Wing, the aerial delivery company owned by Alphabet, recently announced an expansion to 150 more Walmart stores across the US this year. This also includes four new cities: Los Angeles, St. Louis, Miami, and Cincinnati. The company now says that it has completed over 750,000 deliveries since it launched in 2012. And the goal is to be flying out of 270 Walmart locations by 2027.

There was a period over a decade ago when drone delivery was in its "hype phase." This also coincided with retail being out of favor as a real estate asset class. Drones made e-commerce seem even more threatening. Then things quieted down when regulation, noise, privacy, and other obstacles got in the way of the drone hype. But as with all new and promising technologies, the building continued, just less publicly.

Noise and privacy are serious concerns, but I understand that there are now "bladeless" drones and drones that use shrouds to direct sound upward. For the sake of argument, let's assume these problems can be solved. Now I wonder: Who is this for and where do they live?

Because of weight limitations, drone delivery payloads tend to be smaller items (under five pounds). And because there's only so far that these drones can fly on a single battery charge, they tend to be for quick local deliveries. So, the use case seems to be for people who don't have the luxury of being able to walk 10 minutes to a corner store, or can't be bothered to do so.

This also aligns with the early adopters of this tech: people who live in suburban homes and have driveways where a drone can easily land. This makes sense as an easy first solution, though I think you could make the case that landing on the roof of a tall building might actually be less conspicuous and disruptive at scale.

As it stands, drone delivery is an overwhelmingly suburban solution. The environment is convenient for takeoff and landing, and it's an environment where fetching small items probably isn't convenient. This solves that. And the company appears to be scaling. But how far will it go? And will it ever become a widespread urban solution?

One of the ways that cities determine where they should spend money and invest is through something known as Participatory Budgeting. The birthplace of this approach is generally thought to be Porto Alegre in Brazil, which first adopted it in 1989. Since then, it has become a mainstream practice and spread to cities all around the world, including New York and Paris, both of which operate ambitious programs.

In the case of Paris, they have committed 5% of their capital budget to be spent in this way. The way it generally works is simple: citizens get to propose ideas and then vote on which urban projects they think should be funded. Last year, Paris saw 2,079 ideas proposed, 261 projects put to a vote, 162,395 votes, and 104 projects selected. And since the program launched in 2014, over €768 million has been allocated.

Some of these projects are very local and specific, such as "build a sports facility on this street," while others are city-wide, like "make things cleaner, be better at sorting waste and recycling, and reduce noise."

While there's lots of debate about the effectiveness of Participatory Budgeting, it does offer a number of benefits. Studies have shown that it can improve public trust in government institutions by making them more accountable. It can also help to educate residents on what things actually cost, making trade-offs more understandable. But most importantly, it can help to better allocate funds.

After all, who better to decide what a neighborhood needs than the locals who live there every day? Just don't ask about building new housing.

Cover photo by Ness P. Colmart on Unsplash

I'm writing this post from the concourse level of Place Ville Marie Esplanade in Montréal (also known as Galerie PVM) while I wait for my next meeting. Like the PATH in Toronto, the space I'm in is part of an underground network of restaurants, shops, and circulation spaces that runs through downtown Montréal.

But what makes the space I'm in right now particularly noteworthy is that I'm sitting beneath an enormous glass roof supported by 18 glass beams measuring 15 meters long and 0.9 meters tall. So, while I am below grade, I have a clear view of The Ring, Mont-Royal, and the street life happening above me.

Underground "malls" like Toronto's PATH and Montréal's RÉSO were a somewhat obvious urban solution to inclement weather. But they are often criticized for sucking life underground and making the streets at grade feel dead.

When I've toured my American friends through Toronto's CBD in the past, I've heard comments like, "How come you have no retail downtown? It feels dead." And then I have to cheekily say, "Oh, well, we actually have tons of it, we just decided to hide it all underground so it's harder to find and confusing to navigate."

The way you start to counteract these negatives — lack of street life and challenging wayfinding — is to do what Sid Lee Architecture did masterfully here at Place Ville Marie. To the extent possible, you make grade and below grade feel like one space.