Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
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...
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 DonnellyPlanning dinner, smart cities, and privacy
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyPlanning dinner, smart cities, and privacy
This evening I attended the 27th Annual Toronto Planning Dinner. It’s an annual dinner for people in planning and development, put on by the University of Waterloo Planning Alumni of Toronto. Thank you Wood Bull LLP for the invite.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Anthony Townsend. He is the author of SMART CITIES: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia. I haven’t read it (yet), but his talk offered a preview of it and I think it would be of interest to all of you.
It deals with many of the topics that we discuss on this blog, one of which is the interrelationship between our physical environment and the networks and software layers that we are now building on top of it.
These layers have the potential to augment and enhance our cities (maybe make them smarter), but they also have the potential to do us harm. One important issue that Townsend brought up is that of privacy.
Cities used to enable anonymity.
When essayist and art critic Charles Baudelaire wrote about “modernity” in 19th century industrializing Paris, it referred to an ephemeral and fleeting kind of urban environment. Pass someone on the street and you may never see them again. That must have felt sad at the time.
Today we live in a fish bowl.
Networks connect us, check us in, ping us when we are nearby people we know, and help us find people to meet and date. And we already have devices, like Alexa, that spy on us in our homes so that companies can serve us targeted ads. (This is deplorable by the way.)
Will the city of the future endeavour to do the same as we equip it with more “smarts”?
I guess that’s why Townsend believes that privacy will define a big part of 21st century urbanism. There’s no doubt that it will be very important.
This evening I attended the 27th Annual Toronto Planning Dinner. It’s an annual dinner for people in planning and development, put on by the University of Waterloo Planning Alumni of Toronto. Thank you Wood Bull LLP for the invite.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Anthony Townsend. He is the author of SMART CITIES: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia. I haven’t read it (yet), but his talk offered a preview of it and I think it would be of interest to all of you.
It deals with many of the topics that we discuss on this blog, one of which is the interrelationship between our physical environment and the networks and software layers that we are now building on top of it.
These layers have the potential to augment and enhance our cities (maybe make them smarter), but they also have the potential to do us harm. One important issue that Townsend brought up is that of privacy.
Cities used to enable anonymity.
When essayist and art critic Charles Baudelaire wrote about “modernity” in 19th century industrializing Paris, it referred to an ephemeral and fleeting kind of urban environment. Pass someone on the street and you may never see them again. That must have felt sad at the time.
Today we live in a fish bowl.
Networks connect us, check us in, ping us when we are nearby people we know, and help us find people to meet and date. And we already have devices, like Alexa, that spy on us in our homes so that companies can serve us targeted ads. (This is deplorable by the way.)
Will the city of the future endeavour to do the same as we equip it with more “smarts”?
I guess that’s why Townsend believes that privacy will define a big part of 21st century urbanism. There’s no doubt that it will be very important.
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