
Canada 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...

The 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...
The 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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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.

Canada 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...

The 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...
The 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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>4.2K subscribers
Earlier today Richard Florida published a piece in CityLab called: Anatomy of a NIMBY. The article cites a recent paper by Paavo Monkkonen (of UCLA) that focuses on the relationship between NIMBYism and housing affordability – a much talked about subject these days.
More specifically, the paper identifies “four different strains of NIMBYism” and then offers up some possible solutions, which include things like a more inclusive process and better data. I’ve publicly supported these kinds of approaches on this blog many times before.
But in addition to the above, I wanted to point out two other ideas from the paper and Florida’s article.
The first is about shifting land use decisions up to the regional level, and maybe even the state level. This one is particularly timely given that there’s a lot of discussion in Toronto right now about shifting land use decisions in the exact opposite direction – from province (OMB) to city.
The second is a suggestion from Yale professor David Schleicher that he refers to as “tax increment local transfers.” Essentially, the idea is to somehow allow current residents to participate in the future tax revenues generated from new development in their neighborhood.
There’s lots of interesting reading buried in the above links.
Earlier today Richard Florida published a piece in CityLab called: Anatomy of a NIMBY. The article cites a recent paper by Paavo Monkkonen (of UCLA) that focuses on the relationship between NIMBYism and housing affordability – a much talked about subject these days.
More specifically, the paper identifies “four different strains of NIMBYism” and then offers up some possible solutions, which include things like a more inclusive process and better data. I’ve publicly supported these kinds of approaches on this blog many times before.
But in addition to the above, I wanted to point out two other ideas from the paper and Florida’s article.
The first is about shifting land use decisions up to the regional level, and maybe even the state level. This one is particularly timely given that there’s a lot of discussion in Toronto right now about shifting land use decisions in the exact opposite direction – from province (OMB) to city.
The second is a suggestion from Yale professor David Schleicher that he refers to as “tax increment local transfers.” Essentially, the idea is to somehow allow current residents to participate in the future tax revenues generated from new development in their neighborhood.
There’s lots of interesting reading buried in the above links.
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