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.

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  • Fun Friday: Your ancestry

    People often ask me about “my background”. When I’m feeling cheeky, I usually just say that I’m Canadian or that I was born in Toronto (because that’s what I culturally self-identify with). But that’s not what most people want to hear.

    The short answer I usually give is Eurasian (European + Asian) or Chirish (Chinese + Irish). Although I recently learned that Chirish means something else to people from Chicago.

    But now, thanks to 23andMe’s DNA test, I can give a much more specific answer. Here’s the full chart:

    Now I can say that I’m 50.6% East Asian & Native American and 49.2% European. 

    More specifically, I can say that I’m 43.7% Chinese, 2.0% Broadly East Asian, 2.1% Southeast Asian, 1.5% Native American, 1.4% Broadly East Asian and Native American, 16.5% British & Irish, 6.0% French & German, 11.5% Broadly Northern European, 1.7% Iberian, 1.7% Italian, 6.9% Broadly Southern European, 1.5% Eastern European, and 3.4% Broadly European.

    But the interesting thing is that I don’t really feel any cultural affinity towards any of the regions or countries listed above (except for maybe France since I grew up going to a French school based off the French schooling system). For me, I identify as being Canadian. That’s more than enough for me.

    Now it’s your turn. 

    What’s your “background” and how do you self-identify? I think this is an interesting discussion given that we are now an incredibly mobile world. What your DNA says and how you feel about yourself, could be two totally different things.

  • Toronto is at the center of an emerging megalopolis

    Photograph High speed train by asean leung on 500px

    High speed train by asean leung on 500px

    https://500px.com/embed.js

    With the recent talk around downtown Cleveland’s resurgence, I am reminded that for those of us living near the Great Lakes, we are living in one of the most important urban agglomerations in the world: The Great Lakes Megalopolis.

    In 1962, French geographer Jean Gottmann wrote a seminal book called, Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States. And in it, he described the remarkable clustering of cities in the northeast, running from Boston in the north to Washington D.C. in the south. He called this the Northeast Megalopolis.

    The term megalopolis simply refers to a clustering or chain of generally adjacent metropolitan areas.

    Then in the 1960s and 1970s, architect and planner Constantinos Doxiadis started writing about the emergence of what he called the Great Lakes Megalopolis. In his mind, a contiguous urban region was forming that stretched all the way from Chicago in the west to Quebec City in the north east. And at its economic center was the city of Detroit.

    More recently, Richard Florida, as well as others, have been referring to these urban clusters as mega-regions. And in the case of the Great Lakes, Florida broke the area down into two distinct regions: Chi-Pitts in the west and Tor-Buff-Chester in the east. (I think you can guess how the names were derived.)

    According to his research, these two mega-regions have a combined population of almost 60 million people and an economic output equivalent to almost $3 trillion. That places it in line with the Northeast Megalopolis. But according to the Brookings Institution, the output coming from the Great Lakes could be closer to $4.5 trillion.

    Whatever the case may be and whatever you want to call it, the Great Lakes Megalopolis is unquestionably an economic and cultural powerhouse. But this has me wondering whether or not we’re doing enough to unleash its full potential.

    When I attended Joe Berridge’s talk last week on Toronto as a global city, I asked him how he thought we should be organizing our cities and regions. Do city-states make sense? Should we be rethinking the relationship between provinces/states and cities?

    His response was that we should be creating agencies and entities with regional authority (as opposed to fighting to make any constitutional changes). For example, the Toronto region should not have an array of competing transit agencies (as it does today). It should have one regional transit authority that blankets the region. People, ideas, and capital don’t follow borders.

    So with that in mind, what opportunities are there for us to unite the metropolitan areas within the Great Lakes Megalopolis?

    The first idea that comes to my mind is a high speed rail network that seamlessly connects to each city’s local transit network. Imagine a Great Lakes bullet train that could zip you across the region. It would completely reorganize the spatial landscape.

    Here’s an excerpt from a recent report by the Independent Transport Commission called, Ambitions & Opportunities – Understanding the Spatial Effects of High Speed Rail:

    There has been a global shift of economic power and influence from nation states to cities and city-regions. Today’s successful cities collaborate across existing boundaries to form polycentric metropolitan regions. As a result cities function in a much less self-contained manner than they did fifty years ago. Longterm trends in the pattern of urban settlement reflect the interplay between opportunities for dispersal afforded by greater mobility, and economic and social forces promoting concentration.

    But what else could we be doing to empower the Great Lakes Megalopolis? 

    I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. I think there’s a strong case to be made for thinking at the scale of the megalopolis and not just at the scale of our own backyard.

  • “Am I supposed to like this?”

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    Today I had lunch at Webers Hamburgers so that I could see what all the fuss is about. Here’s my check-in.

    For those of you who don’t know Webers, it’s a burger place on the side of the highway in Orillia, Ontario. It opened in 1963 with the goal of targeting cottage goers and has since become an “institution” in the region.

    I don’t think I’ve ever been, so I figured I had to give it a try.

    Before going, I decided to ask around to see what people thought of the burgers. And in almost all of the cases, I got the same response: “You can get better burgers in the city. But you have to go. It’s an institution. It’s tradition.”

    And that ended up being a very accurate description.

    Were the burger goods? Yes. Were they mind blowing? No. In fact, they’re pretty basic burgers. You have a choice of 3 different toppings and 2 different condiments. That’s it. Want mayo? Sorry, they don’t do that.

    But in the end, it’s not really about the burgers.

    While there, I was reminded of a blog post by Seth Godin called, “Am I supposed to like this?” His opening line is the following: “If we think we are, we probably will.” And it’s all about how we make judgments well before we think we do (and how marketers invest in that).

    What matters a great deal is how we’re “supposed to” feel about something. If a wine is expensive, we’re “supposed to” to think it tastes better and our mind usually makes that a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    And in this case, Webers has become symbolic of summer and good times at the cottage. You’re “supposed to” stop there whenever you go to the cottage. It’s tradition.

  • The Laneway Project is looking for a Fundraising Coordinator

    Photograph Speed Bump by Jason Cook on 500px

    Speed Bump by Jason Cook on 500px

    https://500px.com/embed.js

    As many of you know, I advise a non-profit called The Laneway Project. The goal of the organization is to change Toronto’s relationship with its laneways and help create laneway friendly policies and procedures.

    It’s something that I’m incredibly passionate about. I believe that our laneways represent a missed opportunity, both from a public space standpoint and a real estate standpoint. And I’m confident that Toronto will eventually figure that out.

    If you’re also interested in this space, now is your chance to get involved. The Laneway Project is currently looking for a Fundraising Coordinator to help develop its operational funding strategy and to help with actual fundraising.

    Since it’s still early days, this is a volunteer position (with an honorarium). But it’s a great opportunity to get involved early with a passionate group of city builders. So I hope you’ll consider applying. Click here for the full job description.

  • SQFT launches as America’s first DIY real estate portal

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    I am currently in Hunstville, Ontario (Muskoka region) and I have about 15 minutes before I need to head out for dinner. So this is not going to be a long post.

    I did, however, want to share with you a new real estate app that I learned about today called SQFT. (Thanks Evgeny.) They were just featured in TechCrunch and their mission is to make it easier and cheaper for people to buy and sell homes using just their smartphone. They’re calling themselves the first DIY real estate portal in America.

    As a homeowner, you create the listing yourself and then it gets syndicated out to hundreds of other websites (including the big players like MLS, Zillow, and Trulia).

    You’re still technically working with “independently operated licensed real estate agents”, but the app itself handles setting up the showings and even the offer negotiations. Their hope is that they can reduce real estate commissions to < 2%.

    This is a space that I’ve been following closely for a number of years now and seems to be really heating up. Opendoor.com is another online real estate platform that I’ve written about a few times. And in my view, they are the furthest out front.

    My realtor friends don’t like it when I say this, but I think we’re going to see a lot of changes in this space in the near future.

  • Before & After: Queens Quay Boulevard

    Yesterday I spent the evening walking Toronto’s new Queens Quay Boulevard, which fully reopened this past Friday after a number of years of construction. 

    It is part of Waterfront Toronto’s revitalization efforts and represents a solid decade in the making. West 8 of Rotterdam and DTAH of Toronto won the international design competition for the central waterfront back in 2006. And this past weekend a big component of that vision was unveiled.

    But first, let’s take a look at what Queens Quay Boulevard used to be like. Here’s a Google Streetview image from 2009:

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    The streetcars ran in the middle of the street. Cars drove on the north and south side on both sides of the tracks. And the sidewalks were fairly small and usually at capacity during the busy summer months. It wasn’t a great street.

    Now here’s a photo that I took yesterday from that same vantage point (2015):

    image

    The street has been completely reorganized. On the north side of the streetcar tracks is where the cars now drive in both directions. On the south side of the tracks the lanes of traffic have been replaced with a 2-way bike trail (part of the Martin Goodman Trail). And on both sides the pedestrian areas have been greatly expanded. It’s now a magnificent street.

    If you haven’t yet been down to the new Queens Quay, I would encourage you to check it out on either foot or bicycle. (If you go on bicycle, let me know and I’ll join you.) 

    Toronto may have taken a giant step backwards with its recent decision on the Gardiner East, but we also took a giant step forward with the reopening of Queens Quay Boulevard.

  • Why I write something every single day, even if it’s garbage

    I was out for brunch last weekend with a few close friends from high school. It’s a “monthly reunion” that happens nowhere close to every month. But the hope is certainly there.

    During brunch the topic of my blog came up. And one of my friends asked me how I got started and how the hell I keep up with one blog post every single day. (I get that second question all the time.)

    I’ve written about this before, but I think it’s worth revisiting.

    Earlier this week venture capitalist Fred Wilson wrote a post on his blog called The Blank Screen. And I really liked how he described the experience of writing a daily blog post:

    Sometimes this process produces great insights for me and possibly others. Sometimes it produces garbage. But I’ve come to realize that the daily post, and its quality or lack thereof, is not really the thing. It is the ritual, the practice, the frequency, the habit, and the discipline that matters most to me. And, I would suspect, the same is true of the readers and commenters who frequent this blog.

    Fred’s blog was a major source of inspiration for me. I saw him doing it. I saw the value he was getting out of it. And I wanted to do it too. So I did, almost 2 years ago. 

    But he also inspired me in another way.

    Venture capital and real estate development share many similarities in my mind, even down to the way that deals are often structured with preferred returns and promotes.

    But the interesting thing about venture capital is that it went from a largely closed and “ivory tower” kind of industry to now one where almost every venture capitalist blogs, tweets, and strives for greater transparency (when possible).

    I thought this was a fascinating shift and it made me think that the exact same thing was bound to happen in real estate development. So I am trying to make that happen. Hopefully this blog is helping.

  • How immigration shaped Toronto and New York

    One of the things that Joe Berridge reminded me of in his talk yesterday, is that the story of Toronto is really the story of immigration. 

    In his words, Toronto has become the success story that it is precisely because we are good at taking in lots of immigrants and making them economically productive. 

    Sure, there are many things that we could be doing better, but you don’t get to be the most multicultural city on the planet without doing a lot of things right. More than half of this city is now foreign born. The term “visible minority” is quickly expiring.

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    And more than anything else, this accomplishment is arguably what has allowed us to become the global city that we are. Click here for a fascinating chart from the Toronto Star that allows you to see the number and source of immigrants that have come to this city over the last half century.

    But of course, Toronto is not alone in this accomplishment.

    Urban economist Edward Glaeser wrote a great essay back in 2005 called Urban Colossus: Why is New York America’s Largest City? It’s an incredibly interesting read for those of you interested in cities and so I definitely recommend it.

    But the crux of his argument is that New York is the largest and most dominant city in America because of geography – specifically its deep harbor – and because of its success in manufacturing.

    What this meant is that New York became the center of shipping in the country and the point of entry for the majority of immigrants coming into the United States. But since transportation costs were still relatively high at the time, most immigrants arrived in New York and stayed in New York.

    Luckily, New York had a robust manufacturing economy – notably because of sugar refining, publishing and printing, and the garment industry. This allowed the waves of immigrants flooding into New York to become economically productive.

    From 1850 to 1920, the population of the New York grew about 800% from roughly 700,000 people to over 5.6 million people.

    So the moral of the story is simply that immigration has and will continue to play a pivotal role in the shaping of our cities. Canada has a sub-replacement fertility rate somewhere around 1.61 births per woman (2012). This is lower than that of United States, which is around 1.88 births per woman.

    That means that without immigration, we do not grow. We shrink. And that’s usually not a great thing for economies.

  • 7 ideas and lessons for global cities

    Today I had the pleasure of attending a really great talk by Joe Berridge (partner at the planning firm Urban Strategies) that was all about how Toronto can best maintain its position as a globally competitive city. 

    He went through 7 ideas/lessons. Though they were specifically aimed at Toronto, most of them could be applied to any city that’s concerned about its position on the global stage. They are:

    1. Invest in infrastructure, such as transit, airports, and so on. Sustainable funding and proper governance are critical. Transit planning in Toronto has become far too political and it’s crippling our city.
    2. Embrace Uber and get them using our Presto card so that it becomes a legitimate part of the city’s public transit network. Every city in the world is battling with Uber. Toronto has the opportunity to take a leadership position.
    3. Build a new convention centre and invest more in tourism and economic development. Berridge’s suggestion was something big at Ontario Place/Exhibition Place.
    4. Build new Universities to fuel the knowledge economy. See New York’s Cornell Tech campus as an example.
    5. Invest in infrastructure and institutions that turn research and development into businesses. Platforms like MaRS.
    6. Start thinking big. This was specifically geared towards Toronto, as his argument was that we do a lot of the small things right, but we’re missing out on the really big opportunities.
    7. Create Suburban Enterprise Zones to help drive employment outside of the core and along new transit corridors.

    Alongside these ideas and lessons, there was a fascinating sub-argument. And that is that Toronto is really an accidental global city. In other words, we didn’t set out to become a top 10 global city and one of the fastest growing cities in the developed world.

    But by getting a lot of things right – such as a high quality of life – and through a bit of luck – such as Montreal shooting itself in the foot – we somehow became one. But we absolutely shouldn’t take that for granted. There’s lots of work to be done.

  • The PRESTO Push

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    Back in 2004, I spent a summer living in Asia. And one of the things that I remember really standing out for me was Hong Kong’s Octopus card. It’s a refillable card that you just tap to get onto transit. Lots of cities have them.

    But the cool thing about the Octopus card was that you could use it so many other places besides just on transit. I don’t know know what it’s like today in Hong Kong, but I remember also using it in taxis and to buy breakfast in the morning at Pret a Manger. That was pretty incredible for 2003.

    This was also great for me because I’m one of those people that dislikes carrying around paper money/change. I almost never spend my change and so it just ends up just accumulating in a container beside my front door. Here in Toronto we also use microscopic transit tokens, so that adds another layer of inconvenience.

    But that’s all changing.

    Toronto now has its own version of the Octopus card and it’s called PRESTO. Technically it launched in 2009, but I only recently noticed the card readers appear at my home subway station (King Station). So tonight I decided to finally pull the trigger and order a card. I’ve been waiting 11 years for this moment 🙂

    And I was doing that, I noticed this message on the website:

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    Not surprisingly, we seem to be pushing to get PRESTO rolled out before the world comes to visit. And I think that’s a great thing.

    One of the big benefits of hosting an event like the Pan Am Games or the Olympics is that it creates a hard deadline to get things done, which is something governments often need. It’s a bit like tidying up before guests come over for dinner. You find a way to do it before people arrive.

    There’s a lot of debate about whether or not it makes sense for cities to spend the money on playing host city. But I don’t think we should ignore the fact that they can be a great catalyst for city building. Things get done. And oftentimes done is better than perfect.

    Good news: I’ve been told that the PRESTO system will be compatible with mobile phones and near field communication. Because let’s face it, cards won’t be around that much longer.