Here is an interesting set of maps (from this study) showing density trends, population trends, and residential area trends (i.e. sprawl), across Europe between 2006-2012 and 2012-2018: The key takeaway is that, broadly speaking, there is — or at least there was five years ago… Read More
I am at my most creative when I’m in the same room with other people and we are bouncing ideas around. There’s a compounding effect that takes place. One person says something and that then triggers a new idea. I find the whole experience very… Read More
As many of you know, I have been keeping a close eye on the pedestrian-only pilot that is currently underway on Market Street. And judging from all the engagement that my tweets usually get, a lot of you would love to see a lot more… Read More
This is an interesting way of seeing rental housing rents (national scale). And there’s a lot that you can glean from a mapping like this. But it’s also interesting in that what you are seeing here is a visualization of some 11 million Craigslist rental… Read More
So slime mold, which is a fungus-like single-celled organism, has a tendency to build highly optimized networks across its food sources. In other words, if you scattered a bunch of food on a surface and then dropped in some slime mold, it would naturally create… Read More
There is a commonly held view that short-term rentals (such as the ones you might find on platforms like Airbnb) are bad for housing affordability because they take long-term rentals out of the market and they help to drive up property values. And there’s evidence… Read More
A Pigovian tax is a tax on market activities that produce some kind of negative externality for society. The basic idea behind the tax is to try and use it to correct something that is happening, but that isn’t all that desirable. Examples of negative… Read More
We know that innovation and economic growth tends to be unevenly distributed. This is the bull case for living in cities and, more particularly, for living in certain cities. But of course, the big question these days is whether or not our little work from… Read More
We know that educational attainment is probably the single biggest determinant of urban economic success. If you’re hoping to predict average household incomes, looking at the percentage of the population with a 4-year college degree is a pretty good place to start. But let’s take… Read More
Here is an interesting study about personalities and places (Journal article here and study here). It is interesting because so many of us are working from home and away from our regular environments. But it is also interesting because a lot of us, here on… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 