Tag: cities

• The neighborhood of the future (part 2)

  I have been traveling since the weekend and so I am behind on my reading. One of the benefits of writing this blog every day is that I am forced to read as much as I can. I have to be a sponge.

  Right now, I am still reeling in excitement over the Sidewalk Toronto announcement and getting caught up on that reading. 

  This week Sidewalk Labs published the entire vision section of their RFP response to Waterfront Toronto. This is the response that won them the Quayside partnership. It’s 196 pages and can be downloaded here.

  I’m still making my way through the package, which I am obviously going to do, but I thought this was a great diagram:

  

  As is stated in their RFP response, inclement weather affects pedestrians and cyclists more than drivers. Toronto’s most notable response has been our PATH system, which pulls both people and retail below grade, away from the elements.

  But Sidewalk’s research suggests that with the right wind, sun, and precipitation strategies, they may be able to 2x the number of comfortable outside hours per year here in Toronto. That’s what the above diagram shows.

  Of course, there is so much more in their RFP response. But I need more time to digest it all. I’ll be sure to report back to all of you once I have done that. If you don’t feel like going through all 196 pages yourself, you can watch this 4 minute YouTube video instead.

  2017.10.19

• The neighborhood of the future

  

  Daniel Doctoroff (chairman and CEO of Sidewalk Labs and former deputy mayor of New York City) and Eric Schmidt (executive chairman of Alphabet and former CEO of Google) recently contributed a piece to the Globe and Mail about “why Toronto is the ideal place to build a neighborhood of the future.” 

  It’s about the partnership they working on with Waterfront Toronto. I wrote about that announcement, here.

  Here is an excerpt from the Globe article:

  “The eastern waterfront will be a place where residents, companies, startups and local organizations can advance new ideas for improving city life. It’s where a self-driving test shuttle will take its first steps toward becoming a next-generation transit system that’s cheaper, safer and more convenient than private car-ownership. It’s where new insights into advanced construction methods will start to reveal a path toward more affordable housing development. It’s where explorations into renewable energy and sustainable building designs will show promise toward becoming a climate-positive blueprint for cities around the world.”

  These are some of the first details that I have heard about their vision for Toronto’s eastern waterfront. 

  Some of you are probably worried – after reading the above excerpt – that by focusing on self-driving vehicles, we are setting ourselves up to repeat our previous mistakes. But if self-driving vehicles are destined to become a reality (and it certainly feels that way), it is critical that we understand their impact and how they might best dovetail with the public transit systems we already have in place.

  I am thrilled that all of this will be happening right here on our doorstep.

  Photo by Brxxto on Unsplash

  2017.10.17

• Supply-side toolkit for greater housing affordability

  

  McKinsey Global Institute just published a “supply-side toolkit” for cities struggling with housing affordability. This seems to be every successful city.

  The article includes a long list of potential tools. Some of them you may agree with. And others you may disagree with. But I am sure that many of them will be familiar to you. One of the tools in the toolkit is accessory dwelling units.

  Of course, the overarching theme is that housing supply has not and is not keeping pace with housing demand:

  California, for instance, added 544,000 households but only 467,000 net housing units from 2009 to 2014. Its cumulative housing shortfall has expanded to two million units.

  Another one of the tools in the toolkit is “overcoming NIMBYism.” Here is an excerpt:

  People who come to a city to work need to be able to find an affordable place to live there. But the voices of existing homeowners who want to preserve the status quo often drown out those of newcomers, young adults, low-income service workers, and renters who need more housing. After a 2009 audit found that neighborhood councils were not representative of the city’s broader population, Seattle replaced these bodies with a central Community Involvement Commission that includes mayoral and council appointees chosen to represent a broader set of stakeholders.

  I am intrigued by Seattle’s move to create a central body and a new approach to public engagement – one that moves away from local district-councils. However, it appears that this Community Involvement Commission is still very much in its infancy.

  If any of you are familiar with the Seattle market, I would be curious to hear your thoughts on it in the comment section below. I am, however, going to spend some time reading up on it.

  For the full toolkit, click here.

  Photo by Sarah Brink on Unsplash

  2017.10.16

• Photoblog: 15 Union Square West

  

  I took the above photo this afternoon. The building on the left is 15 Union Square West in New York City. 

  It’s a re-cladding of a late 19th century building that was originally constructed for Tiffany & Company. The building’s original cast-iron arches were preserved and set behind new black framed, double insulated, laminated glass panels. 

  The arches aren’t that noticeable during the day, but at night they can really stand out. Click here for a few other photos and to see what that looks like.

  Front Inc. designed the framing systems. If you aren’t familiar with Front, you should check them out. They are a leading design and facade consultancy.

  2017.10.15

• Adelaide cycle tracks

  Earlier this week I was on Adelaide Street (Toronto) for a morning meeting. This is further north than my typical routine.

  For those of you not familiar with Toronto, Adelaide is a one-way street with separated bikes lanes. These “cycle tracks” were installed as part of a pilot project that launched back in summer 2014. As I’m sure you can imagine, they were highly controversial at the time. Many heated debates.

  But if you stand on Adelaide Street during the morning rush, as I did earlier this week, I think you would be amazed to see just how widely used these lanes actually are. Here’s a video of Adelaide (just east of Spadina) in action. It is by Gil Meslin and was filmed sometime between 840 and 855am on a weekday.

  However, I will say that I was far more impressed by the volume of bikes I saw in person. I wish I took a picture. They easily outnumbered the cars when I was there, which speaks to the latent demand for this sort of infrastructure. I can’t imagine a faster way to get across downtown in the morning.

  So if you haven’t already, check out Adelaide (or Richmond Street, which is also part of the cycle tracks program).

  2017.10.12

• Empowering food truck entrepreneurs

  When I lived in Philadelphia I survived on food truck food. My go-tos were an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich for $2.50, a bowl of spaghetti for $4.50, and a pretty substantial chicken burrito for somewhere around $5 or $6. The food was good. It was filling. And it was all priced perfectly for a poor student, which I was at the time.

  I still remember when Renzo Piano came to the University to talk about potentially renovating the design school. Somebody stood up and asked if he had considered the placement of food trucks in his plans. Piano responded by saying: “I am Italian. Don’t worry. I will provide for the food.” This is how ingrained food trucks were and are in the culture of the city.

  The other great thing about these food trucks is that they are a low-cost way of starting your own culinary business. Many were run by immigrants. And some of these “trucks” were so small that I used to have to duck in order to make my way to the concession window. There was nothing fancy about them. But they worked.

  These days I don’t really eat at food trucks anymore. They are not as widespread here in Toronto as they are in Philly. I also find them expensive and the portions are usually so small that you have to order 2 or 3 things. They feel like the anti-food truck.

  I appreciate that there’s a growing market for trendy and “gourmet.” But there’s value in low-cost options and in lowering the barriers to entry for aspiring food entrepreneurs. There are numerous examples of humble food trucks growing into full fledged restaurants. Let’s encourage more of that.

  2017.10.11

• Sidewalk Labs, Amazon HQ2, and the Milanese Leonardo

  Earlier this week the WSJ announced that Sidewalk Labs (Alphabet Inc.’s urban innovation organization) is close to a deal with Waterfront Toronto to develop a new 12-acre section of the eastern waterfront. Sidewalk Labs would be their innovation and funding partner. It’s not final yet and it’s still subject to board approval, but the sentiment is that it should go.

  There aren’t a lot of details about the project – other than the fact that it will be fairly big, up to 3 million square feet – but the overall intent is digital city building. It’s about imagining what a city could be if you built it today “from the internet up.” More info about Sidewalk Labs, here.

  I thought of this project as I read Seth Godin’s daily blog post this morning in bed. Here are two snippets from that post:

  When a new technology arrives, it’s often the nerds and the neophiliacs who embrace it. People who see themselves as busy and important often dismiss the new medium or tool as a bit of a gimmick and then “go back to work.”
  

  There’s never a guarantee that the next technology is going to be the one that moves to the center of the conversation. But it’s certain that a new technology will. It always has.

  Openness matters.

  I’m anxious to learn more details about the project, but this is obviously very exciting. It also creates momentum and strengthens the case for Amazon HQ2 in Toronto. The above 12-acre Quayside area is only the tip of the iceberg. There’s the rest of the eastern waterfront and also East Harbour.

  

  Some people have been critical of this city’s push for Amazon HQ2. Anthony Lacavera, chairman of Globalive Capital, called this “the biggest Trojan Horse of all time.” His view is that Amazon would simply use HQ2 Toronto as a mechanism for cheaper labor (USD > CAD) and to siphon the best and brightest down to the US.

  Now, I agree that it would be more impactful to create the next Amazon then to simply lure in its second headquarters. Big entrepreneurial successes are what fuel the darwinian evolution of startup hubs. The founders, early employees and investors make boatloads of money and then they start reinvesting that back into the ecosystem by, among other things, backing the next generation of entrepreneurs.

  But does this necessarily mean that an Amazon HQ2 would be detrimental to Toronto by acting as a conduit to the US? Will it discourage entrepreneurship? Should we eschew all US firms out of fear that this may in fact happen? I don’t think so.

  There’s tremendous value in concentrating smart people in one place – ideas build on ideas. And I don’t think technology has been able to disrupt that, at least not yet. One example of this is a theory that Paul Graham calls the Milanese Leonardo:

  You can see how powerful cities are from something I wrote about earlier: the case of the Milanese Leonardo. Practically every fifteenth century Italian painter you’ve heard of was from Florence, even though Milan was just as big. People in Florence weren’t genetically different, so you have to assume there was someone born in Milan with as much natural ability as Leonardo. What happened to him?

  And his reasoning is as follows:

  Nothing is more powerful than a community of talented people working on related problems. Genes count for little by comparison: being a genetic Leonardo was not enough to compensate for having been born near Milan instead of Florence. Today we move around more, but great work still comes disproportionately from a few hotspots: the Bauhaus, the Manhattan Project, the New Yorker, Lockheed’s Skunk Works, Xerox Parc.

  Xerox Parc (Palo Alto Research Company) is a great example of the kind of positive externalities that can happen as a result of smart people being in close proximity to each other while they wrestle with similar problems. It has been well documented that it was Steve Jobs’ visit to Xerox Parc that inspired many of Apple’s early innovations.

  So my view: let’s increase Toronto’s urban metabolism and make it the Florence of 1450.

  Ed Clark – who is leading the charge for HQ2 in Toronto – has been clear that large taxpayer subsidies are not on the table for Amazon. That would not be fair to the existing companies in this city. If that is what it is going to take, then we are not going to win. We will win based on our city, our human capital, and our openness to the rest of the world. That feels right.

  Welcome Sidewalk Labs. Welcome Amazon. This city is open for business and to new ideas. 

  Image: Waterfront Toronto

  2017.10.07

• How Trump’s tax plan would impact the mortgage interest deduction

  

  In the US you can reduce your taxable income by deducting the mortgage interest you pay toward your principal residence. You can’t do this in Canada, at least not on the property where you live.

  However, there are limitations. It is capped at loans up to $500,000 or up to $1M if you’re married and you file jointly. On the other end of the spectrum, you also need a loan big enough such that an itemized deduction will save you more money than the standard deduction.

  Not surprisingly, the MID is popular among homeowners. And from a public policy standpoint, one of its selling features is that it’s supposed to stimulate homeownership. But many have argued that it doesn’t actually do this – it unequally benefits people with larger mortgages. (Canada has a higher homeownership rate than the US.)

  Right now it looks like you need to buying a home worth at least $305,000 in order for the mortgage interest deduction to make economic sense for you. Again, if your loan isn’t big enough, you’re simply going to opt for the standard deduction. 

  In 2015, about 22% of all US taxpayers opted to take advantage of the MID. According to Zillow, only about 29% of all homes in the US are valuable enough for the MID to actually make sense. Though in some cities, like San Francisco, it’s pretty much all of the homes. Of course.

  Zillow also recently looked at what the recent tax reforms put forward by the Trump Administration would mean for the MID and the real estate market. 

  One of proposed changes is a doubling of the standard deduction. What this means, based on Zillow’s math, is that you would need to be buying a home worth at least $801,000 today for the MID to make sense. This also means that the deduction would now only benefit about 5% of all homes in the US.

  This would seem to only exacerbate the criticism that the MID does not in fact stimulate homeownership in the segment of the market that needs it the most. But perhaps this is the only politically palatable way of removing it – gradually.

  Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash

  2017.10.07

• Is Trump good for Canada?

  Richard Florida and Joshua Gans just published an article in Politico called: Trump Is Making Canada Great Again. The overarching argument is that as the US closes its borders, Canada benefits. The best and brightest from around the world are coming here.

  This fall, international student applications at the University of Toronto were up 70% compared to last year. And numerous companies in Toronto are reporting “steady, double-digit increases” in the number of job applications from Americans.

  This is exactly what I was getting at when I made the pithy prediction that Amazon is going to choose Toronto for HQ2. It’s about access to human capital (though I acknowledge the political reality of selecting a city outside of the US). 

  Perhaps here or here might work for a location.

  Here is an excerpt from the Politico article that starts to speak to the importance of foreign-born workers in the US:

  As of 2013, foreign-born workers in STEM fields—science, technology engineering and math—accounted for nearly a fifth of workers with bachelor’s degrees in the United States, 40 percent of those with master’s degrees and more than half of those with Ph.D.s. In the San Jose metro area, consisting largely of Silicon Valley, immigrants comprise more than 55 percent of adults who hold advanced degrees.

  Here is a chart showing the US and Canadian metros with the highest percentage of foreign-born residents:

  

  And here is a chart showing which metro areas receive the most venture capital dollars (in millions of US dollars):

  

  As to be expected, Toronto, Vancouver and Miami lead in terms of the percentage of foreign-born residents. Though, I would bet that Toronto’s foreign-born population is far more diverse than those of Vancouver and Miami.

  However, when you look at venture capital dollars invested, Toronto is nowhere near the top. Vancouver isn’t even on the list. And I suspect that some of you are surprised to see Miami sitting in between Chicago and Seattle (arguably a city that overperforms in tech relative to VC dollars invested). I was.

  Perhaps Trump will help with this by making Canada great again.

  2017.10.03

• Frais du toit

  This past summer, an IGA store in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough erected “the largest organic green roof garden in the country.” It is about 25,000 square feet and it has a soil depth of only 150mm. 

  They also claim that it’s the first supermarket in Canada to sell produce grown on the roof of the actual store. The brand: Frais du toit, or fresh from the roof. There’s even a livestream in the vegetable aisle showing you how the goods are doing overhead.

  I would be curious to know what their yields are like and what they are charging for the produce. But it’s certainly a praiseworthy initiative.

  Below is a quick video that will give you an idea of what the roof looks like. If you can’t see it, click here.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z69ScyHCfU&w=560&h=315]

  2017.09.30