Tag: amsterdam

• Below the surface

  

  Later this month the new 9.7 km North-South metro line in Amsterdam will start service. Like most large scale infrastructure projects, its opening has been delayed many times. 8 times according to this source. But this post is not about that. It’s about a byproduct of the line’s construction. 

  The excavations required for the line meant that two sections of the Amstel River – namely the Damrak and Rokin sites – had to be drained. This took place from 2003 to 2012 and gave archaeologists unprecedented access to the bottom of a river in the middle of a historic city center.

  Amsterdam started as a small trading port along the banks of the Amstel River some 800 years ago. So not surprisingly, they found a few things. Over 17,000 objects were found and all of them have been catalogued online according to time period, use, material, and location found.

  For the full catalogue of objects, click here. Screenshot of the catalogue shown above. And to learn more about the entire project, start here. There’s a lot of good stuff in there for city nerds.

  2018.07.02

• Become a Sidewalk Toronto Fellow

  Sidewalk Toronto is currently looking for “12 smart, creative, and caring people who are interested in the future of Toronto’s waterfront and how we [Sidewalk Toronto] can responsibly incorporate technology to improve urban life.”

  Each Fellow will complete a 2-day orientation session in Toronto; 6 days in Amsterdam and Copenhagen; 5 days in New York City and Boston; 3 days in Vancouver; and then do a final 2-day working session back in Toronto before presenting their takeaways.

  This feels like a response to the criticism that Sidewalk Toronto wasn’t doing enough to listen to the community and that it simply wanted to build a tech-infused neighborhood that could serve us more ads – but it’s cool nonetheless. 

  If you’re between 19-24 years old and you live in Toronto, you can apply here. It sounds like a fun opportunity for young city builders. I know that I certainly would have been all over it when I was in that age bracket.

  2018.02.24

• Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities: From 1800 to Present Day

  

  I just ordered a copy of Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities: From 1800 to Present Day by Katy Chey. I figured this was a book that we should have hanging around our office. I also like to support the Daniels Faculty.

  The book covers the following multi-unit housing typologies:

  • Back-to-backs in Birmingham
  • Tenements in London
  • Haussmann apartments in Paris
  • Tenements in New York
  • Tong lau in Hong Kong
  • Perimeter block, linear block and block-edge in Berlin
  • Perimeter block and solitaire in Amsterdam
  • Space-enclosing structures in Beijing
  • Kyosho jutaku in Tokyo
  • High-rises in Toronto

  In addition to each typology, the book analyzes the connection between the housing type and the city. Why did certain typologies flourish where they did and how have they helped to define their city?

  It reminds me of what I was trying to do with some of my recent posts about Hong Kong’s typical tower plan, albeit with far less rigor than what I am sure has been applied to this book.

  I am also curious to read what has been written about high-rises in Toronto. It goes to show you just how defining the current real estate cycle has been for this city. That’s our multi-unit housing typology.

  Image: Daniels Faculty. My multi-unit home made the book.

  2018.01.26

• An even longer view on home prices — this time in Amsterdam

  In the comments of my recent post about Manhattan real estate prices during the Great Depression, a regular reader of this blog shared this terrific blog post (and corresponding research paper by Piet Eichholtz) about house prices along the Herengracht canal in Amsterdam from 1628 to 1973. Later it was updated to include up to 2008. It’s a long run house price index.

  Probably the first thing you’ll notice is that the index is highly volatile. Amsterdam enters its Golden Age, creates the world’s first stock exchange, and becomes the wealthiest city in the western world – house prices go way up. The tulip mania bubble pops – house prices go way down. It’s not until after World War II that prices sort of start to stabilize and increase, maybe, more consistently.

  In nominal dollars, the house price index increases 10x over the study period. But in real dollars most of that disappears. The biennial increase (that’s how the study was done) over the same period of time is just 0.5%. That translates into a doubling of house prices, which may seem quite good, except that remember it’s over a 380 year time period.

  

  The Herengracht canal is a particularly good study because it was and has remained (or so I’m told) a desirable part of Amsterdam. This is an attempt to control for the variable that maybe some of the volatility could be explained by the area simply falling out of favor. (As a quick sidebar, the Herengracht was one of the first canals laid and dug out around the original city center of medieval Amsterdam during its Golden Age.)

  Generally, this finding is in line with one that economist Robert J. Shiller famously published a number of years ago where he argued that, when you correct for inflation, home prices actually look remarkably stable over long-run forecasts. In one study, he looked at 100 years of US home prices ending in 1990. Real home prices increased about 0.2% a year. What an outstanding hedge against inflation.

  2017.11.28

• The first North American night mayor

  

  With Mirik Milan (Night Mayor of Amsterdam) speaking at the upcoming NXT City Symposium here in Toronto, I figured it was time to revisit the topic of night mayors. If you’re new to this topic and/or the blog, you can get yourself up to speed here (scroll down).

  Firstly, this idea is clearly spreading and it just crossed the pond. Last month on August 24, 2017, New York City Council voted to create the “Office of Nightlife.” It’s a small start. The office will have an annual budget of $300,000. But that’s okay.

  As far as I know, NYC is now the first major North American city with government humans focused on leveraging the benefits of the nightlife industry.

  For the record, my post “Why Toronto needs a night mayor” was published in March 2016. It was obvious that the idea was already spreading throughout Europe and I was hoping that this city (Toronto) take notice and decide to lead within North America. New York City decided to do that instead.

  Secondly, CityLab published an article today called how to be a good night mayor. It is about what NYC can learn from the European cities who are already experimenting with this kind of office. Perhaps my favorite is the recommendation to “reflect your own city’s DNA.”

  Of course, having a night mayor is one thing. Making it highly effective is another. In that regard, it is still early days for North American night mayors, and night mayors in general. Who will truly lead?

  Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

  2017.09.26

• 4,000 years of urban history

  

  The Guardian recently published an extract from a book by Greg Clark called, Global Cities: A Short History. 

  The article and book cover 4,000 years of urbanization. More specifically, Clark explains why some cities become global leaders, others do not, and why it is common for cities to rise and fall over time – at intervals that are only becoming shorter.

  Below is an excerpt that talks about Amsterdam’s rise in the 17th century; a period of time known as the Dutch Golden Age. In the 1600′s, Amsterdam became the undisputed financial capital of the world and spawned the very first stock exchange. (Though, let’s not forget about Tulip Mania.)

  “Amsterdam took over the mantle from Antwerp and Genoa as Europe’s major commercial city during the 1600s, and it developed many of the technologies that underpin today’s global cities. The overthrow of the Spanish elite, which had hampered the interests of powerful local merchants, granted more freedom to Dutch traders. Soon after, the blockade of Spanish Antwerp triggered a flight of capital and talented entrepreneurs to Amsterdam.“

  "The protestant city became prized for its safe port, political stability and access to inland waterways. It maximised its appeal by guaranteeing equal protection to all merchants, wherever they came from, while developing standardised institutional norms. A relaxed attitude toward interest-bearing loans spurred the development of modern finance in Amsterdam, including maritime insurance, making the city both the logistical hub and the trade financier of Europe.”

  Certain things have changed. Maritime pursuits were once paramount to a city’s success, whereas today, connectivity happens in a myriad of other ways. But other things have not changed. 

  As I read through the article, I couldn’t help but notice a few reoccurring themes. Being closed to innovation and immigration didn’t work in the past and I don’t believe it works today.

  2016.12.11

• World’s best city brands

  Resonance Consultancy – they do brands and strategies for places and products – has just released a new report called: World’s Best City Brands – A Global Ranking of Place Equity.

  With all of these sorts of rankings, it really depends on the research methodology being used and the rigor in which it is being applied. In this case, they evaluated each city based on “six pillars of equity”:

  1. Place: Perceived quality of a city’s natural and built environment
  2. Product: A city’s key institutions, attraction and infrastructure
  3. Programming: The arts, culture and entertainment in a city
  4. People: Immigration and diversity of a city
  5. Prosperity: Employment, GDP per capita entertainment in a city and corporate head offices
  6. Promotion: Quantity of articles, references of a city and recommendations online

  What’s perhaps unique about this study is that it combines measurable statistics with “visitor perception metrics” – data that they mined from social media. Here’s an excerpt from the methodology page:

  “Our team became interested in the way visitors and citizens themselves influence the identity and perception of cities. Increasingly, they do it through their evaluation of experiences on social media and via the comments, images and reviews they share with family, friends and people around the world. These opinions and attitudes, much more than traditional marketing, influence the way people perceive places today.”

  This is a fascinating shift for city brands and is something that we have discussed before on this blog. All of us are now involved in telling the story of the places in which we live and visit.

  The entire report is well done and worth a read. It’s also a free download (you’ll need to enter your contact info). But below are the top 10 world’s best city brands. Not really any surprises for me. What about for you?

  

  2016.11.08

• The VanMoof hack

  8 years ago the Amsterdam-based bicycle company VanMoof started shipping bicycles to its customers. And since that time, they struggled to find a quality shipping partner that wouldn’t damage the bikes in transit. 

  They tried every varietal of shipping company, but the problem persisted. And since their goal was and is to sell 90% of their bikes online by 2020, they knew that they needed to solve this problem.

  So here’s what they did. This is a great story.

  They noticed that their bicycle boxes were about the same size as a large flatscreen TV. And since flatscreen TVs seem to always arrive in perfect condition, they decided to print a TV (along with an image of their bicycle) on the box.

  Here’s what that looks like (via QZ):

  

  The result? They immediately saw a 70-80% drop in shipping damages. That’s all it took. I love that.

  Since I know that a lot of you are cyclists, I thought you might appreciate this little hack. Their bikes are also quite stylish and reasonably priced if you happen to be in the market. (I am waiting to hear back on whether they ship to Canada.)

  2016.10.13

• The lure of super-places

  

  If you’re a very talented person, you have two choices: you either move to New York or you move to Silicon Valley. This is the message that Peter Thiel delivered to a conference being held in Chicago earlier this month. Not surprisingly, it pissed a few people off.

  Peter responded by saying that he was simply illustrating the “extreme version” of a metaphor about the impacts of globalization and technology. And while it certainly doesn’t sound very nice if you’re sitting in Chicago, or the countless other fantastic cities between the coasts, I can appreciate what Peter is getting at.

  Saskia Sassen is known for coining the term global city. These are cities which play an important role in the functioning of the global economy. But what has happened, she acknowledges, is an even further concentration of activity within a select few “super-places.”

  Here is an excerpt from a Financial Times article by Simon Kuper (2014) talking about Amsterdam’s position in the world:

  “…a new, higher category of cities may now be emerging: global capitals. Amsterdam has risen but New York, London and Hong Kong have risen faster. The Dutch elite is moving to Amsterdam; but many ambitious Dutch people no longer want to join the Dutch elite. They want to join the global elite. That often requires moving to a global capital.”

  Anecdotally, I can say that almost everyone I know who has left Toronto for an opportunity has moved to New York, Silicon Valley, London, and so on. They have moved up the rank of global cities/capitals.

  So while Peter may not have chosen the right way to deliver this message, I do believe it is a message worth delivering.

  2016.09.28

• The Edge — The World’s Greenest Building

  When I was in grad school, I used to search around online and make lists of real estate developers that I felt were philosophically aligned with my own view of the world. I didn’t want to work for just any developer, I wanted one that cared about design, technology, sustainability, and so on.

  One of the developers on my list was OVG Real Estate in Amsterdam. They describe themselves as “the largest real estate technology company in The Netherlands” and they have recently completed The Edge, which is being called the greenest office building in the world. It received a 98.36% sustainability score from BREEAM-NL.

  The building uses 70% less electricity than the “typical office building” and uses solar panels on its rooftop, as well as on some neighboring university buildings, to produce more energy than it consumes. The building is also a great example of the Internet of Things. Anchor tenant Deloitte created its own mobile app so that employees can control lighting, climate, and so on.

  The building also has an on-site gym. I’m a big fan of mid-day workouts.

  There’s a lot going on with this building, so here’s a video from Bloomberg describing how it functions (click here if you can’t see it below):

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSzko-K7dzo?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

  Photos of the building here.

  2016.09.26