
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...
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>4.2K subscribers

I have decided to spin-off the Architect This City identity into a weekly newsletter that I’m referring to as a “curated city building bulletin.” (This is as a result of the unbranding of this blog last week.)
The inaugural issue went out this past Monday at 9am eastern with a collection of city building-related links. And that was it. This is not another blog. I’m not writing any new content for it. It’s simply going to be a collection of links to things that I think city builders would find interesting and/or valuable.
Here’s why I decided to do this:
It allows me to keep this new bulletin entirely focused on one thing. You’re not going to find me sneaking in a link about snowboarding, wine or something else that I’m interested in. It’s strictly about targeting city builders. (Of course, city building can be a pretty broad topic.)
Keeping in mind what I wrote yesterday about saying no, I also chose this format because the additional workload for me will be minimal. In order for me to write a daily blog like this one, I have found that I need to keep a running list of reading material. But a lot of what’s on this list (stored in Pocket) never sees the light of day – there’s only so much I can write about. This new bulletin will be a quick way for me to share the rest of it.
Finally, I’m also hoping it’ll be an efficient way for me to share the links, events, projects, and other things I receive from readers. In an ideal world, the bulletin will evolve into having a “links” section and a “from the community” section – which will be things that subscribers send me but today don’t get shared.
So that’s the plan. If that sounds good to you, please subscribe at architectthiscity.com.
To kick things off, I’m going to be giving away 5 x free ATC t-shirts. (See photo at the top of this post.) To win one, just (1) subscribe and tweet out a link to this new city building bulletin, (2) tag @athiscity, and (3) tell everyone which city/town you live in.
Regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.

I have decided to spin-off the Architect This City identity into a weekly newsletter that I’m referring to as a “curated city building bulletin.” (This is as a result of the unbranding of this blog last week.)
The inaugural issue went out this past Monday at 9am eastern with a collection of city building-related links. And that was it. This is not another blog. I’m not writing any new content for it. It’s simply going to be a collection of links to things that I think city builders would find interesting and/or valuable.
Here’s why I decided to do this:
It allows me to keep this new bulletin entirely focused on one thing. You’re not going to find me sneaking in a link about snowboarding, wine or something else that I’m interested in. It’s strictly about targeting city builders. (Of course, city building can be a pretty broad topic.)
Keeping in mind what I wrote yesterday about saying no, I also chose this format because the additional workload for me will be minimal. In order for me to write a daily blog like this one, I have found that I need to keep a running list of reading material. But a lot of what’s on this list (stored in Pocket) never sees the light of day – there’s only so much I can write about. This new bulletin will be a quick way for me to share the rest of it.
Finally, I’m also hoping it’ll be an efficient way for me to share the links, events, projects, and other things I receive from readers. In an ideal world, the bulletin will evolve into having a “links” section and a “from the community” section – which will be things that subscribers send me but today don’t get shared.
So that’s the plan. If that sounds good to you, please subscribe at architectthiscity.com.
To kick things off, I’m going to be giving away 5 x free ATC t-shirts. (See photo at the top of this post.) To win one, just (1) subscribe and tweet out a link to this new city building bulletin, (2) tag @athiscity, and (3) tell everyone which city/town you live in.
Regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.
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