’s value in having a robust startup ecosystem – then it’s no longer innovative. It’s just the way things are. To take it to the next level, we’re going to have to do things that will probably feel uncomfortable at first – particularly for old establishment Toronto.

I’m not saying that having a night mayor is going to be the silver bullet for our startup ecosystem. There’s no such thing. But I am saying that it should be one component of our larger strategy. 

Because already there’s a growing number of European cities who have come to this one simple realization: people are drawn to kickass places.

If you agree with this post, I would encourage you to leave a comment below and also tweet the Mayor of Toronto.

Image: Berlin nightlife by Tom Stromer

John Maeda – Design Partner at venture capital firm KPCB – recently published the second and 2016 edition of his #DesignInTech Report. I shared his first one almost exactly a year ago. His core thesis is that we are heading towards a world where technology, business, and design become closely integrated – in school, in business, and so on. Throughout the report he looks at the increasing impact that design and designers are having within the startup ecosystem. Here are a few verbatim bullet points: - Design isn’t just about beauty; it’s about market relevance and meaningful results. - 36% of the top 25 funded startups are co-founded by designers, up from 20% in 2015. - The general word “design” will come to mean less as we will start to qualify the specific kind of design we mean. - Currently design education lags the technology industry’s needs for data-oriented, coding enabled graduates with business acumen. - We must consciously invest in education to develop a more hybrid perspective on creativity in the 21st century: Technology x Business x Design. - President Obama’s signing of ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) into law in 2015 is a positive sign: by turning STEM into STEAM (adding Art) in K-12 education as a US priority. As somebody who studied design (architecture), business, and computer science (briefly, before switching to architecture), I probably have a bit of a biased view here. But to the extent that I can be objective, I really see this as the future. I am a big supporter of the transformation from STEM to STEAM. Below is a quote that Maeda uses to end his report, which I will also use to end this post:

“Engineers are efficient problem solvers. Business people think short term. Designer want things to be elegant and beautiful. All three need to create collaboration and harmony, and honor the value each other brings. There needs to be a new kind of ‘multi-dimensional’ approach to design that is yet to be invented.” –Linda Holliday