Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.
Once a year, I teach a session in Carleton University’s Certificate in Real Estate Development program. That once a year is coming up this Thursday, and so I’m spending today (Sunday morning) preparing for the class.
This is the third time I’ve participated. And my usual topic is to cover the complete condominium development process, provide commentary on what’s happening in the market, and then discuss how developers might best navigate whatever it is that’s going on.
These latter points are particularly important today. A lot has changed over the last year. In fact, you could rightly call it a real estate sea change.
This is the toughest market that I have had to face in my real estate career. 2008 was certainly bad. I couldn’t find work in the US at that time, or in Ireland where I had spent a summer working for a real estate firm. But I did manage to find work in Canada. Here, things didn’t feel quite so bad.
According to all the gray hairs, the early 90s recession was considerably worse. That was the really scary time in Canadian real estate. (See: Bay-Adelaide stump.) But already today, the comparisons have started: “This is feeling more like the early 90s than the GFC.”
It’s probably too early to really tell. But regardless, this downturn is going to mean problems for some, and opportunities for others.
I came across this stack of old Wallpaper city guides while reorganizing a few things over the weekend (because that’s what happens on the weekends now). They are pretty beat up and color faded from travel. It looks like these guides are still being published by Phaidon (along with an app), but it’s been well over a decade since I bought one.
I know the exact time period of the above books because I used to do really nerdy things like date and location stamp them when I got them. The Rome book was July 2007 and I picked it up in Dublin, while I was there working for a real estate developer before the global financial crisis. I also discovered old phone numbers and email addresses written inside of them. Usually it was a Hotmail address.
What I liked about these guides is that they were fairly condensed — good for a long weekend — and they were generally design-focused — perfect for architecture nerds like me. Their restaurant, bar, and club selections were also just fine as a jumping off point. After that it was up to you to make your own adventure.
I sent this photo to my friend Alex Feldman over the weekend — he also went without any sleep in Berlin — and he reminded me what it was like at this time. This was 2007. The first iPhone was just being released. Its map functionality was nowhere near what it is today (or didn’t exist). And I certainly didn’t have one. I had a Blackberry with a plastic wheel on the side. It was basically a giant pager.
To navigate a city at this time meant using a physical map. It also meant getting repeatedly lost and having to ask real people where to go. Alex also reminded me that I made him wander all around Berlin so that I could buy a new pair of glasses. What can I say, this was pre-laser Brandon and I needed cool architect glasses. They ended up being red.
As frustrating as this must have been at times, there’s something nice about traveling without knowing each and every step and without being able to summon an Uber at any point in time to take you exactly where you want to go. In fact, this is probably the central ingredient of all good travel: you need to allow yourself to be open to new experiences.
One of the great lessons of Anthony Bourdain was that you have to get out of your comfort zone. Cities have both highs and lows, but there’s real value and authenticity in the lows if you’re willing to engage beneath the surface. Perhaps that is the irony of old fashioned guide books in the pre-smartphone era. They were supposed to tell you exactly where to go, but they actually helped you find the opposite.
The only city that I never actually got around to visiting from the above stack is São Paulo. As you can tell, Brazil has been on my list for many years. I did make it to Rio de Janeiro a few years ago and São Paulo was supposed to be October 2020. But I’m pretty sure that trip will need to wait. Maybe I should leave my phone at home.
