Brandon DonnellyCanada 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...
Brandon DonnellyThe 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...
Brandon DonnellyThe 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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Brandon DonnellyCanada 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...
Brandon DonnellyThe 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...
Brandon DonnellyThe 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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Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam recently put forward a request for a report on the implementation of a 1-year moratorium (let’s ”hit the pause button”) on new tall building rezoning applications in the downtown core of Toronto. You can read the full letter here.
Not surprisingly, the building industry doesn’t like this.
But besides that obvious point, I did want to draw attention to the following comment made by Quadrangle Architects partner, Richard Witt (taken from this BuzzBuzzNews article):
“The city has, for years, used the development charges that should have been used to upgrade infrastructure to artificially lower property taxes by putting the development charges into general revenue,” he says.
The intent of development charges is that they fund the infrastructure required as a result of new development – everything from transit to water. In the US, they are (I think) more commonly called impact fees. In this case the name makes the intent quite clear.
I am curious to what extent we are relying on development growth to fund the status quo. Because growth may not always be there. History has shown us that.
Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam recently put forward a request for a report on the implementation of a 1-year moratorium (let’s ”hit the pause button”) on new tall building rezoning applications in the downtown core of Toronto. You can read the full letter here.
Not surprisingly, the building industry doesn’t like this.
But besides that obvious point, I did want to draw attention to the following comment made by Quadrangle Architects partner, Richard Witt (taken from this BuzzBuzzNews article):
“The city has, for years, used the development charges that should have been used to upgrade infrastructure to artificially lower property taxes by putting the development charges into general revenue,” he says.
The intent of development charges is that they fund the infrastructure required as a result of new development – everything from transit to water. In the US, they are (I think) more commonly called impact fees. In this case the name makes the intent quite clear.
I am curious to what extent we are relying on development growth to fund the status quo. Because growth may not always be there. History has shown us that.
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