Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
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Brandon DonnellyInformation wants to be free
I recently came across a real estate product called LandGlide. It's an app that provides parcel boundaries and detailed property information for over 99% of the US population. It's also "available" in Canada, but it doesn't tell you much about properties here. In the US, you can easily access things like:
Owner’s name or legal entity
Mortgage balance and terms
Assessed value and tax amounts
Square footage and year built
Granular details (even down to whether the home has a fireplace)
The reason for this difference is that in the US, property data is generally considered public record, whereas in Canada, we have stricter privacy laws. But it's not like we make this information strictly private. We just gate it and make it more cumbersome and costly to obtain through services like GeoWarehouse.
I know that some of you will argue that it's better to "sort-of-kind-of" restrict this data from being freely displayed online. But hear me out: this philosophical data difference is an important one that hurts innovation.
In Canada, property data is monopolized and, therefore, cumbersome and expensive to access. It's an unnecessary barrier to innovation. In the US, the same kind of data has become commoditized. It's easy and cheap to access, and so the barriers to building new ideas on top of it are significantly lower.
For example, Paul Crowe, who is the CEO of a Toronto-based real estate company called House Beat, responded to one of my tweets by saying, "For what I can get in the US for $0.15 / API call from one provider, [it] would cost over $18 per call in Canada, across 2-3 integrations."
I recently came across a real estate product called LandGlide. It's an app that provides parcel boundaries and detailed property information for over 99% of the US population. It's also "available" in Canada, but it doesn't tell you much about properties here. In the US, you can easily access things like:
Owner’s name or legal entity
Mortgage balance and terms
Assessed value and tax amounts
Square footage and year built
Granular details (even down to whether the home has a fireplace)
The reason for this difference is that in the US, property data is generally considered public record, whereas in Canada, we have stricter privacy laws. But it's not like we make this information strictly private. We just gate it and make it more cumbersome and costly to obtain through services like GeoWarehouse.
I know that some of you will argue that it's better to "sort-of-kind-of" restrict this data from being freely displayed online. But hear me out: this philosophical data difference is an important one that hurts innovation.
In Canada, property data is monopolized and, therefore, cumbersome and expensive to access. It's an unnecessary barrier to innovation. In the US, the same kind of data has become commoditized. It's easy and cheap to access, and so the barriers to building new ideas on top of it are significantly lower.
For example, Paul Crowe, who is the CEO of a Toronto-based real estate company called House Beat, responded to one of my tweets by saying, "For what I can get in the US for $0.15 / API call from one provider, [it] would cost over $18 per call in Canada, across 2-3 integrations."
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyInformation wants to be free
Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
What this suggests to me is that we're okay allowing some/all of this data to get out there; we'd just like it to be harder and more expensive to access. Why?
Information, as the saying goes, wants to be free, which is why I'm so bullish on blockchain technologies. Blockchains are public databases that make information widely accessible and allow anyone to innovate on top of them. As the world continues to move on-chain, we are going to see the enormous benefits that this brings.
Already, we can see what happens when you don't have or allow it.
Cover photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash
What this suggests to me is that we're okay allowing some/all of this data to get out there; we'd just like it to be harder and more expensive to access. Why?
Information, as the saying goes, wants to be free, which is why I'm so bullish on blockchain technologies. Blockchains are public databases that make information widely accessible and allow anyone to innovate on top of them. As the world continues to move on-chain, we are going to see the enormous benefits that this brings.
Already, we can see what happens when you don't have or allow it.
Cover photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash
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