One of the reasons why “new small-scale retail, service, and office uses” are now permitted in low-rise neighborhoods of Toronto — and why many are on to talking about these uses in our laneways — is because it’s a way to serve the “needs of… Read More
I love what Bright Moments is doing. And Fred Wilson’s post this morning — about their latest event in Mexico City — reminded me of that. Bright Moments describes themselves as “an NFT art collective on a mission to create environments where artists and collectors… Read More
I just discovered this set of maps (via Brian Potter) looking at the largest cities in the world from 100 CE all the way through to today (well 2015 CE). Here are what the two bookends of this map series look like: It is an… Read More
The below Twitter thread, initiated by Brent Toderian, is a great collection of some of the “best streets in the world.” QUESTION: What’s the BEST STREET you’ve ever come across, anywhere in the world? Use whatever way you choose to define “best!” Show the street,… Read More
Last year Nolan Gray mapped out “the cities of the world where you don’t need AC or heat.” And just recently he updated his data with the help of Guardian Cities for their “sweltering cities” series. As part of the study, they projected out average temperatures, in… Read More
Doug Saunders recently published a great piece in the Globe and Mail about the “the dead spaces between buildings” and the architectural revolution that is taking place from Mexico City to Toronto to solve this underappreciated problem. The example in Mexico City is that of the… Read More
The following diagrams were taken from LSE’s Urban Age website. I’ve sorted them from lowest to highest peak residential population density. In each case I’ve also included the year of the dataset. It’s amazing how much these simple extrusion diagrams can tell you about the… Read More
Every year the London-based property consultancy Knight Frank publishes something called The Wealth Report. And it’s one of those reports that I could go through for hours. It includes a ton of really fascinating stats that speak volumes about where in the world wealth is… Read More
In 1980, the last train ran on an elevated corridor on the west side of Manhattan known as the High Line. Originally built in the 1930s, the trucking industry had made these trains obsolete and service was halted. At this point, neighboring property owners began… Read More
One of the reasons I’m so fascinated by cities is that it’s becoming increasingly more important to get them right. From about 1831 to 1925, London was the largest city in the world. Its population went from somewhere around 1.5 to 2 million people to… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 