Brandon Donnelly

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.

Subscribe

  • 3 pilot options for Toronto’s King Street corridor

    Anyone who has ridden Toronto’s King streetcar during rush hour can tell you that the service is broken. It’s unreliable. It’s overcrowded. And during peak times it can be faster to walk. Chart below.

    Part of the problem is a misallocation of resources. Only 16% of the people who use the corridor are in cars. And yet 64% of the physical space is allocated to drivers.

    Not surprisingly, this creates a bottleneck for the ~65,000 transit riders who use the service daily. (Busiest surface route in the region.) We are not optimizing for the right variable.

    It’s for this reason that the city is working on a rethink of the corridor. I wrote about this initiative last year, but earlier this week it got a bit more real with the release of the following 3 pilot block options.

    The plan is to launch a pilot sometime this fall (2017). This is good news. 

    If you’d like to go through the full King Street Pilot Study Public Meeting presentation, you can do that by clicking here. The above images were taken from that presentation.

  • Probably the greatest life experience

    I’m in Whistler right now and I went heliboarding for the first time yesterday. It had been on my bucket list for maybe 10 years and so it feels fantastic to check it off. 

    Here’s what I can tell you: WOW. It did not disappoint. 

    It was easily one of the greatest life experiences I have ever had. We also got lucky with a crystal clear bluebird day.

    I don’t do many photoblog posts here on this blog, but I’m going to do one today, because I think the occasion demands it. But of course, even these photos don’t do the experience any justice.

    View from the helicopter:

    View over the pilot’s shoulder as we were about to land:

    Sampling of the terrain and conditions:

    Shot of our helicopter when we broke for lunch:

    Greatest turns:

    I also posted a video of the above to my Instagram.

    Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.

  • America’s urban infrastructure — what to do?

    The Penn Institute for Urban Research recently asked a dozen experts to weigh in on the topic of urban infrastructure in the United States. More specifically: What should the US do? It is a direct response to President Trump’s inauguration speech, where he described America’s infrastructure in terms of “disrepair and decay.”

    The urban experts include Eugénie L. Birch, Saskia Sassen, Susan Wachter, Richard P. Voith, and many others. Richard Voith’s piece is called, Historical Patterns of Infrastructure Funding. (I was his teaching assistant while I was at Penn and I still follow his work.) 

    I found it interesting how infrastructure funding has shifted from the federal level to the local municipal level – especially in the realm of public transit. Given the rise of urban centers, this makes intuitive sense. But Voith also argues that “relying only on local funding of transportation will almost certainly result in an under supply of infrastructure.”

    For the full Expert Voices series, click here. I think many of you will like it.

  • Snapping with Spectacles

    I am testing out Spectacles by Snap Inc. right now:

    They were incredibly easy to sync with my phone (just look at your Snapcode while wearing them). And the case itself charges the glasses when you put them away. Pretty slick.

    I also started using Instagram Stories for the first time. I had been boycotting it because it was such a direct copy of Snapchat Stories, but at the end of the day, the audience is there and lots of people are using it. I capitulated.

    It’s somewhat disconcerting how quickly a product feature can be copied that immediately pulls users away. Or maybe that’s just business. I mean, if I’m already using Instagram, why not just post my ephemeral stories here, right?

    That’s why it’s so important to keep trying new things. And that’s why I think Spectacles are an important product for a company that has just filed to go public. They keep you in the moment while you share.

    I’ll report back once I’ve had more time to experiment with Spectacles. But already I can tell you this: they are fun.

  • 10 most unaffordable housing markets

    image

    I flew into Vancouver this morning, which means it was only a matter of time before the topic of house prices came up.

    According to the 13th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey (2017), the 10 most unaffordable housing markets are as follows:

    1. Hong Kong, China
    2. Sydney, Australia
    3. Vancouver, Canada
    4. Auckland, New Zealand
    5. San Jose, California
    6. Melbourne, Australia
    7. Honolulu, Hawaii
    8. Los Angeles, California
    9. San Francisco, California
    10. Bournemouth, UK

    The survey measured the affordability of “middle-income” housing in Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

    It is based on a “median multiple” approach, which tries to normalize house prices across the world by looking at median house prices over median household incomes.

    The above list probably won’t surprise you, as well as the report’s focus on land supply. But I did want to call attention to the following remark:

    My own housing research focused on this difference: Why did Germany (and similarly Switzerland) provide housing stability where much of the Anglosphere did not? 

    In a nutshell, the answer to this question has a lot to do with the way councils are funded. In jurisdictions where local decision-makers stand to gain from new development, they will be much more eager to make it happen.

    The topic of incentives is not something that is often focused on when we talk about land supply. But it’s a really interesting point. Because the reality is that, in many cases, the incentives probably work in the opposite direction to the one described above.

  • The Art of Design

    I don’t actually have Netflix, but they have a new original documentary series out called, Abstract: The Art of Design. It’s a look at “eight of the most creative thinkers” working in art and design. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year.

    Here are those 8 people:

    1. Es Devlin (stage designer)
    2. Ilse Crawford (interior designer)
    3. Ralph Gilles (Chrysler head of global design)
    4. Bjarke Ingels (architect)
    5. Platon (photographer)
    6. Christoph Niemann (New Yorker cover illustrator)
    7. Paula Scher (graphic designer)
    8. Tinker Hatfield (Nike sneaker designer)

    The trailer feels unnecessarily dramatic for a documentary, but I’d still like to watch it. The reviews also seem to suggest that it’s pretty good. Below is the trailer. If you can’t see it below, click here.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYaq2sWTWAA?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

    If you’ve already seen it, what did you think?

  • The Anti-Portfolio

    In the world of venture capital, it is not uncommon to make most of your money off only a small fraction of your investments. Here’s how Fred Wilson describes his firm’s “batting average”:

    “I’ve said many times on this blog that our target batting average is “1/3, 1/3, 1/3” which means that we expect to lose our entire investment on 1/3 of our investments, we expect to get our money back (or maybe make a small return) on 1/3 of our investments, and we expect to generate the bulk of our returns on 1/3 of our investments.”

    I’m guessing that this is one of the reasons why mistakes are more readily embraced – or even celebrated – in venture capital and in tech. It’s part of the DNA of the industry.

    A perfect example of this is something called the Anti-Portfolio. Venture capital firm, Bessemer Venture Partners, has a page up on their website dedicated to “honoring those we missed.” It is a list of phenomenally successful companies that for various reasons BVP decided not to invest in. That is, they had the opportunity but they decided to pass.

    Here’s a taste (copied verbatim from their site):

    • [Apple] BVP had the opportunity to invest in pre-IPO secondary stock in Apple at a $60M valuation. BVP’s Neill Brownstein called it “outrageously expensive.”
    • [Facebook] Jeremy Levine spent a weekend at a corporate retreat in the summer of 2004 dodging persistent Harvard undergrad Eduardo Saverin’s rabid pitch. Finally, cornered in a lunch line, Jeremy delivered some sage advice “Kid, haven’t you heard of Friendster? Move on. It’s over!”
    • [Google] Cowan’s college friend rented her garage to Sergey and Larry for their first year. In 1999 and 2000 she tried to introduce Cowan to “these two really smart Stanford students writing a search engine”. Students? A new search engine? In the most important moment ever for Bessemer’s anti-portfolio, Cowan asked her, “How can I get out of this house without going anywhere near your garage?”

    As I was going through BVP’s Anti-Portfolio, I immediately thought about how different this sensibility is compared to the real estate industry. I mean, could you imagine a developer celebrating all of the sites she or he passed on and all of the projects that lost or made no money?

    One of the reasons you do this is to learn from your mistakes. So perhaps we could all use some sort of “anti-portfolio.”

  • 2016 Census: Population and dwelling counts

    image

    Today marks the release of the first tranche of Canada’s 2016 Census data: Population and dwelling counts. The next data release is scheduled for May 3, 2017, and will include age and sex, and type of dwelling. For the full release schedule, click here.

    For policy makers, city builders, data nerds, and many others, today is an important day. And that’s because 2016 marked the return of the “mandatory long-form questionnaire”, which had been eliminated in the 2006 edition. The short-form questionnaire was used. That means it’s been over 10 years, since we’ve had access to long-form data about this country.

    Given that the 2016 Census had one of the highest response rates on record (98.4%), I think it’s safe to say that most Canadians understand the value of good data. In fact, when the Census was released it started trending on Twitter, with many people complaining if they hadn’t receive the long-form version. People wanted more survey. They wanted the ability to share more information.

    All of this is important because it helps decision making. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Toronto Star article:

    “The mandatory long-form census questionnaire provided regions and cities and communities with really valuable and reliable long-term information about the changing nature of the city and its neighbourhood that’s not available from any other source,” said David Gordon, an urban planning professor from Queen’s University.

    So stay tuned to the Census Program website. Regardless, I’m sure we will be seeing a surge of infographics and other activity following each data dump.

  • Photographing architecture studios

    Marc Goodwin – who is part of a photography studio called Archmospheres – has an ongoing project where he photographs the studios of architects. 

    He has photographed well known practices such as MAD, Renzo Piano, and David Chipperfield, as well as a number of geographic niches such as Paris architecture studios, Nordic architecture studios, and London architecture studios. 

    He also varies the size of the firm. Some of them only have a few people working out of a small streetfront retail space.

    As an architect, you are pretty much required to have a cool studio space. So this is certainly an interesting photography project to take on. The photo at the top of this post is 3xn in Copenhagen.

    Image: Marc Goodwin via Designboom

  • Important things

    image

    Last weekend I watched Minimalism: A Documentary About The Important Things. I’ve been reading the blog for awhile now (I blogged about it) and so the movie has been on my to-do list since it came out.

    Now, I am not a minimalist to the same extent as Joshua and Ryan, and some of the people featured in the film. I have not reduced all of my personal belongings to 51 things and I have not renounced any sort of permanent residency. I own some stuff.

    But I am very much attracted to the philosophy that less can be more. That less can make us happier. That quality is more important than quantity. And that we actually need far less stuff than we think we do, especially in a consumerist society like ours.

    One word that comes up a lot in the documentary is: deliberate. In other words, we should be more deliberate about the choices we make, the things we buy, and so on. Will it create value in my life?

    And that’s one of the reasons I like this notion of minimalism: It’s a challenge. You have to think. Because if you don’t, you will be told what to do and what to buy, and you will accumulate things without even knowing. It’s essentially a constant battle against excess.

    Perhaps the biggest potential for excess happens with our choice of housing, which is why small homes feature so prominently in the film. A tiny house isn’t going to be for everyone, but many people have certainly come to the realization that square footage alone does not equate to more happiness.