
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
Here is an interesting chart from the WSJ showing how much net income migrated to the state of Florida between 2019 and 2020:

I'm not sure what the exact dates are for this dataset, but it seems to again suggest that this migration was already a trend before the pandemic happened.
Either way, Miami is red hot and the continues to lead the US in residential rental rate growth. But all of this growth is now apparently starting to catch up to the city. Here is just one example from the same article (though developers here in Toronto would gladly take this sort of timeline):
Right before the pandemic, when he moved to Miami, he said it took no more than four months from when he submitted development plans to when he got city approval. Now, with the number of projects swamping Miami Beach’s staff and resources, that same process takes nearly a year, Mr. Curnin said.
This frenetic run-up is also causing some in the city, including Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital Group, to pause:
“Everyone and their cousins are looking to build a building here,” he said. “I’m getting nervous.”
Miami has historically always been a boom and bust kind of market. I don't know if this is one of those times, but there's clearly no denying the allure of palm trees, warm winter weather, and no state income tax.
Here is an interesting chart from the WSJ showing how much net income migrated to the state of Florida between 2019 and 2020:

I'm not sure what the exact dates are for this dataset, but it seems to again suggest that this migration was already a trend before the pandemic happened.
Either way, Miami is red hot and the continues to lead the US in residential rental rate growth. But all of this growth is now apparently starting to catch up to the city. Here is just one example from the same article (though developers here in Toronto would gladly take this sort of timeline):
Right before the pandemic, when he moved to Miami, he said it took no more than four months from when he submitted development plans to when he got city approval. Now, with the number of projects swamping Miami Beach’s staff and resources, that same process takes nearly a year, Mr. Curnin said.
This frenetic run-up is also causing some in the city, including Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital Group, to pause:
“Everyone and their cousins are looking to build a building here,” he said. “I’m getting nervous.”
Miami has historically always been a boom and bust kind of market. I don't know if this is one of those times, but there's clearly no denying the allure of palm trees, warm winter weather, and no state income tax.
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