Tag: athiscity

• The social shift

  Those of you who know me or are regular readers of this blog, will know that I’m an avid social media user. 

  My favorites – judging by battery consumption on my phone – are Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (donnelly_b). I think it’s incredible what these platforms are doing to branding, marketing, personal connectivity, city building, and the list goes on.

  To that end, the March issue of Harvard Business Review has an interesting article by Douglas Holt called, Branding in the Age of Social Media. Whether you’re running a company, a city, or a real estate development project, I think you’ll find the information relevant.

  The article starts by describing a shift, brought about by social, whereby big brands are now struggling to capture the attention of consumers. Instead, consumers are listening to individuals and more grassroots movements.

  “Or consider Red Bull, the most lauded branded-content success story. It has become a new-media hub producing extreme – and alternative – sports content. While Red Bull spends much of its $2 billion annual marketing budget on branded content, its YouTube channel (rank #184, 4.9 million subscribers) is lapped by dozens of crowdculture start-ups with production budgets under $100,000. Indeed, Dude Perfect (#81, 8 million subscribers), the brainchild of five college jocks from Texas who make videos of trick shots and goofy improvised athletic feats, does far better.”

  So what should brands be doing? Holt argues that they need to tap into these developing subcultures and emergent ideologies:

  “These three brands broke through in social media because they used cultural branding—a strategy that works differently from the conventional branded-content model. Each engaged a cultural discourse about gender and sexuality in wide circulation in social media—a crowdculture—which espoused a distinctive ideology. Each acted as a proselytizer, promoting this ideology to a mass audience. Such opportunities come into view only if we use the prism of cultural branding—doing research to identify ideologies that are relevant to the category and gaining traction in crowdcultures. Companies that rely on traditional segmentation models and trend reports will always have trouble identifying those opportunities.”

  For me, this ties into one of my favorite lines from Simon Sinek: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” And now, thanks to social, it has become a lot easier to figure out what people and communities care about. It has become easier to figure out your why.

  Do you see this as being relevant to your work? I am certainly thinking about it in the context of mine.

  2016.03.05

• Easier said than done

  Earlier this week I saw the Chief Planner of Toronto, Jennifer Keesmaat, tweet this out:

  New buildings shouldn’t maximize the envelope prescribed by guidelines, but employ creative designs within it. pic.twitter.com/l7axVB4Hke

  — jennifer keesmaat (@jen_keesmaat) March 3, 2016

  //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  I responded with the below quote retweet because I figured I should probably devote a blog post to this topic and not just a tweet.

  🤔 https://t.co/WqdaCCWkNi

  — Brandon G. Donnelly (@donnelly_b) March 3, 2016

  //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Now, I don’t know for sure, but I am guessing that her tweet was in response to the criticism from architects and developers that Toronto’s design guidelines are creating homogenous architectural outcomes. Some people – and I’ve written about this before on ATC – believe they’re too prescriptive.

  So today I’d like to talk about why playing creatively within the guidelines/zoning envelope, particularly at the mid-rise scale, is a lot easier said than done.

  Generally speaking, the value of land is dependent on what you can do with it or, in this case, what you can build on it.

  If all you could do was plant things on it, then the value of the land would be correlated with crop yields. If on the other hand you could build a building, it would be correlated, at least in theory, with the amount of space you could build and the rents you could charge for that space.

  Of course, this isn’t a perfect science. That’s why I said “in theory.”

  Landowners obviously want to maximize the value of their asset when it comes time to sell. So they, along with their brokers, will naturally try and stretch what is possible with the land. Why else do you think the best neighborhoods seem to magically grow new boundaries?

  When you combine this with the fact that mid-rise buildings are inherently less efficient to build and with the fact that their smaller size creates diseconomies of scale, it can be exceptionally difficult to find development sites where the numbers make any sort of financial sense. That is, even if you “maximize the envelope” and push rents or sale prices.

  So, with all due respect, not maximizing the envelope is almost unthinkable, unless you somehow managed to get a bargain on the land.

  Many of you will likely respond in the comments saying that all of this is simply a result of real estate developers being greedy capitalist pigs. But what we are talking about is no different than in any other competitive business environment. 

  Developers rent and sell products – albeit products that take an incredibly long time to make and bring to market. To make those products, there are a many costs, ranging from the cost of land to the cost of drawings. But hopefully within all of those numbers sits a profit margin that makes sense given the amount of work and risk that the developer has taken on. 

  Put differently, telling developers not to maximize the envelope is like telling a pizza maker to throw out 10-15% of her dough before she makes every pizza – even though she already (over)paid in full for the dough.

  If you’ve ever created a development pro forma, you’ll know that it’s not easy getting the numbers to work when you’re operating in a competitive market. This is not a knock against creative design. Trust me, I am a design snob. This is just business.

  2016.03.05

• Boondoggle or architectural icon?

  

  Today, the new World Trade Center Transportation Hub, designed by architect Santiago Calatrava, opened up – at least partially – in New York City. 

  Given that it was originally supposed to open in 2009 and cost about half as much (original budget was $2.2 billion), the critics haven’t been kind.

  Here are a few snippets from Michael Kimmelman’s writeup in the New York Times, called, Santiago Calatrava’s Transit Hub Is a Soaring Symbol of a Boondoggle:

  …at first blush, Mr. Calatrava’s architecture can almost — almost — make you forget what an epic boondoggle the whole thing has been. That virgin view, standing inside the Oculus and gazing up, is a jaw-dropper.
  

  The project’s cost soared toward a head-slapping, unconscionable $4 billion in public money for what, in effect, is the 18th-busiest subway stop in New York City, tucked inside a shopping mall, down the block from another shopping center.
  

  And it’s not really a hub. A maze of underground passages connects the site to far-flung subway lines, but there are not free transfers. The place is a glorified PATH station for some 50,000 weekday riders commuting to and from New Jersey.

  I haven’t been following this project, so I can’t really comment on the delays and cost overruns. But I sure wish that main hall (called the Oculus and pictured above) was a part of my regular travel routine.

  Image via Curbed

  2016.03.04

• A breakdown of land use in Vancouver

  Last night when I was thumbing through Twitter before bed, I came across this blog post describing Vancouver’s land use types. The blog itself is called Mountain Doodles, but it’s not exactly clear who the author is. 

  In any event, what she/he did was analyze Vancouver’s land use dataset to come up with a series of charts that break down the percentage of each type: residential single detached, residential low-rise apartment, commercial, green space, and so on.

  Here’s what the chart looks like for Metro Vancouver:

  

  And here’s what it looks like for just the City of Vancouver, proper:

  

  When you look at the metro area, green / open space dominates. Although, the author states that, given the dataset, there could be a small overstatement of green space. There’s also the question of where the overall boundary was drawn.

  When you look at only the City of Vancouver, it’s land for residential housing (detached and duplex) and roads that dominate, with green / open space coming in a somewhat distant third.

  Of course, this does not speak to the intensity in which any of the above land might be used, such as the apartment lands (i.e., the third dimension). But from a two-dimensional perspective, you certainly get a sense of what we – for better or for worse – have chosen to privilege.

  2016.03.02

• Warren’s blog

  I just finished reading Warren Buffet’s 2015 annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. If you haven’t yet read one of his letters and you’re at all interested in business and investing, I would encourage you to check them out. (By going to their website you’ll also get a reminder of what the web looked like circa 1995.)

  When I read them I feel as if I’m reading a giant blog post from Warren Buffet – albeit one that only gets published once a year. They’re well-written and easy to read. They’re personal. They’re light and humorous. (He drops Tinder, the mobile dating app, in this year’s letter.) And they’re packed full of invaluable information and insights.

  To give you a sample, here are two snippets that I liked:

  “Our flexibility in capital allocation – our willingness to invest large sums passively in non-controlled
  businesses – gives us a significant edge over companies that limit themselves to acquisitions they will
  operate. Woody Allen once explained that the advantage of being bi-sexual is that it doubles your chance
  of finding a date on Saturday night. In like manner – well, not exactly like manner – our appetite for either
  operating businesses or passive investments doubles our chances of finding sensible uses for Berkshire’s
  endless gusher of cash.”
  

  “America’s population is growing about .8% per year (.5% from births minus deaths and .3% from net
  migration). Thus 2% of overall growth produces about 1.2% of per capita growth. That may not sound impressive.
  But in a single generation of, say, 25 years, that rate of growth leads to a gain of 34.4% in real GDP per capita.
  (Compounding’s effects produce the excess over the percentage that would result by simply multiplying 25 x 1.2%.)
  In turn, that 34.4% gain will produce a staggering $19,000 increase in real GDP per capita for the next generation.”

  Overall, he remains, and rightly so I’d say, very bullish on the United States: “For 240 years it’s been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start.”

  What do you think?

  2016.03.02

• Lo Mein Loophole

  Maria Godoy of NPR recently published an interesting piece called Lo Mein Loophole: How U.S. Immigration Law Fueled A Chinese Restaurant Boom.

  The article starts by talking about how rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the late 19th and early 20th century eventually lead to the U.S. passing new immigration laws. These laws explicitly restricted Chinese laborers from moving to the U.S. and even made it difficult for legal residents to return after a visit home to China.

  However, embedded in these laws was a small loophole:

  But, as MIT legal historian Heather Lee tells it, there was an important exception to these laws: Some Chinese business owners in the U.S. could get special merchant visas that allowed them to travel to China, and bring back employees. Only a few types of businesses qualified for this status. In 1915, a federal court added restaurants to that list. Voila! A restaurant boom was born.

  “The number of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. doubles from 1910 to 1920, and doubles again from 1920 to 1930,” says Lee, referring to research done by economist Susan Carter. In New York City alone, Lee found that the number of Chinese eateries quadrupled between 1910 and 1920.

  This is fascinating on so many levels. 

  For one, it’s always interesting when small loopholes have unintended consequences. It is doubtful that anyone could have predicted a Chinese restaurant boom.

  Secondly, despite the U.S. being a nation of immigrants, you see here a long history of trying to keep immigrants out. In the early 20th century, the fear was Chinese laborers who worked for low wages. Today, it’s Mexican laborers who work for low wages.

  Finally, it’s amazing to look back at the foundation that these early Chinese entrepreneurs no doubt created. Today, Asian Americans are often considered a “model minority.” The Pew Research Center refers to them as “the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States.” 

  When it comes to Ivy League admissions, they’ve even been called the “New Jews” – referring to the fact that many believe that top tier schools have systematically biased admissions against both Jews and Asians because of their tendency to overachieve relative to “white Americans.”

  And to think that this may have all started, at least partly, with a Chinese restaurant boom.

  2016.02.29

• NO TOWER on Commercial Drive

  For the past week or so I’ve been seeing the proposed Kettle Boffo Project in Vancouver make the rounds online. Here’s a rendering of the project, which is located at Commercial Drive and Venables Street:

  

  The reason it has been making the rounds is that a community group called NO TOWER (written in all caps) has come out in fierce opposition of the 5 to 12-storey building. They have over 3,500 signatures.

  As an outsider looking in, this is surprising. The scale of the project seems appropriate. The height roughly matches the existing building shown above to the right. It may even be lower. And the project will provide somewhere around 30 social housing units, as well as additional space for the Kettle Friendship Society non-profit, who are currently on the site. (Note: An application to the city hasn’t yet been made.)

  What this has me thinking about is the push and pull between bottom-up and top-down planning. 

  When architect Bjarke Ingels talks about his Dryline project in New York, he likes to refer to it as the love child of Robert Moses (top-down planning) and Jane Jacobs (bottom-up planning). In the case of this project, it’s because it’s a large infrastructure project that they are trying to root into the local neighborhoods. Makes sense.

  But this same thinking could also apply to overall city building. Local communities rightly have their own wants. But at the same time, cities need to be thinking about the overall. The challenge is finding that right balance.

  I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the Kettle Boffo Project in the comment section below – especially if you’re from Vancouver.

  2016.02.28

• What the UPX fare reduction means for the west side of Toronto

  

  Last week Metrolinx slashed fares on Toronto’s Union to Pearson Airport express train (UPX), by a lot. From $27.50 to $12 for people without a PRESTO card and from $19 to $9 for people with a PRESTO card. They listened to the pundits. And there were a lot of them regarding this topic.

  At these fares, the UPX is decidedly cheaper than a taxi or Uber, but more than regular transit, which I think makes sense given that it’s a better overall experience. I would take this train all day long.

  But the other thing that Metrolinx did was also reposition the train service as an inner city commuter service by matching fares with GO transit for non-airport trips within the city. As one example, this means that you can now go from Bloor & Dundas West in the west end to downtown Union Station for $5.30 in cash or $4.71 with a PRESTO card. This is in comparison to $3.25 in cash on the subway.

  But this is huge, because look at the options for this transit trip:

  • UPX Train: 8 minute trip; service every 15 minutes

  • GO Train: 12 minute trip (additional stop); service every 20-30 minutes during peak times and roughly every hour during off-peak times (so no drinks after work)

  • Subway: 26 minute trip; most frequent service

  This is a significant connectivity upgrade for the west side of the city. One that reinforces my belief that, next to Union Station, Bloor/Dundas West is the best connected mobility hub in the Toronto region. This now a perfect location for companies and people who need quick access to both the Financial District and the airport. Unfortunately though, I don’t think we’ve taken full advantage of this connectivity in terms of what we’ve allowed and disallowed to be built in the area to date.

  I’ll end by saying that I think the pundits have been overly critical of the UPX train. Everyone loves to talk about it as a failure. But look, every organization and person makes mistakes. If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not pushing yourself hard enough. The key is to iterate and refine as you charge along. So go make some mistakes today 🙂

  Image: UP Express

  2016.02.27

• #BuildHereNow — Crowdsourced city building

  

  This week Strong Towns has been running a great social media campaign called #BuildHereNow. 

  The way it works is very simple. They asked people to get outside and take photos of vacant and/or underutilized properties in their town or city and post them to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #BuildHereNow. The goal was to start to identify properties that could “use a little love" and to encourage city builders who might need a little push to develop a particular property.

  I’m a big fan of crowdsourcing information and I love the idea of digitally annotating buildings and spaces. In this case, it’s about pulling together the desires of the community,

  Hashtags are a great way to quickly make something like this happen, but I would love to see a purpose-built tech platform do this in a more permanent way. Of course, it doesn’t just have to be about developing. Buildings are rich in information; hopefully so rich that a platform like this could survive.

  If you think about it, property titles are already a form of annotating real property. So this isn’t really a new idea. 

  But now technology allows us to harvest all kinds of other information – such as what people would like to see built. Imagine the possibilities if we became more effective at collecting, organizing, and leveraging this data at scale.

  2016.02.26

• How things could be

  I have about 15 minutes before I need to head out for dinner, so I’m afraid that there won’t be much of an ATC post today. It has been a busy week.

  But given that this week was Bjarke Ingels’ talk in Toronto and many of us are pretty excited about his King West project, I thought I would share a video where he sketches and talks about architecture. Click here if you can’t see it below.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIsIKv1lFZw?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

  I love the idea that architecture is about imagining how things could be. That’s how I feel about both architecture and real estate development.

  2016.02.25