Perhaps the two most distinctive features of Montreal’s low-rise architectural landscape are (1) lots of exterior stairs and (2) lots of balconies. (Their density is, of course, also noteworthy, particularly in a North American context.) The exterior stairs are somewhat curious to outsiders given all… Read More
I love High Park. It’s the second largest green space in the City of Toronto and right beside the Junction neighborhood. But there are some problems. Despite having a subway line on its northern boundary, we’ve gotten the built form along its edges all wrong.… Read More
The Globe and Mail published an interesting article this weekend talking about how Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, is the only major city in Canada to have lost people in the last census. Here are the population changes for the top 10 largest municipalities in… Read More
This event poster has reminded me that, every now and then, I probably need to pull out a cooler headshot. In any event, next week I’m going to be a guest on SvNSpeaks, along with John Lorinc, talking about the obstacles that overly prescriptive and… Read More
The great housing debate continues: Are we building enough housing, or are we not? Right now the media is talking about a new report from the Union of B.C. Municipalities, which is claiming that cities in British Columbia are actually building enough housing to keep… Read More
Statistics Canada has started releasing some of the results from its 2021 survey and there is a new classification that is now being used in its analysis of Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). Instead of organizing city regions jurisdictionally, it is now using a new functional… Read More
I spent much of this morning reading about and listening to discussions about what’s happening in Ukraine and so, instead of a typical post this morning, I’m just going to share a mélange of links. Monocle 24 Foreign Desk episode talking about Russia’s invasion of… Read More
If you are a longtime reader of this blog, you’ll know that I am a supporter of road pricing. I believe it’s the only way to realistically solve the problem of traffic congestion and I believe that underpricing roads (such as not charging for them)… Read More
Alex Bozikovic of the Globe and Mail recently made a good point in one of his articles about how challenging it is to properly “placemake” when it comes to large-scale masterplanned projects. This blog post is not at all intended as a commentary on any… Read More
I love mid-rise buildings. I think they are an incredibly livable scale of housing, which is why I am looking forward to moving into Junction House when we begin occupancies next year. But as we have talked about many times before on the blog, the… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 