Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.
It has been over a month and so it’s probably time for another edition of project profile. In this edition we are going small and looking at yet another cool infill project built on top of an impossibly tight urban site. In this case, it’s a 35 square meter corner lot in Hue, Vietman.
Designed by Nguyen Khai Architects & Associates (NKAA), the entire project is about 150 square meters and was built to house both a ground floor cafe (run by the owners) and a multi-generational family of 7.
According to the drawings, the second floor is for mom and dad and their two daughters. The third floor is for the grandparents and an uncle. And the fourth floor is a “sacred space” that includes a large outdoor terrace.
Of course, in order to house all of these functions and people on such a small site, you have to really think about interior space much differently. The “bedrooms” are probably not what you might be expecting.
To put the scale of this project into some sort of context, the footprint of this site is smaller than that of the laneway house that we are currently building. And in the case of the laneway house, it has been designed to house 1-2 people, instead of 7.
Space is, perhaps, all about perspective. I just wonder what would happen if all 7 family members tried to jump on a Zoom call at the same time.
One of the things that I don’t think we are doing a good job of here in Canada is promoting our COVID Alert app. Most of the people I talk to don’t seem to have it installed on their phones. And most of the people I talk to seem to be nervous about sharing personal information with it, including their location. (That’s not actually how the app works.)
The thing with exposure alert apps is that they’re only really useful if most people are using them. And they’re only really useful if people who test positive for the virus enter the code that they are given into the app. So it relies on us trusting that other people will do the right thing. I get that. But those same shortcomings apply when we just ask someone if they’ve been exposed to anyone with COVID-19.
I could be wrong, but my view on this is pretty simple.
If everyone who had COVID-19 got immediately sick and showed highly discernible symptoms, then this virus would likely be a lot easier to control. Part of the problem, as I understand it, is that some people get really sick and some people don’t get sick at all. But these latter people can still unknowingly spread it around — perhaps to other people who might get really sick.
Given this variability, it’s critical for us to know who has been potentially exposed and who has not been exposed. Otherwise, we’re running around mostly blind. From what I can tell, exposure alert apps are one of the best ways for us to track transmission. But, of course, it only works if you’ve got the app. For those of you who don’t already have it, you can download it for both iOS and Android by going here.
P.S. I’m writing this post because it came up with my barber today while I was getting a haircut. He wasn’t all that aware of the app, but he ultimately concluded that we have a problem of education and that he was going to download it. Maybe some of you will do the same after reading this.
There is data to suggest that on-demand (OD) mobility services — such as Uber — are increasing vehicle kilometers traveled (i.e. causing greater traffic congestion) by inducing people away from public transit and other forms of urban mobility. This is potentially even more of an issue right now with most urban transit agencies looking at massive budget shortfalls.
But there’s potentially another way to look at this problem. A recent study led by Dániel Kondor of the MIT Senseable City Lab has looked at not only vehicle kilometers traveled but also something that the team calls the “minimum parking problem.” What is the minimum amount of parking that you need assuming a world with more on-demand mobility, and eventually autonomous vehicles?
To try and answer this problem the researchers looked at the small city-state of Singapore. With a population of about 5.6 million people and somewhere around 1 million vehicles, Singapore actually has one of the lowest number of private vehicles per capita in the developed world. Even still, it has some 1.37 million parking spaces taking up valuable room.
What the team found was that on-demand mobility could reduce parking infrastructure needs in Singapore by as much as 86%. This is the absolute minimum number, which would take the current estimate of 1.37 million spots down to about 189,000 — a significant reduction.
However, the tradeoff is that it could increase vehicle kilometers traveled by about 24%. Without ample parking, their model assumes that these on-demand vehicles would need to “deadhead” between trips. That is, drive around aimlessly while they wait for their next passenger. Demand isn’t usually neat and tidy.
However, it’s worth noting that the above percentage increase assumes that if people were instead driving themselves around that they always found a parking spot as soon as they arrived at their destination. This, as we all know, is not often the case, and so this increase is probably a worst case scenario.
Nevertheless, the team did also find that a 57% reduction in parking could be achieved with only a modest 1.3% increase in vehicle kilometers traveled. This, to me, is meaningful because it says that you could, in theory, cut parking supply in at least half and not much would happen in the way of traffic congestion.
It would, however, free up a bunch of space for things like bicycle lanes, green space, and other valuable urban amenities. Now, if on-demand vehicles are pulling people away from transit, then maybe we’re no better off. But if the alternative is people driving and parking everywhere they go, then it would seem that there are much better uses for that space.
We know that educational attainment is probably the single biggest determinant of urban economic success. If you’re hoping to predict average household incomes, looking at the percentage of the population with a 4-year college degree is a pretty good place to start. But let’s take this a step further: to what extent does graduating from an elite university affect both pay and performance?
It turns out, according to this recent study, that the pedigree of one’s university isn’t all that good at predicting motivation and talent. It does, however, impact pay. Average early career salaries for graduates of the top 10 colleges in the US are almost 50% higher than those with degrees from the ten colleges within the City University New York school system. This is according to data from Payscale and the US Department of Education.
But this pay delta doesn’t necessarily match the performance delta that you might expect. The study found that for every 1,000 positions that you move in Webometrics’ global university ranking (which is what they used for their research), overall performance only changes by about 1.9%. In other words, a graduate from the alleged number one university is only going to perform, on average, about 1.9% better than someone from the 1,000th best school.
I’m not exactly sure how to practically interpret a 1.9% improvement in performance. But 2% compounding on 2% each year should get you somewhere. Regardless, graduates from top universities do generally score higher on competency examinations. The reasoning behind this is thought to be at least twofold: 1) more selective admissions create a better pool of students and 2) top universities should provide better training.
Whether that’s enough to justify the higher pay is a separate discussion. But if you’re looking to measure urban economic success, the data does suggest that elite universities should lead to overall higher average incomes.
These days, everybody seems to be talking about the 15-minute city — Bloomberg, Treehugger, the Financial Times, as well as countless others. While not a new concept, it is a moniker that is easier for most people to digest. COVID-19 has also created the right backdrop for the moment that it is currently enjoying.
The 15-minute city is a polycentric and somewhat decentralized approach to urbanism. It is about encouraging and creating multiple centers of urban activity near where people live. The idea being that everybody should have most of their essential services within a 15-minute walk of their home. Put even more simply, it’s about creating an urban environment where people can live locally.
The benefits to this are numerous. It encourages more compact forms of development, which in turn encourages people to rely more heavily on active modes of transportation such as walking and cycling. The result is less commuting, less carbon emissions, more time, and likely better health outcomes given the reliance on active mobility.
Indeed, living in a walkable urban community is something that I personally put a huge value on. If I can’t walk out of my home to go grab a coffee and something to eat, it’s probably not the neighborhood for me. But at the same time, I don’t think we can ignore the fact that there are powerful centralizing forces present within our cities.
As Natalie Whittle points out in this FT article from the summer, new technologies — from the telegraph to the internet — have always elicited predictions that humans would now flee cities and move to the countryside. While it is true that there are other technologies — everything from the streetcar to the automobile — that have allowed us to decentralize to a greater extent, most of us are all still bound to cities.
In fact, you could argue that the opposite of decentralization has played out. As we have transitioned to a knowledge and information economy, the returns to being embedded within cities and within a particular place have only become greater.
Take for example the phenomenon of “collab houses” that has been playing out in Los Angeles for some time now, including during this pandemic. Collab houses are typically LA mansions where clusters of young people come and live together in order to create content for platforms like YouTube and TikTok. It’s like a big dorm for creators. And supposedly the biggest one is Hype House.
What’s fascinating to me about this phenomenon is that it reinforces two things. One, if you want to be rich and famous (emphasis on famous), Los Angeles is seemingly still an important place to be. And two, if you really want to be at the top of your game, it’s apparently not enough to be in the same city as other likeminded individuals; you also need to be under the same roof, bouncing ideas around and pushing one another.
So what does this all mean? Well, maybe this time is different and we are all currently living through a reorganization of how we will live, work and play. Or, maybe this time isn’t all that different. And the 15-minute city, while an important goal, won’t be the be-all and end-all of modern city building.
If I have learned anything from this pandemic it is that, when push comes to shove, Torontonians will eat pretty much anywhere. On sidewalks. On streets. In white tents that masquerade as outdoor dining. And in many other little urban crevices.
I am only half-joking, because the reality is that this pandemic has pried us away from the status quo and forced us to reconsider how we allocate and how we occupy many of our public spaces. There will be some positive outcomes on the other side of this.
To that end, a new city building effort has just been announced here in Toronto. (Alex Bozikovic of the Globe and Mail wrote about it here in “Rebirth of the Promenade”.) The vision is called “University Park” and the team behind it includes the landscape architecture firm PUBLIC WORK, the non-profit Evergreen, and the Michael Young Family Foundation.
What they want to do is transform Toronto’s University Avenue into something akin to La Rambla in Barcelona — except better:
Our vision brings together patches of public green space that are currently disconnected and inaccessible in order to create a signature destination in the centre of our province’s capital. By making minor adjustments to the existing roadway on University Avenue and converting only 9.5 acres of city-owned asphalt into native landscape, pedestrian walkways, bike paths, and cultural installations, we can create a 90-acre park that spans from Queen’s Park all the way to the waterfront.
It’s about time. My only request is that they include small sidewalk crevice where I might be able to sit and enjoy a chicken burrito and a glass of wine. To learn more about University Park and to subscribe to their newsletter, click here.
Richard Voith and Jing Liu of Philadelphia-based Econsult, along with a bunch of other smart coauthors, have just published a working paper looking at the effects of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) on home prices. More specifically, they looked at the impact that LIHTC-financed properties have had in Los Angeles — both in low-income and high-income neighborhoods, as well as when it’s the first LIHTC development in the area or a subsequent one. Some of you might be assuming that low-income housing is likely to create downward pressure on home prices. But the authors found the opposite to be true. Below is the paper’s abstract. If you’d like to download a copy of the full working paper, you can do that over here.
Abstract: While there is widespread agreement about the importance of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) in addressing the country’s affordable housing needs, there is less certainty about the effects of LIHTC-financed properties on their surrounding neighborhoods. A growing body of research has largely refuted the argument that affordable housing properties in and of themselves have negative effects on local property values and increase crime rates. Several key questions remain essentially unanswered, however. First, for how long do the observed spillover benefits of LIHTC construction last? Second, does the development of multiple LIHTC properties in a neighborhood have an additive, supplemental effect on surrounding conditions, or is there a threshold at which the concentration of such properties – and the predominantly low-income individuals they house – negatively affects the neighborhood?
In this paper, we focus on Los Angeles County, a large, diverse urban area with significant affordability challenges. Drawing upon both public and proprietary property sales data, we conduct interrupted time series analyses to ascertain whether property value trends differed prior and subsequent to the introduction of a LIHTC-financed property in the community. We find that LIHTC properties positively impact surrounding housing values across the spectrum of Los Angeles’ neighborhoods. Further the concentration of multiple LIHTC properties in a neighborhood additively increases housing prices up to ½ mile away. Finally, these effects though of greater magnitude in lower-income neighborhoods, are fully present in high-income neighborhoods.
Here is an interesting look at the economic geography of the recent US election. Similar to what they did for the last presidential election, Brookings has just analyzed each candidate’s aggregate share of US GDP broken down by the counties that they won. That’s what the above diagram represents. The blue and red tiles are showing the relative size of each county’s economy.
In 2016, Clinton won 472 counties with nearly 66 million votes. These counties accounted for about 64% of US GDP at the time. Trump, on the other hand, won 2,584 counties with nearly 63 million votes. But these counties represented only about 36% of US GDP. (Note that Trump won the election with fewer total votes. This is the electoral college at work.)
When Brookings published the above findings, votes were still outstanding for 11 counties. Most of them low-output. Still, Biden has won 477 counties with well over 75 million votes. These Democratic counties now account for about 70% of overall US GDP. Virtually every big economy county went to Biden in this last election. Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and so on.
This is a big deal because it shows the great economic divide that exists in the US, as well as in many (most?) other countries around the world. This is the urban vs. rural divide. Places with very different economic bases and, therefore, very different sets of priorities.
For a lot of us, this is now month eight of constant Zooming. The big question, of course, is whether this new habit is going to stick or if it will wane along with the virus. Because the degree in which it sticks will have an impact on cities, real estate, and how we move about these spaces. Anecdotally, it would seem that a lot of people seem to think that some element of working from home is destined to remain. People like the increased flexibility. And I don’t disagree that flexibility is an attractive feature.
Personally, I am bullish on cities and on old-fashioned human interaction, because here’s how I am feeling about virtual meetings. One, we all have too many of them right now. The barriers to scheduling a virtual meeting are extremely low (one click in Outlook), and so it’s painfully easy to fill up a calendar with them. Two, it can be difficult to stay focused when jumping from back-to-back virtual meetings all day. And three, because we all have too many of these meetings, everyone is trying to multitask and respond to emails at the same time. This degrades the overall effectiveness of each meeting.
Sarah Gershman published an article earlier this year in Harvard Business Review where she talked about some of the problems surrounding online meetings. One explanation for why many of us are losing focus is something known as the “Ringelmann Effect.” The theory here is that as group sizes increase, it can be easy for individuals to feel less responsibility for a meeting’s outcome. So they tune out. Max Ringelmann, who was a French engineer, demonstrated this effect by asking both individuals and groups to pull on a rope. What he found was that people generally tried less when they were part of a bigger group. There’s always somebody else who will pick up the slack, right?
Sarah makes the argument that this phenomenon gets magnified in virtual meetings. We’re all just a little box, sometimes existing on another page, hidden mostly from view. Surely there’s another black box somewhere in this meeting who will pull the rope for me.
I don’t know about all of you, but I miss traveling. So let’s talk about Norway’s new passports, which just entered circulation. Designed by Neue, these new passports are the result of a design competition that was launched back in 2014. The goal of the competition was to come up with something that could very clearly express the Norwegian identity, as well as improve overall security (i.e. minimize forgery).
Inside the passport and across each double page spread is a rendition of the Norwegian landscape. Mountains, lakes, streams, and probably a bunch of other beautiful things. But when you hold it under UV light, which is known to happen from time to time inside airports, each landscape image changes to a night view. It’s a simple and elegant solution that appears to solve two goals at once: identity and security.
And that’s usually how good design works. It feels both simple and elegant.
