Tag: new york city

• Manhattan real estate prices during the Great Depression

  

  I was searching around trying to find data on long-term real estate prices and I came across a paper by Tom Nicholas and Anna Scherbina called, Real Estate Prices During the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression.

  Here are some stats about Manhattan real estate (from the paper) that you all might find interesting:

  – In 1930, Manhattan housed 1.5% of the US population, but had approximately 4% of all US real estate wealth.

  – To construct their price indices the authors randomly collected 30 real estate transactions per month in Manhattan between 1920 and 1939. The mean price per square foot in 1929 was $6.91 (year of Black Tuesday). And the mean price per square foot in 1939 – 10 years later – was $2.29.

  – Buildings containing a store at grade tended to sell at higher prices. The authors speculate that this could be because a zoning change in 1916 made it difficult to open stores in “residential” areas.

  – Buildings with three, four and five storeys tended to sell at a discount. Six storeys or higher and the buildings generally had an elevator, which resulted in higher pricing.

  – Manhattan real estate prices reached their highest level in Q3-1929 before falling 67% by 1932. Prices remained more or less flat during the Great Depression.

  – If you bought a “typical property” in 1920, it would have retained only 56% of its value (in nominal dollars) by 1939. In fact, it took until 1960 for assessed property values in Manhattan to exceed their pre-Depression pricing.

  – An investment in the stock market index during this same time period, 1920-1939, would have outperformed real estate by a factor of 5.2x.

  Much of this probably seems hard to believe given the market today. Imagine waiting 40 years for the value of your property to come back.

  Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

  2017.11.26

• The worst on-time performance of any major transit system in the world

  I was recently with some New Yorkers and we got on to the topic of their subway system. I made a comment about how extensive their network is and how their express trains work so well for traveling further distances. 

  They responded by basically saying: “Yeah, it’s great, when it works.” They then went on to tell me that most of the time they just use Uber to get around the city because the subway has become so unreliable.

  Admittedly, I don’t use the NYC subway system enough to comment on its declining performance. But this recent New York Times article describes it as an utterly failing system.

  Here is a diagram from the article that shows performance on every line (2007 to 2017), measured as a percentage of trains that reach their destinations on time (i.e. less than 5 minutes late):

  

  In 2007, more than 90% of trains reached their destinations on time. Today, the weekday average is around 65% and some of the lines are in the 30s. This is the worst it has been since the 1970s when NYC was almost bankrupt.

  Apparently this also awards NYC’s subway the title of the worst on-time performance out of the world’s top 20 biggest systems.

  I suppose one of the lessons here is that subway lines on a map will always be far sexier than the nuts and bolts of maintenance, performance, and ridership. But we can’t forget the nuts and bolts. Maybe those are the most important parts.

  2017.11.23

• 738,000 single-family homes were built last year in the US

  The New York Times recently published “a portrait of new single-family homes” in the US in 2016. Here’s that portrait:

  

  For those of those living in dense urban centers, this portrait is perhaps a reminder that in many other places a large single-family home can be had for about the price of a studio apartment.

  Nothing in the above portrait likely surprised you, but it’s interesting to note that over half of all new single family homes delivered last year were in “The South.” Only 7% were built in the dense northeast.

  The New York Times also recently looked at “international rents per square foot” using data from RentCafe. Here they are:

  

  New York City sits at the top with an average rent of $4.98 psf. This is across all boroughs. I am surprised by how low some of these international rents are. But averages rarely tell you the whole story.

  In any event, I do think that these two graphics start to speak to the economic spikiness that we are seeing across the US. 

  2017.10.29

• Singapore just capped vehicle growth at 0%

  When I was in New York a few weeks ago, my friend (a New Yorker) said to me that he couldn’t imagine owning a car (he used to but got rid of it with zero remorse). He then elaborated on all of the nuisances that driving in the city produces.

  There are parts of Toronto where you can feel similarly. I feel fortunate to live in one of those parts. Of course, there are other parts of this city where the exact opposite is true. It’s inconvenient not to have a car. These are typically areas where lower land costs have been exchanged for higher transportation costs.

  The City of Toronto has a land area of approximately 630 square kilometers. If that’s all the land we had (the metro area is almost 6,000 square kilometers), you can bet we would think about land use and transportation a bit differently.

  Take for instance, Singapore, a city-state with an area of approximately 719 square kilometers. The Land Transport Authority estimates that 12% of the republic’s total land area is taken up by roads.

  Because of this, they just announced that they have lowered their vehicle growth rate (for cars and motorcycles) from 0.25% per annum to 0% effective February 2018. They can do this through their Certificate of Entitlement (COE) quota. And it won’t be revisited until 2020.

  Put differently: No more cars and motorcycles until, maybe, 2020.

  2017.10.25

• Amazon orange

  This week (Thursday) was the deadline to submit proposals for Amazon HQ2. About 100 cities across North America are thought to have a bid in. 

  New York lit up every single landmark in the city with “Amazon orange” in an “embarrassing attempt” to try and win this thing. That’s how bad cities want this.

  I already think that Toronto has won an incredible prize with Sidewalk Toronto. Arguably, it may turn out to be more impactful to this city than Amazon HQ2. It’s an opportunity to define the future of, not just this city, but all cities. It’s an opportunity to lead.

  At the same time, I continue to believe that there’s no better place for Amazon HQ2 than here in Toronto. Not surprisingly, our bid emphasized the point that I’ve been hammering home on this blog since Amazon first announced the RFP. Toronto’s key competitive advantage: talent. 

  Below is an excerpt from the submission cover letter. The entire letter emphasizes our ability to grow, attract, and retain top talent.

  Thirty-nine percent of the Toronto Region—and 51% of Toronto proper—are born outside of Canada. We welcome more new immigrants each year than New York, LA, and Chicago combined. We speak over 180 languages and dialects. Toronto is heralded as the most multicultural city in the world, and our labour force and economy benefit directly from our diversity and inclusivity. We build doors, not walls. And those doors open to highly-skilled economic immigrants and international students who can easily become permanent residents and citizens.

  For the full Toronto region submission, click here. 

  Okay, enough about Sidewalk Labs and Amazon. Regular scheduled programming will resume on the blog starting tomorrow.

  2017.10.20

• 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

• 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

• 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

• The first North American night mayor

  

  With Mirik Milan (Night Mayor of Amsterdam) speaking at the upcoming NXT City Symposium here in Toronto, I figured it was time to revisit the topic of night mayors. If you’re new to this topic and/or the blog, you can get yourself up to speed here (scroll down).

  Firstly, this idea is clearly spreading and it just crossed the pond. Last month on August 24, 2017, New York City Council voted to create the “Office of Nightlife.” It’s a small start. The office will have an annual budget of $300,000. But that’s okay.

  As far as I know, NYC is now the first major North American city with government humans focused on leveraging the benefits of the nightlife industry.

  For the record, my post “Why Toronto needs a night mayor” was published in March 2016. It was obvious that the idea was already spreading throughout Europe and I was hoping that this city (Toronto) take notice and decide to lead within North America. New York City decided to do that instead.

  Secondly, CityLab published an article today called how to be a good night mayor. It is about what NYC can learn from the European cities who are already experimenting with this kind of office. Perhaps my favorite is the recommendation to “reflect your own city’s DNA.”

  Of course, having a night mayor is one thing. Making it highly effective is another. In that regard, it is still early days for North American night mayors, and night mayors in general. Who will truly lead?

  Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

  2017.09.26

• One hour drive

  I’m taking next week off so that I can respond to emails from various places in Ontario and Quebec instead of from my desk. The out of office messages really fly at this time of year, so it’s usually a pretty good time to try for a recharge.

  Because of that, this post feels appropriate. 

  Sahil Chinoy of the Washington Post recently looked at anonymous cell phone and vehicle data (from Here Technologies) to see how far you could drive in one hour if you were trying to escape the downtown of various U.S. cities on a Friday afternoon in the summer.

  This exercise was done for 3 departure times on July 28, 2017: 4pm, 7pm and 10pm. The mappings all leverage 3 years of historical speed data.

  Here is a first set of maps showing a few cities in the northeast and in the mid-atlantic. Every city is shown at the same scale so that they can be easily compared.

  

  And here is a second set of maps showing a few, more car-oriented, cities.

  

  Not surprisingly, older transit-oriented cities like New York don’t do well in this contest. No matter what time you leave, it’s hard to make it past 30 miles. Whereas in the case of Vegas, it doesn’t really matter what time you leave. You should be able to clear 50 miles.

  That’s the other interesting thing to note about these maps – the spread between distances at the various times.

  I’m sharing these because I’m a sucker for diagrams, but I don’t think they tell the whole story. The modal splits and the population and employment densities are all very different across these cities. New York’s core competency is in moving lots of people in trains, not in cars.

  Although, perhaps the ironic thing about these diagrams is that a tighter drive radius might actually say something about how efficiently land is being used.

  2017.08.19