When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, we know this: Households in denser neighborhoods close to city centers tend to be responsible for fewer planet-warming greenhouse gases, on average, than households in the rest of the country. Residents in these areas typically drive less because… Read More
This is a great diagram from Smart Density comparing the urban and regional rail networks of Toronto, London, and Paris. All are at the same scale. What immediately stands out to me — besides Toronto’s relatively miniscule network — is Paris’ compactness. I have said… Read More
I love change. In fact, a big part of what I do for a living is imagining what things could be in the future. However, the bias that humans have toward the status quo has been well documented by people like Seth Godin, as well… Read More
Density, which is a company that provides occupancy-tracking sensors, announced this week that it has just completed a $125 million funding round at a ~$1 billion valuation. This is their Series D. Official announcements, here and here. On a practical level, the company provides workplace… Read More
Building height and density are not one and the same. You can have tall buildings configured in a low-density way (think post-war towers in the park). And you can have low/mid-rise buildings configured in a high-density way (think Paris and Barcelona). This is one of… Read More
One of the reasons why I remain so bullish on cities is because we know that new ideas disproportionately come from cities (typically big and dense ones). Matt Clancy does an excellent job of explaining this in a recent post. In it, he cites a… Read More
Here are a few interesting stats from a brief report that New York City published this month about their supply of new housing units: From January 1, 2010 to June 30, 2020, New York City delivered 205,994 net new housing units across the five boroughs.… Read More
Back in March and April, there was a belief that big and dense cities were going to pose a serious problem in the fight against COVID-19. The narrative was that the benefits of urban density suddenly flip to glaring negatives during a pandemic. Elevators are… Read More
Azeem Azhar’s recent newsletter, titled “Don’t call time on the megacity: cities will learn and adapt,” is a reminder of the tensions that cities face. There are forces of attraction. And there are also forces of repulsion. Cities all around the world continue to create… Read More
Harvard economist Edward Glaeser has a new paper out talking about “urbanization and its discontents.” In it, he argues that while cities today are working remarkably well for highly skilled people, they don’t seem to be delivering the same upward mobility to lower skilled people.… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 