Tag: new york

• The 2013 Anholt-GfK City Brands Index

  When most people think of brands, I suspect that they think of companies, products and services. But what about the brand of your city? As cities continue to compete for talent in the global economy, brand is becoming a hugely important differentiator.

  I just stumbled upon the Anholt-GfK City Brands Index and here’s their 2013 ranking:

  1. London
  2. Sydney
  3. Paris
  4. New York
  5. Rome
  6. Washington D.C.
  7. Los Angeles
  8. Toronto
  9. Vienna
  10. Melbourne

  The study looks at 6 key dimensions: presence, place, pre-requisites, people, pulse and potential.

  What do you think of the above list?

  Here’s a bit more information on how the index was prepared:

  “The Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index measures the image of 50 cities based on more than 50 questions related to perceptions of their Presence, Place, Pre-requisite, People, Pulse and Potential.  For the 2013 study, a total of 5,144 interviews were conducted in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.  Adults age 18 or over who are online are interviewed in each country.  Using the most up-to-date online population parameters, the achieved sample in each country has been weighted to reflect key demographic characteristics including age, gender, and education of the online population in that country.  Fieldwork was conducted from May 8th to May 23rd, 2013.”

  2013.11.30

• The Toronto font

  Susan Kare was the screen graphics and font designer for the original Apple Macintosh computer in the 1980s. Being from Philadelphia’s affluent Main Line, she initially proposed that the various fonts be named after the railroad stops along it.

  However, when Steve Jobs asked where the names had came from, he contested that, if the fonts were to be named after cities, they should be named after “world-class cities”, rather than small ones that nobody had ever heard of.

  

  And since that’s what Jobs wanted, that’s what Jobs got. The fonts were renamed: Venice, London, Athens, Toronto, Chicago, New York and Geneva. Some of these font names you’ll probably still recognize but some, including Toronto, were eventually abandoned. 

  The Toronto font was removed from System 6 onwards. So from 1988 onwards.

  2013.11.26

• Closing the homeownership affordability gap

  Through TAS, I’m involved in an affordable homeownership seminar at Ryerson University. The goal of the semester is to develop a comprehensive policy document for how best to deliver affordable homeownership units in Ontario. 

  The students are still working on their final report, but I wanted share one thought that came to mind as I was reviewing the draft.

  As a first step, I think the question of affordability needs to begin with a broader look at the market rate housing market. Have we optimized for the delivery of new housing or are we operating in a state of perpetual supply deficits?

  The reason for this question is that—as I’ve written before—I subscribe to Edward Glaeser’s argument that easing housing regulation and increasing supply can go a long way to broadly improving housing affordability. It won’t make New York as affordable as suburban Houston (Glaeser says), but it will help to avoid some of the outrageous pricing that can occur in severely supply constrained markets like San Francisco.

  Once this has been addressed, it then comes down to deciding how you want to make up the shortfall. If you want to provide housing below its costs (the market rate), somebody is going to have to pay for the difference. However, if you’ve optimized around the market rate, it means that the required subsidies should be less than they otherwise would have been. This makes it more cost effective for governments, or whoever else is providing the subsidy.

  So my point is to not take the market conditions as a given when looking at affordability. Are there structural changes that could be made to improve affordability more broadly?

  There’s certainly no easy answer, but it’s an important discussion to be having. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

  2013.11.22

• Urban bifurcation

  In light of Bill de Blasio being elected yesterday as the new mayor of New York City, I thought I would post this interesting graphic I found on Atlantic Cities:

  

  What it shows is a clear split.

  If you live in Manhattan or nearby areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, you most likely saw your property values rise from 2008 to 2012. However, if you live on the outskirts of the city, you may have seen your property values fall as much as 20% (the darkest red areas).

  This shift back to city centers has been well documented and labeled, by some, as The Great Inversion. But in many ways it’s a symptom of a greater phenomenon at work: rising income inequality.

  It’s happening in New York. It’s happening in Toronto. And in many other global cities. New York VC Fred Wilson believes that the solution lies in the three Es: education, empowerment and entrepreneurship. That sounds like a great start to me.

  2013.11.06

• Express trains

  A lot of people love New York. They love it for the culture, the nightlife, the shopping, the opportunities, as well as for many other reasons. And these are all great reasons. But being the city geek that I am, there’s another reason I think New York is great: express trains.

  Broadly speaking express trains are simply trains that run faster than other trains on a network. In the case of New York, there are express trains and local trains. The latter stop at every station and the former typically just stop at major transfer points.

  To make this all work, the New York system uses a 4 track system. There are 2 tracks headed in each direction with the local train on the outside track and the express train on the inner track. On stations where the express trains stop, the 2 tracks split from each other and the platform sits in the middle so that you can switch across the platform from express to local (and vice versa).

  The benefit of express trains is obvious. It makes it significantly faster to travel long distances. And it makes, in a lot of cases, taking the subway the fastest alternative. That’s how transit should be.

  2013.11.05

• Why I like Porter and the island airport

  I’m going to New York City tonight. I’ll be flying Porter from the island airport. And I’ll probably walk there.

  I’m a big fan of Porter and, while I’ve noticed some minor slippage over the last few years, it’s still one of the best flying experiences in the city.

  But the island airport has always been a contentious subject. Stopping a bridge to the island was a fundamental part of our last mayor’s original election campaign.

  Today the contentiousness is around expanding the airport so that it flies further using “jets.” Primarily people appear concerned about noise and that the runway will need to be expanded out and into Lake Ontario to a certain extent.

  As someone who lives along the waterfront, I really don’t share the same concerns.

  For one, the “whisper jets” are supposed to produce the same amount of noise as the current fleet, which don’t bother me in the least. I hear yappy dogs barking more than I hear planes.

  Secondly, I think the island airport is fantastic from an economic development standpoint. If we were in Europe, Toronto would have high speed rail connections to New York City, Montreal, and other cities.

  But it’s not Europe and we don’t have those rail lines. What we do have though is short haul flights from the island which, similarly, allow people to leave the city from downtown.

  This may not seem like a big deal, but an extra hour can mean the difference been making and missing a morning meeting or whether your trip needs to be overnight or not.

  If you’re against the expansion, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. Debate is important.

  2013.11.01

• Paul Reichmann, dead at 83

  This past Friday, Paul Reichmann passed away in Toronto. He was 83. For those in the real estate business, Paul was a legend. He was the developer behind landmark office projects such as First Canadian Place in Toronto, World Financial Center in New York and Canary Wharf in London.

  He was the man behind Olympia & York, which by the late 80s was one of the largest real estate development firms in the world, making the Reichmann family the 7th richest family in the world. Their net worth reached $12.8 billion at its peak. In 1990 they owned 8% of New York’s commercial office space. This was more than twice as much as the Rockefellers.

  But what makes the Reichmann story so fascinating is the beginning and end of it.

  Paul was born in Vienna, but his family fled the Nazis and came to Toronto like many others at the time. He and his brothers setup a tiling company called Olympia Tile and its this business that eventually led them into real estate. 

  Paul became known for taking on huge risks. He believed firmly in the principles of risk and reward.

  I remember when I was at Penn hearing stories about Olympia & York from the Dean at the time, Gary Hack (a Canadian). He used to tell us about the phenomenal amounts of leverage that O&Y used to take on in order to scale.

  But ultimately it was this leverage that brought them down. In 1992, Olympia & York went bankrupt and the family was left with a net worth of less than $100 million. Still a great sum of money, but nowhere near the $12.8 billion they once had. The New York Times called it “one of the most astonishing financial collapses in history.”

  But in many ways, this is not an uncommon developer story. Real estate development is risky. And Paul did eventually rebuild. Not to where he was before, but he did come back. He became Chairman of Canary Wharf in London and went on to develop the tallest tower in Latin America.

  Last week Toronto lost one of its most prolific real estate minds. Paul was also largely part of an era that no longer exists. The real estate business in the 80s wasn’t as institutionalized as it is today. It was filled with larger than life individuals, such as Paul, taking on huge personal risks. It must have been an exciting time to be in real estate.

  Thanks for everything you’ve done for Toronto, Paul.

  2013.10.27

• Toronto needs a consistent taxi brand

  For the sake of our global brand, Toronto taxis need to have a consistent brand – the same car, the same colour. I’ve thought about this before and written about it somewhere, but it’s worth repeating.

  I was driving around downtown on Saturday night and I started to compare the ratio of cabs to non-cabs on the road. As is typical for any weekend night, most of the cars were cabs. And yet they’re a complete hodgepodge of different car types and colours.

  The cab companies, of course, like it this way. They want to be differentiated. But from a practical standpoint, does this even matter? Sure, I might call a specific company to pick me up somewhere, but when I’m hailing a cab on the street I go for the first available car. I couldn’t care less what company it is. 

  The result of this heterogeneity though is that we’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to brand our city. New York has its yellow cabs, London has its black cabs and all of Germany has its beige Mercedes Benzes. In our psyche, those cars symbolize those cities.

  Just like companies, cities today compete with one another for talent and capital. It’s been said many times before that the vast majority of Millenials now choose where they want to live (which city) before they even start looking for a job. Toronto needs to be on the top of that last.

  Taxi branding may seem like a small detail, but it’s not. As a comparison, take for example the Shangri-La Hotel company. The first time I stayed at one of their hotels was in Vancouver. I remember asking one of the staff members about the fragrance that seemed to permeate the entire building.

  He told me that it was the “Essence of Shangri-La” and that it was actually diffused throughout the entire building, as well as around the perimeter. The purpose of this was to give global travels a familiar feeling – that feeling of being home – wherever they are in the world. Now that’s consistent branding.

  Similarly, being in Toronto should make you feel like you’re here and in no other city. Our lumbering streetcars certainly help with that, but our cabs don’t. In a time where globalization is making cities feel more and more alike, we need to be doing everything we can in order to differentiate.

  Hell, in addition to having the same car and colour, maybe we should even create an Essence of Toronto scent for our cabs.

  2013.10.21

• Highrise

  A friend of mine recently told me about a documentary that he thought I’d like. It’s called Highrise. And it’s an exploration of vertical living around the world.

  But it’s not your typical documentary. It’s a multi-year, multi-media documentary that I’m still in the midst of exploring. There’s videos, interactive web documentaries, blog posts and other stuff planned.

  If you’re interested in highrise buildings and cities, you can start here and here on the New York Times’ website.

  2013.10.19

• Is Hong Kong’s transit model exportable?

  Hong Kong’s MTR (Mass Transit Railway Company) is one of the most profitable transit systems in the world. Rider fares amount to roughly 186% of its operating costs.

  In comparison, Toronto recovers about 70% of its operating costs from fares and New York recovers 57%. This means that in the latter two cases, government subsidies are required to keep the systems in operation.

  On top of this, Hong Kong relies on a unique “rail plus property” model, meaning that they also use the profits from real estate development activities to fund transit expansion. Here’s more on how it works:

  “In a value capture scheme, MTR is granted low-cost land around its future stations [from the government]. It then develops the land and uses the profits to pay for system expansion. Through this system, MTR has managed to build subways and elevated rail lines throughout the islands that make up Hong Kong, largely paying its own way.”

  Overall, this seems to make a lot of sense. Which begs the question, could this model – specifically “rail plus property” – be exported to other cities?

  NextCity asked this question with respect to New York, but came up with 3 problems: first, New York has an operating shortfall, unlike Hong Kong; second, New York doesn’t have the same amount of government owned land; and third, construction costs are way higher in NYC.

  The first thing that comes to my mind is, why are Toronto and New York so bad at farebox recovery? Our infrastructure is not self sustaining; we’re reliant on government handouts.

  Looking at fare pricing, there’s a big difference between the cities. Hong Kong charges based on distance traveled, whereas Toronto and New York charge a flat rate. Intuitively, dynamic pricing makes sense, since you’re then able to capture shorter rides that would otherwise be replaced by walking (or other alternatives) and you capture more value during longer rides.

  The other big difference is the hyper density of Hong Kong, since we know there’s a correlation between urban density and transit ridership. I would assume that the demand for most of their rail lines is fairly high. And it’s for this exact reason that I’m opposed to the new Scarborough subway line here in Toronto. Building subways in areas of the city without the densities to support it will only exacerbate our farebox recovery problem.

  As for the other two points regarding government land and high construction costs, I have to believe that there’s a way to create a “rail plus property” model that circumvents these concerns.

  For one, why does it have to be government land? Could we not reward developers with additional density if they build a subway station in the basement of their new building or contribute to a transit fund? The city already allows additional density near subway stations. Why not do the same for locations where we simply want a station?

  Transit is too important not to get right. I hope Toronto will soon understand that.

  2013.10.02