It’s a link to a new research project by Y Combinator – the famed Silicon Valley seed accelerator. They want to explore the possibility of building new and better cities.
I don’t have the time for something like this, but if any of you are city experts (I know a lot of you are) and you’re based in or willing to be based in San Francisco (I think they are flexible on this), you should absolutely consider
It’s a link to a new research project by Y Combinator – the famed Silicon Valley seed accelerator. They want to explore the possibility of building new and better cities.
I don’t have the time for something like this, but if any of you are city experts (I know a lot of you are) and you’re based in or willing to be based in San Francisco (I think they are flexible on this), you should absolutely consider
There are many high-level questions we want to think through, for example:
- What should a city optimize for?
- How should we measure the effectiveness of a city (what are its KPIs)?
- What values should (or should not) be embedded in a city’s culture?
- How can cities help more of their residents be happy and reach their potential?
- How can we encourage a diverse range of people to live and work in the city?
- How should citizens guide and participate in government?
- How can we make sure a city is constantly evolving and always open to change?
And there are tactical questions we want to dig into, for example:
- How can we make and keep housing affordable? This is critical to us; the cost of housing affects everything else in a city.
- How can we lay out the public and private spaces (and roads) to make a great place to live?
- Can we figure out better zoning laws?
- What is the right role for vehicles in a city?
- Should we have human-driven cars at all?
- How can we have affordable high-speed transit to and from other cities?
- How can we make rules and regulations that are comprehensive while also being easily understandable?
- Can we fit all rules for the city in 100 pages of text?
- What effects will the new city have on the surrounding community?
The convergence of city building and tech is something that I’m deeply interested in. I also think it’s inevitable. And I think that Toronto – thanks to our robust real estate industry – is in an ideal position to be a leader in this space. So I would love to see someone from here take on this job.
But even if you’re not from Toronto, you should still apply because it’s an exciting initiative :)
Last weekend over dinner, a friend of mine asked me what I thought about the Scarborough Subway Extension debate going on in Toronto right now. Costs are coming in higher than initially projected and the usual back and forth is taking place. Transit blogger Steve Munro has a good post on this called Spinning a Tale in Scarborough.
I haven’t written much about the Scarborough Subway, but I do have a strong opinion. I believe it’s a mistake. I am not saying that we shouldn’t be building higher order transit in Scarborough – we absolutely should – but it does not need to be an expensive subway line. There are more sensible solutions.
Here are a few things to consider:
Light rail transit (LRT) does not equal streetcar. As an avid user of the King streetcar, I’ll be the first to admit that something needs to be done to address the city’s busiest streetcar routes. They are broken. But this is not what was being previously contemplated for Scarborough. True LRT – which Toronto does not yet have – is far more effective at moving people.
Scarborough Centre is seeing almost no new residential and commercial development. In fact, the “Centres” in general are not seeing much development. The largest share is happening downtown, along the central waterfront, and along the “Avenues.” We shouldn’t ignore this when making our investment decisions. Transit and built form go hand in hand.
This week, the first ever international street art festival will be taking place in Toronto. It’s called A Love Letter to the Great Lakes and it is running from June 20 to June 25, 2016.
The goal of the festival is to use public works of art to get people thinking about our water resources and, more specifically, about the Great Lakes. Together, these Lakes represent 20% of the world’s fresh surface water.
So this week, 21 local and international artists will be painting giant murals in 3 different areas of the city: Queen & Ossington, Queen & Spadina, and at the mouth of the Don River.
There are many high-level questions we want to think through, for example:
- What should a city optimize for?
- How should we measure the effectiveness of a city (what are its KPIs)?
- What values should (or should not) be embedded in a city’s culture?
- How can cities help more of their residents be happy and reach their potential?
- How can we encourage a diverse range of people to live and work in the city?
- How should citizens guide and participate in government?
- How can we make sure a city is constantly evolving and always open to change?
And there are tactical questions we want to dig into, for example:
- How can we make and keep housing affordable? This is critical to us; the cost of housing affects everything else in a city.
- How can we lay out the public and private spaces (and roads) to make a great place to live?
- Can we figure out better zoning laws?
- What is the right role for vehicles in a city?
- Should we have human-driven cars at all?
- How can we have affordable high-speed transit to and from other cities?
- How can we make rules and regulations that are comprehensive while also being easily understandable?
- Can we fit all rules for the city in 100 pages of text?
- What effects will the new city have on the surrounding community?
The convergence of city building and tech is something that I’m deeply interested in. I also think it’s inevitable. And I think that Toronto – thanks to our robust real estate industry – is in an ideal position to be a leader in this space. So I would love to see someone from here take on this job.
But even if you’re not from Toronto, you should still apply because it’s an exciting initiative :)
Last weekend over dinner, a friend of mine asked me what I thought about the Scarborough Subway Extension debate going on in Toronto right now. Costs are coming in higher than initially projected and the usual back and forth is taking place. Transit blogger Steve Munro has a good post on this called Spinning a Tale in Scarborough.
I haven’t written much about the Scarborough Subway, but I do have a strong opinion. I believe it’s a mistake. I am not saying that we shouldn’t be building higher order transit in Scarborough – we absolutely should – but it does not need to be an expensive subway line. There are more sensible solutions.
Here are a few things to consider:
Light rail transit (LRT) does not equal streetcar. As an avid user of the King streetcar, I’ll be the first to admit that something needs to be done to address the city’s busiest streetcar routes. They are broken. But this is not what was being previously contemplated for Scarborough. True LRT – which Toronto does not yet have – is far more effective at moving people.
Scarborough Centre is seeing almost no new residential and commercial development. In fact, the “Centres” in general are not seeing much development. The largest share is happening downtown, along the central waterfront, and along the “Avenues.” We shouldn’t ignore this when making our investment decisions. Transit and built form go hand in hand.
This week, the first ever international street art festival will be taking place in Toronto. It’s called A Love Letter to the Great Lakes and it is running from June 20 to June 25, 2016.
The goal of the festival is to use public works of art to get people thinking about our water resources and, more specifically, about the Great Lakes. Together, these Lakes represent 20% of the world’s fresh surface water.
So this week, 21 local and international artists will be painting giant murals in 3 different areas of the city: Queen & Ossington, Queen & Spadina, and at the mouth of the Don River.
I also do not buy the argument that we are building this subway in anticipation of demand 50 or 100 years from now. We are not in a position to be proactive about our infrastructure. We are desperately playing catch up and there are already lots of high growth and high density areas in the city which today are completely underserved by higher order transit.
Finally, a new subway line with low ridership will mean higher operating cost subsidies to keep it afloat. And at the rate that Scarborough Centre is growing today, this would likely continue for many years into the future. Not only is this debate about spending money today, it is about spending money well in the future, month after month.
So let’s be clear: the Scarborough Subway Extension debate is about politics. It is not about transportation planning.
Below is one of the works already in progress. It’s by Jason Botkin and it’s located on one of the bents of the Gardiner Expressway East at the mouth of the Don River.
This event caught my attention for 3 reasons.
First, I think the city is going to be left with some rad looking murals. Here is one from a similar event in Cozumel, Mexico called Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans in Cozumel:
Second, like many others, I care deeply about the environment. But until we put in place the right economic incentives / disincentives, we need all the awareness building that we can get.
Third, seeing Jeff Hull on the list of collaborators reminded me that there’s a new breed of real estate developers emerging in our cities. The big bad developer is sometimes (often?) thought to be greedy and insensitive to local communities. But I think the next generation sees itself quite differently. They see themselves more as city and community builders.
So if you’re in Toronto this week, get on your bike and head over to one or more of the mural sites. Tweet me if you decide to go and maybe we can connect.
I also do not buy the argument that we are building this subway in anticipation of demand 50 or 100 years from now. We are not in a position to be proactive about our infrastructure. We are desperately playing catch up and there are already lots of high growth and high density areas in the city which today are completely underserved by higher order transit.
Finally, a new subway line with low ridership will mean higher operating cost subsidies to keep it afloat. And at the rate that Scarborough Centre is growing today, this would likely continue for many years into the future. Not only is this debate about spending money today, it is about spending money well in the future, month after month.
So let’s be clear: the Scarborough Subway Extension debate is about politics. It is not about transportation planning.
Below is one of the works already in progress. It’s by Jason Botkin and it’s located on one of the bents of the Gardiner Expressway East at the mouth of the Don River.
This event caught my attention for 3 reasons.
First, I think the city is going to be left with some rad looking murals. Here is one from a similar event in Cozumel, Mexico called Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans in Cozumel:
Second, like many others, I care deeply about the environment. But until we put in place the right economic incentives / disincentives, we need all the awareness building that we can get.
Third, seeing Jeff Hull on the list of collaborators reminded me that there’s a new breed of real estate developers emerging in our cities. The big bad developer is sometimes (often?) thought to be greedy and insensitive to local communities. But I think the next generation sees itself quite differently. They see themselves more as city and community builders.
So if you’re in Toronto this week, get on your bike and head over to one or more of the mural sites. Tweet me if you decide to go and maybe we can connect.
