Here in Canada, there is often a belief that Americans tend to be more mobile than Canadians. Don’t like the cold weather? Just move south. Taxes too high? Just move south. Housing too expensive? Just move south. But just how mobile is mobile? A new… Read More
Venture firm a16z just announced that it will be “moving its headquarters to the cloud.” At the same time, it announced 3 new offices in Miami Beach, New York, and Santa Monica. These will be in addition to their existing offices in Menlo Park and… Read More
I received an email from a reader over the weekend saying that my comments around rent control have been too critical, and that they are not doing proper justice to the challenges that renters face in today’s cities. I thought this was a fair comment… Read More
The headline sounds pretty promising: San Francisco is on the verge of abolishing single-family zoning, and will soon allow 4-plexes across the city and up to 6 units on corner lots. It is also clear recognition that, “hey, we have a housing problem and should… Read More
I just finished reading this article by Nellie Bowles about how San Francisco became a failed city. Here’s an excerpt that relates to housing supply: Consider the story of the flower farm at 770 Woolsey Street. It slopes down 2.2 acres in the sunny southern… Read More
So here’s the headline: More people are moving to Manhattan than before the pandemic. This is true. But an even more accurate description might be that New York City was losing people before the pandemic and it is still losing people. But things have rebounded… Read More
I haven’t seen this sort of data before and it’s an interesting way of looking at job access, transit connectivity, and overall built form: The above is a table from New Geography (using data from the University of Minnesota). And what it shows is how… Read More
This Twitter thread by UC Davis Law Professor, Chris Elmendorf, is a good reminder that there can be a meaningful difference between actual completed homes and zoned land that might one day becoming new housing. The point he makes is as follows: The state of… Read More
These are two short videos of autonomous Cruise vehicles driving around San Francisco. Cruise, which is owned by General Motors, received a permit from the state of California to operate autonomous vehicles — without a safety driver — in September of last year. In November… Read More
Some of you might remember my Jimmy the Greek Reopening Index. It has become my crude way of measuring office utilization in Toronto’s CBD. Based on this I can tell you that utilization is firmly up this week. Most lunch spots in Toronto’s PATH are… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 