The founder and Editor-in-Chief of Monocle Magazine, Tyler Brûle, recently had a nice trip to Ottawa: If you’ve never been to Ottawa, don’t bother. Of all the G7 capitals, it’s one that hardly conjures up much in the way of attractive images. Don’t believe me?… Read More
All posts tagged “canada”
No more foreign buyers
Here’s the thing about housing: The delegates insisted on one hand that “housing is for living not speculation”, but on the other, emphasised the critical importance of real estate to China’s economic growth. In other words, things are complicated. We want housing to be affordable… Read More
Japan pays people to leave Tokyo
We have spoken over the years — here, here, and here — about the centralizing and decentralizing forces that play out within our cities. Agglomeration economies, for example, are a centralizing force. There are real economic benefits to people and firms clustering together in cities.… Read More
The Local Project
Regular readers of this blog will know that I am huge fan of the YouTube channel Never Too Small. I have seen most of their episodes and I like to tell people about it even when it is only remotely related to the conversation at… Read More
Sticking close to home — two-thirds of young Americans live near where they grew up
Here in Canada, there is often a belief that Americans tend to be more mobile than Canadians. Don’t like the cold weather? Just move south. Taxes too high? Just move south. Housing too expensive? Just move south. But just how mobile is mobile? A new… Read More
Toronto-Montréal should be a 2 hour high-speed train ride
The Quebec City-Windsor corridor is the most densely populated region in Canada. The last time I checked Wikipedia, it was reported to house about 18 million people, or about half of Canada’s entire population. So it is not surprising that there have been numerous high-speed… Read More
Super-entrepreneurs by region
A super-entrepreneur, according to the common definition, is a rich person who has amassed a net worth of at least US$1 billion dollars by either starting a company or taking a small company and growing it into a big one. A super-entrepreneur is, by definition,… Read More
1912 Michelin Guide to France
This is a copy of the 1912 edition of the Michelin Guide to France. Most of you have probably heard of Michelin star restaurants, but some of you may not be familiar with how it all started. First published in 1904, the Michelin Guide is,… Read More
Forget infill development, why not just build entirely new cities?
We talk a lot on this blog about how best to intensify and add housing to our existing cities. But here’s alternative approach: Why not just built entirely new cities? This way you don’t have to worry about fixing any of the things that are… Read More
Quietly booming tech town
We have all seen these headlines before, so it’s not so under the radar for us. But the New York Times just published this article about Toronto calling it a “quietly booming tech town.” Depending on how you want to measure things, Toronto is now… Read More