This morning I stumbled upon an interesting Medium article talking about the need for an all-day two-way urban rail service between Toronto and Waterloo.
The argument is that along this corridor sits a technology ecosystem that is second in size only to San Francisco-Silicon Valley and that current connectivity levels represent a missed opportunity of epic proportions. Presently this rail service will feed you into Toronto during the morning rush hour and take you back out in the evening rush hour. But that’s it.
According to this report prepared by the City of Kitchener (which is beside Waterloo), efficient train service would stitch together an ecosystem of approximately 12,800 technology companies, 2,800 startups, and 205,000 technology employees. It would also connect 6 universities and 4 colleges, many of which are ranked top in the world.
There’s an argument here that this is exactly the sort of thing that governments should be doing to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. Rather than trying to be heavily involved in actual startups, they should be creating an environment that maximizes output and then getting out of the way.
I think this makes a lot of sense. Don’t you?
Image: The Innovation Express
Last month it was announced that Amazon will be taking 127,000 square feet across 5 floors in a new office tower in Toronto’s emerging South Core neighborhood. The space will be used for about 800 employees and they’re expected to take occupancy this fall.
At the same time, I learned that Amazon will be joining Apple (positioned 6 floors below them in the same tower) and Cisco in South Core.
On top of all this, a friend of mine then tweeted out a list of major tenant re-locations here in the city. The data is from CBRE and the timeframe is from 2009 to 2014 (Q1).
The first thing I noticed when I looked at the data is that there’s a clear trend towards downtown. Perhaps that was the point of the study, but it’s still interesting nonetheless.
From Google and Deloitte to eBay and Aol, every single tenant in the CBRE list is or will be moving downtown (or to the shoulders of downtown).
Here’s what that looks like from a regional scale (red marker is where they were; green marker is where they are going):
And here’s what it looks like zoomed in closer:
This, of course, is a trend that has been happening for years. But I still think it’s worthwhile repeating how clearcut it seems to be.
Companies know that their greatest asset is human capital. And they have quickly realized that a lot of young smart people want to live and work in dense walkable communities. They’re simply moving to where people already want to be.
So here’s a question for the Architect This City community: On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is a company’s location when determining whether or not you’d like to work for them? Let’s talk about it in comment section below.
My good friends over at Distl here in Toronto have recently published their first Insight Report. It’s called, Make This City: The State of Urban Manufacturing, and it’s available via free download here. I like the title ;)
The report is 39 pages and is really well put together. There’s research, case studies spanning San Francisco to Toronto, and some great takeaways for city builders.
Since the internet likes listicles, here’s a preview of some of those takeaways – 10 ways that cities can take advantage of the urban manufacturing revival:
Preserve urban industrial areas
Focus on the niche
Public investment is a good investment
Think mixed-use
Diversify learning
Redefine industrial assets
Connect supplier & retailer
Leverage your city’s brand
Form supportive organizations
Leverage partnerships with both the private and public sectors
But it’s definitely worth a complete read and I plan to do exactly that this weekend. Click here to download Make This City.