Here is a short video by Dave Amos (of the YouTube channel City Beautiful) about the splitting of Berlin into two. What a fascinating urban case study. I just recently discovered his channel, but he seems to cover some interesting topics, all of which are related to cities and city planning. When Dave is not making YouTube videos, he is a professor of city and regional planning at Cal Poly. He also graduated with a Master of Architecture at some point before getting his Ph.D., so presumably he knows a few things about buildings and cities. I guess that also makes him an imposter architect, like me.
Category: Urbanism
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How new technologies spread (and what that means for superstar cities)
We know that innovation and economic growth tends to be unevenly distributed. This is the bull case for living in cities and, more particularly, for living in certain cities. But of course, the big question these days is whether or not our little work from home experiment has proven that, for the first time ever, work can now decentralize.
Well here is a unique study that looked at 29 disruptive technologies over the last two decades in the United States. Using three main sources — patents, job postings, and hundreds of thousands of earnings calls — the team traced where new innovations/technologies have tended to emerge and then how they spread (or didn’t spread) across the rest of the US.
Their initial findings won’t surprise regular readers of this blog. There are indeed a certain number of pioneering superstar cities. Within their list of new disruptive innovations, the team found that about 40.2% of them came from California. The next “super-cluster” was along the Boston-Washington corridor in the northeast with ~21.2%. By narrowing down their list to “disruptive patents”, as opposed to all patents, innovation looks even spikier.
Next the team looked at how these disruptive technologies tend to diffuse across the country. This is where job postings and earnings calls come into play. New technology gets created in California garage. Cool. But at what point do CEOs across the country start talking about it and hiring people who are capable of doing things with it? This next figure shows that diffusion at various time intervals.
Now here are the important takeaways. New disruptive technologies clearly take time to spread. However, high-skilled hiring tends to spread much more slowly than low-skilled hiring. This kind of makes sense as you’ve got a built up and entrenched knowledge base in these pioneering locations.
But what this also means is that pioneering locations tend to maintain their hegemony for quite some time — decades. The high-paying jobs stick closer to home for much longer, presumably because geography makes it harder to transfer knowledge. This is, of course, based on historical data. But I remain highly suspect that Zoom calls can really disrupt the importance of our superstar cities.
Maps: Vox
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What happens when you eliminate parking minimums? Lessons from Buffalo.
Back in 2017, the City of Buffalo introduced something known as the “Green Code.” It was the first overhaul of its zoning code in over 60 years. I wrote about it here. One of most notable changes as part of the Green Code was the complete elimination of parking minimums. Which is another topic that has gotten a lot of air time on this blog.
Now that it has been a few years, Buffalo provides an interesting case study: What do developers do once you eliminate parking minimums in a mid-sized city? I mention mid-sized because I think the size of the city is relevant here. There is a common argument that you can’t eliminate parking minimums unless you’re in a big and transit-rich city. “This isn’t [insert big city]. People drive here.” I am sure that many of you have heard this before.
But is that really the case? Here is what Daniel Baldwin Hess & Jeffrey Rehler found when they studied the development response to removing parking minimums in Buffalo:
- The study looked at 36 major developments in the first two years after parking minimums were eliminated
- In aggregate, the 36 developments built 21% less parking spaces than what was previously mandated, likely demonstrating that the old zoning code was resulting in an excess supply of new parking
- Mixed-used developments (of which there were 14, generally consisting of residential + retail) built 53% less parking than what was previously required
- One exception to this trend is that single-use projects (both residential and commercial) built either the same or more parking (most of these projects were in the suburbs outside of the downtown core)
What this suggests to me is that the previous zoning code was maybe appropriate for what the market was demanding (for parking) in suburban locations. Maybe. But it was certainly overshooting what the market was and is willing to accept in more urban locations in Buffalo. Mixed-used (i.e. being able to support retail at grade) is likely a good measure of the project’s urbanity.
Perhaps more importantly, I think this study shows that developers are incentivized to build what the market wants — no more and no less. Building parking that nobody wants is bad business. As is building too little parking such that you can’t rent or sell your space(s). A Goldilocks parking ratio is what you’re after, but it is constantly changing and finding it can be a bit of an art. Eliminating parking minimums is a good way to let the market try and figure it out.
Photo by Seth Yeanoplos on Unsplash
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New land development across the US between 2001-2019
The Washington Post just published this interactive feature showing new developed land (i.e. urban sprawl) across the US between 2001 and 2019.
It is based on these land cover maps which were published by the US Geological Survey earlier in the summer. Their findings show that between 2001 and 2019, more than 10% of the land cover in the lower 48 states changed during this time period. Mostly in forested areas.
The WP feature allows you to search by city/address and I would encourage all of you to try it out. As an example, here is Salt Lake City. The gray areas represent land that was already developed in 2001. The purple areas represent land that was developed sometime between 2001 and 2019.
Images: Washington Post
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Development as a leading indicator
Building new buildings takes a really long time. It is not uncommon for development timelines to to span 5-10 years, and sometimes even longer. It is particularly frustrating when you see unnecessary roadblocks and delays throughout the process. But that’s a topic for another post.
Perhaps one of the positives of these timelines is that they force you to think well into the future. Take for example electric vehicles. Most car manufacturers have already announced aggressive electrification targets for the year 2030.
What that means is that if you’re starting a new project today, you have to assume that it will be completed into a world where many more people will be coming home and plugging in their car. Perhaps it will be the majority of people. So you probably need to plan for that.
Another way to think about development is that it is a leading indicator for what’s coming. If we stick with the example of cars and parking, I think it’s pretty clear that parking is becoming increasingly scarce in our biggest cities. The pressures are simply too great.
In all of our Toronto projects, we are currently building no more than about 0.4 parking spaces per suite. And there’s pressure to bring this number down even further. There are lots of examples of zero parking. The biggest reason is costs, but we also know that big cities don’t function well when everyone is driving around.
This is also not a new trend.
If you look at the multi-family buildings that Toronto completed in and around the 60s and 70s, many will have parking ratios in the range of 1-2 parking spaces per suite. This is totally untenable in today’s environment (except for a small subset of the market) and I bet you that a lot of this parking is now sitting vacant.
Things change. Development can sometimes tell you what those changes might be.
Photo by Michael Fousert on Unsplash
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Is entrepreneurship contagious? (And a bull case for urban clustering)
The research isn’t absolutely conclusive, but Matt Clancy — who is an assistant teaching professor of economics at Iowa State — makes an interesting case (over here) about entrepreneurship being mostly contagious.
The article cites a long list of studies that have more or less found that being around entrepreneurs can have a measurable positive effect on whether you yourself might also become one.
There is evidence to suggest that this is true whether you’re a scientist working with someone who has previously commercialized a piece of research, a community with entrepreneurial neighbors, a student with an entrepreneurial mentor, or a child with parents who have started their own business(es).
According to one Swedish study, the children of entrepreneurs are about 12 percentage points more likely to start a business at some point in their life compared to people with non-entrepreneur parents.
But as I said at the beginning of this post, the research isn’t entirely conclusive. Could a proclivity for risk and independence be instead genetic? Could it be that entrepreneur types simply seek out other entrepreneurs to hang out with? Perhaps these associations aren’t causal. Maybe.
But my gut tells me that there has got to be some contagiousness. Here’s an excerpt from Matt’s article:
…being around someone who has done it plants the seed in your mind that it’s a possibility, something you really could do. For most of the studies, the population exposed to entrepreneurship is a population that wouldn’t normally consider it. For them, exposure has a measurable positive effect.
What this once again tells me is that there’s immeasurable value in people clustering in cities, local communities, offices, coffee shops, and many other spaces. It’s a hard (probably impossible) thing to replace. And it could be the difference between taking initiative and starting a business, and not doing that.
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Districts versus spines
I was recently having a discussion on Twitter about midrise buildings and architect Dermot Sweeny raised the important distinction between creating “spines” and creating “districts.”
What he was referring to with “spines” was the way in which Toronto is intensifying its “Avenues” with midrise buildings. It is a kind of linear form of intensification which almost always means that each building must transition in some way to the low-rise housing that typically abuts our Avenues. This is far less relevant in districts.
We have started to increase housing supply in our “Neighborhoods” through things like laneway houses and garden suites, but in most cases, we are arguably not creating urban districts.
This is of course a touchy subject. But I think it’s an important discussion to be having for a number reasons:
- Increasing housing supply is a good thing
- Angular planes and other transition measures make housing more expensive
- Urban places are, I would argue, better defined through districts rather than spines
- Mixed-use (employment) becomes more viable with districts
- Transit infrastructure is better utilized with radial density around its stations
Can you think of any others?
Photo: Old Montrêal (Shot on iPhone)
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Façadism in Montréal
These are photos from the terrace of a restaurant in Old Montreal called Boris Bistro. It’s not new — it’s been around since 1999 — but that doesn’t change the fact that its outdoor space is absolutely magical.
The terrace sits behind an old stone facade on McGill Street that is held up with a three-storey steel structure. Hello façadism! I have tried to figure out the vintage of the original building through a cursory look online, but I came up with nothing. (Drop it in comment section below if you happen to know.)
What we were told at the restaurant was that the original building burnt down, leaving just the facade and then an open space behind it. The size of the trees on the terrace do suggest that it’s been this way for a long time.
There’s an office building beside it that looks to be of a 90s vintage (465 McGill Street) and this open space was apparently a place for office workers to go smoke. But now the ground floor of the office building and the terrace function as one large contiguous space.
The result is what you see above. Magic.
Montréal has been city building for a lot longer than Toronto. Some 400 years depending on how you calculate it. This history has created one of the most beautiful built environments anywhere in the world.
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Province reveals vision for new Ontario Place
Plans to redevelop Ontario Place (here in Toronto) have been in the works for many years, even before it closed in 2012. Supposedly it was losing over $20 million a year at that time. It had obviously lost its relevance.
Back in 2010 (or thereabouts) I was actually part of a team that responded to an RFP to redevelop the waterfront lands. In fact, I was the human who physically submitted the proposal. I was still patiently waiting to hear back about whether or not we were selected, but based on today’s news I’m going to assume we didn’t get it.
This morning, the Ontario government announced the following vision (architecture by Diamond Schmitt):
The team also includes Austrian resort developer Therme, Quebec-based recreation firm Écorécréo, and US-based concert company Live Nation. The proposal itself includes a new outdoor “adventure park”, an indoor spa and waterpark, and a year-round concert venue. Premier Ford has also made it clear that there will be no casino, no residential, and that none of the land will be sold to the private sector.
That’s essentially all I know about the proposal.
Water features, palm trees, and a new beach all sound great to me. I just hope that (1) something actually happens and that (2) it is truly remarkable.
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The Tokyo Toilet
One of the biggest challenges with living through this pandemic has been finding a good public toilet. Drinking in the park is all fine and dandy, but at some point you’re going to need to find a place to pee. From experience, I can tell you that this can be a challenge in places like Toronto and Vancouver. But from the looks of it, the situation is a bit different in Tokyo. Japan, apparently, views its toilets as a symbol of its world-renowned hospitality culture. And so it takes great pride in the design of its public toilets. Last year, Tokyo invited 16 creators from around the world to redesign 17 of its public toilets throughout Shibuya. The list of creators includes big names like Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma, Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, and many others. And the result is probably the nicest collection of public toilets that you have ever seen (somewhere around 9 of them are already operational with the balance expected to open sometime this year). The uniforms worn by the maintenance staff were even designed by Nigo (creator of the fashion brand A Bathine Ape). That’s attention to detail.
For more about The Tokyo Toilet project and to check out the completed toilets, click here.
Image: The Tokyo Toilet
