
Canada 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...

The 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...
The 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.

Canada 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...

The 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...
The 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...
>4.2K subscribers
>4.2K subscribers
I’ve been blogging almost every day for 3 months straight. It’s been a hugely rewarding process and I absolutely plan to continue. Though some days it’s hard to find something to write about. And some days it’s hard to find the time.
One of those days was 5 days ago. I was busy and so I decided to post a video instead of spending a lot of time writing a post. I posted a video explaining how the Dutch design their street intersections to accommodate cyclists. You can find that post here.
Well, it turns out that the post I easily spent the least amount of time preparing has now become, by far, the most popular post I’ve ever done. As of today, I received 460 notes via Tumblr. That includes likes and reblogs. And, as a result, my engagement graph now looks like this:
I can’t even make out what the numbers were before this post blew up. This is really interesting to me, because I remember questioning if I should even post the video in the first place. I thought it may be a bit dry and perhaps too technical.
It just goes to show that sometimes you can’t predict what will catch on.
I’ve been blogging almost every day for 3 months straight. It’s been a hugely rewarding process and I absolutely plan to continue. Though some days it’s hard to find something to write about. And some days it’s hard to find the time.
One of those days was 5 days ago. I was busy and so I decided to post a video instead of spending a lot of time writing a post. I posted a video explaining how the Dutch design their street intersections to accommodate cyclists. You can find that post here.
Well, it turns out that the post I easily spent the least amount of time preparing has now become, by far, the most popular post I’ve ever done. As of today, I received 460 notes via Tumblr. That includes likes and reblogs. And, as a result, my engagement graph now looks like this:
I can’t even make out what the numbers were before this post blew up. This is really interesting to me, because I remember questioning if I should even post the video in the first place. I thought it may be a bit dry and perhaps too technical.
It just goes to show that sometimes you can’t predict what will catch on.
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