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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Brandon DonnellyKind of like Europe, but not exactly
Our team has been spending a lot of time underwriting sites that would fit within the City of Toronto's new Major Streets Study. The last time I checked these policies were still under appeal, but the expectation is that they will eventually come into force and start encouraging small-scale apartments up to 6-storeys on all "Major Streets" across the city. This is meaningful progress for our city, and we're excited to be working on projects in this space.
At face value, 6 storeys on all major streets sounds like every great European city you've ever been to. But after studying countless sites, what I will say is that these policies are not designed to recreate Paris or Barcelona or Berlin. Instead, they are intended to be deferential to single-family houses. You see this in the required setbacks and in the maximum building depth, among other things. We all know why this is the case, and it was probably needed as a first step, but I think it's important to point out this subtlety.
Because there are at least two effects to this: one, the end future state will not be a uniform urban street wall, like what you'd find in Europe. That is not the goal of the current policies. And two, it unnecessarily makes the smallest sites more challenging to develop. That's a real shame, because more granularity is often a positive thing for cities. So we still have work to do. But I'm optimistic we'll get there, eventually. City planning typically works in increments.
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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Our team has been spending a lot of time underwriting sites that would fit within the City of Toronto's new Major Streets Study. The last time I checked these policies were still under appeal, but the expectation is that they will eventually come into force and start encouraging small-scale apartments up to 6-storeys on all "Major Streets" across the city. This is meaningful progress for our city, and we're excited to be working on projects in this space.
At face value, 6 storeys on all major streets sounds like every great European city you've ever been to. But after studying countless sites, what I will say is that these policies are not designed to recreate Paris or Barcelona or Berlin. Instead, they are intended to be deferential to single-family houses. You see this in the required setbacks and in the maximum building depth, among other things. We all know why this is the case, and it was probably needed as a first step, but I think it's important to point out this subtlety.
Because there are at least two effects to this: one, the end future state will not be a uniform urban street wall, like what you'd find in Europe. That is not the goal of the current policies. And two, it unnecessarily makes the smallest sites more challenging to develop. That's a real shame, because more granularity is often a positive thing for cities. So we still have work to do. But I'm optimistic we'll get there, eventually. City planning typically works in increments.
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyKind of like Europe, but not exactly
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...
Kind of like Europe, but not exactly
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Kind of like Europe, but not exactly