I noticed this week that Google has started to overlay augmented reality-type place markers onto Street View. The markers are designed to help surface the kind of local business information that you might otherwise find in search — phone number, hours of operation, and so… Read More
Here is an interesting study about personalities and places (Journal article here and study here). It is interesting because so many of us are working from home and away from our regular environments. But it is also interesting because a lot of us, here on… Read More
As many of you already know, the City of Toronto is currently studying ways to increase the supply of “missing middle” type housing in our low-rise neighborhoods. This week they published a new report called, “Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods.” The Globe and Mail has… Read More
Building on yesterday’s post about inclusionary zoning, below is a telling diagram from the Urban Land Institute showing which areas of Portland can support new development and which areas cannot. To create this map, ULI looked at achievable rents in each US census block to… Read More
Richard Florida has a three-part essay over on Bloomberg CityLab about the forces that are currently shaping American cities. In part three, he argues that this pandemic will likely accelerate many of the trends that were already underway — families will continue to like the… Read More
On the east side of Toronto is a north-south street called Craven Road. It runs from Queen Street in the south to Danforth Avenue in the north. It’s an odd street in that there are only homes on one side of it — the east… Read More
Back in March and April, the belief seemed to be that cities had lost their allure. Density had proven to be a bad thing and we were now all going to live in the country and spend our days working via Zoom. But as our… Read More
There has been no shortage of prognostications about the demise of cities, offices, and a bunch of other things, as a result of this pandemic. And by now, a lot of you probably know that I think most of this is overblown. I worked in… Read More
The above chart from Bloomberg City Lab shows driving, walking, and transit mobility for 12 cities during this pandemic. The data source is Apple’s mobility index, which is based on travel queries within its app. So this isn’t going to capture how everyone is moving… Read More
City Observatory has a new report out called, Youth Movement: Accelerating America’s Urban Renaissance. In it, they look at and track the number of 25 to 34-year-olds with a 4-year college degree living in “close-in neighborhoods” within the 51 largest metro areas in the United… Read More
