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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Brandon DonnellySoftware developers are half of the homebuyers in San Francisco
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellySoftware developers are half of the homebuyers in San Francisco
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A couple of months ago I wrote about the relationship between IPOs and home prices. It was in response to the current wave of tech companies -- most of which are headquartered in San Francisco -- that have gone public or are expected to go public this year (2019). What impact will this have on the city's housing market?
I cited this academic study on the topic, which already discovered a "positive and significant association between local house price changes and firms going public." But today I stumbled upon another interesting study by a San Francisco real estate agent, name Deniz Kahramaner, who happens to also be a Stanford-trained data scientist.
What Kahramaner wanted to figure out was, who tends to buy residential real estate in San Francisco?
So he started with title data and then scraped the internet to try and match up individual buyer names with specific companies and industries. Since not everyone has some sort of public profile and because real estate is sometimes held within a company, he was only able to traceback about 55% of home purchases in San Francisco last year.
Still, the data looks pretty clear. About half of the homes bought in 2018 were by individuals whose employment has roots in "software." The next biggest buyer segment was "finance."
The other interesting thing about this data set is that it shows where people have been buying (at least last year). Historically, the north end of the city has been the wealthiest, but the above data shows things moving in a southeasterly direction. Though, it remains to be seen what all of this will look like when the dust settles after this current crop of tech IPOs.
Chart: The Atlantic
A couple of months ago I wrote about the relationship between IPOs and home prices. It was in response to the current wave of tech companies -- most of which are headquartered in San Francisco -- that have gone public or are expected to go public this year (2019). What impact will this have on the city's housing market?
I cited this academic study on the topic, which already discovered a "positive and significant association between local house price changes and firms going public." But today I stumbled upon another interesting study by a San Francisco real estate agent, name Deniz Kahramaner, who happens to also be a Stanford-trained data scientist.
What Kahramaner wanted to figure out was, who tends to buy residential real estate in San Francisco?
So he started with title data and then scraped the internet to try and match up individual buyer names with specific companies and industries. Since not everyone has some sort of public profile and because real estate is sometimes held within a company, he was only able to traceback about 55% of home purchases in San Francisco last year.
Still, the data looks pretty clear. About half of the homes bought in 2018 were by individuals whose employment has roots in "software." The next biggest buyer segment was "finance."
The other interesting thing about this data set is that it shows where people have been buying (at least last year). Historically, the north end of the city has been the wealthiest, but the above data shows things moving in a southeasterly direction. Though, it remains to be seen what all of this will look like when the dust settles after this current crop of tech IPOs.
Chart: The Atlantic
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