Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: snowboarding

  • 10th annual

    It is that time of year again.

    For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, you’ll know that every year around this time I go on a snowboarding/ski trip with groups of friends that I went to grad school with and/or grew up with.

    We have been doing this for a decade now. Last year we were in Jackson, Wyoming (my favorite place so far). And this year we are in Austria.

    Here is a photo that I took — of paradise — this afternoon:

    I’m not sure there’s anything to say after a photo like this. So I’ll leave it at that. See you tomorrow.

  • Change, somewhere else

    I went snowboarding today. As always it was a lot of fun. If only Toronto had mountains.

    Here is a Canadian video about snowboarding from 1985 that, I think, does an excellent job demonstrating how resistant to change we humans can sometimes be.

    The video sure sounds silly today, but it probably didn’t in 1985. It aired on the CBC.

    I am writing this post on my iPad and there doesn’t appear to be a way to embed the video. The Tumblr app isn’t great. So all you’re getting today is a link.

  • Homes built in the past year

    I’m on a flight right now reading the latest issue of Monocle Magazine in a seat that barely accommodates the length of my femur. This month’s issue has their annual ranking of the top 25 cities in the world.

    Munich is first, which is not unusual for their ranking methodology. It generally scores well. Quality of life is high. Crime is low. The economy is strong. Beer gardens are fun. And you’re close to the Alps for snowboarding.

    One stat that caught my attention — and it’s not included for all of the cities — is the number of homes built in the past year. Presumably this is all housing units in the metro area — for sale, for rent, subsidized and so on.

    Here are their (clearly rounded) numbers. The order is as they appeared in the ranking, but again, not ever city included this stat.

    • Munich: 8,300
    • Tokyo: 150,000
    • Copenhagen: 5,000
    • Berlin: 11,000
    • Madrid: 1,600
    • Hamburg: 7,000
    • Melbourne: 5,100
    • Helsinki 4,400
    • Stockholm: 7,000 (18,000 in Greater Stockholm)
    • Sydney: 39,000
    • Hong Kong 17,000
    • Vancouver 22,600
    • Amsterdam 5,100
    • Kyoto 8,900
    • Dusseldorf 2,600
    • Barcelona 1,000

    Some of these numbers appear to stand out, such as the counts for Tokyo, Sydney and maybe Vancouver. But it’s hard to draw any conclusions around housing supply and housing affordability.

    Melbourne and Amsterdam allegedly have the same number of homes built over the past year, but according to Monocle the metro areas of Melbourne and Amsterdam have populations of 4.85 million and 2.4 million, respectively. This also says nothing about their growth rates.

    So which one is doing a better job of addressing housing demand? I’m not sure.

    But it was still interesting to see that Tokyo delivers somewhere around 150,000 homes a year. Tokyo is somewhat unique globally in that it’s a big city — one of the biggest — that somehow manages to gracefully balance both scale and quality of life.

    Photo by Elias Keilhauer on Unsplash

  • What’s your favorite Olympic winter sport?

    The 2018 Winter Olympics start this Friday, February 9 in PyeongChang, South Korea. Unlike the past couple of winter games, which struggled with warm temperatures, this should be a cold one.

    The Winter Olympics tend to be less popular than the Summer Olympics, with fewer athletes and countries participating. 207 countries participated in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but only 88 countries participated in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. A big part of this has to do with the fact that winter sports generally require winter and snow and not every country has those things.

    I like the Winter Olympics. And perhaps not surprisingly, my favorite sport is snowboarding. This year I’m really rooting for Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris. If you don’t know who Mark is, watch this short video. He has had a tough time over the years with a number of serious injuries, but he managed to bounce back and qualify for the Olympics. He won bronze in Sochi and is hungry for gold.

    The Olympics are always a good reminder that if you want to be the best, you’re going to have to be prepared to work beyond hard and make many many sacrifices in your life. And even then, there are absolutely no guarantees. 

    So what’s your favorite Olympic winter sport?

  • 9th annual

    Delta: “Final destination today?”

    Me: “Jackson.”

    Delta: “Ooohh, everyone is going to Jackson today!”

    Me: “That’s because they’ve been getting a lot of snow.”

    It’s that time of year again. I’m at the airport right now about to leave for my annual retreat to the mountains. 

    If you know me or you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I’ve been doing this every year at roughly the same time for almost a decade. Next year will be our 10th “annual”, so that likely means we’ll have to ratchet things up a bit.

    Jackson Hole received 6″ of fresh powder last night and the weather forecast for this week is filled with even more snow. However, I think we may stay off Corbet’s Couloir. (Whatever you do, don’t click-through.)

    Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow. If you need to reach me, you know how. There never seems to be a good time to be out of the office, but traditions are traditions, right?

  • Class action litigation filed against GoPro

    Snowboarding season is starting late for me this year. But that doesn’t mean it will be any less epic. So far this season Jackson Hole has had 221″ of snow.

    This year I’m introducing a GoPro gimbal stabilizer into the mix. Here is a good example video of the difference a stabilizer makes – buttery smooth video footage. I am a big nerd when it comes to gear and tech, and I guess many other things as well.

    But judging by GoPro’s stock right now and the cliff it fell off of at the beginning of this month, I may be in the minority when it comes to worrying about buttery smooth snowboarding videos.

    Sales over the holiday season were disappointing and they recently announced that they’re discontinuing the Karma drone. GoPro is now said to be shopping for a buyer.

    Part of the problem may be their narrow action sports use case. When I’m on a mountain, I love my GoPro gear. But when I’m not snowboarding, I struggle to find consistent value in it. We all just use our phones to capture photo and video.

    To make matters worse, class action litigation was recently filed against GoPro, and the company’s CEO and CFO. Investors are claiming that they failed to disclose, among other things, that demand for the GoPro brand had declined dramatically.

    Who do you think would be a good buyer for GoPro?

  • Saying no to “Mountain Modern”

    Jackson, Wyoming is one of my favorite places on the planet. (Here is a ski/snowboard video that my friends and I made a few years ago in Jackson.)

    Earlier this year, Eagle Point Hotel Partners and the Brooklyn-based design firm Studio Tack completed a renovation of the Anvil Motel in Jackson – it’s now the 49-room Anvil Hotel. 

    Apparently reclaimed motels are the new hospitality trend.

    What I appreciate about their approach, is the emphasis on creating something that feels local and contextual. Here are a couple of snippets from Surface Magazine:

    The designers wanted to avoid a rustic feel, or what Ruben Caldwell, one of Studio Tack’s four partners and an avid backcountry skier, calls “Mountain Modern,” referring to architecture, common in places like Vail, Colorado, and Lake Tahoe, California, that excessively uses reclaimed wood and Cor-Ten steel. “We knew we didn’t want to steer anywhere near that,” says Chou, a long-time snowboarder who more recently got into skiing. “It takes a bit of familiarity with ski towns to know what you don’t want to do.”

    The vibrancy of Jackson’s local culture impressed the design team—and Caldwell so much so that he moved there full-time last year. “As a design team,” Caldwell says, “we’re hyper-aware of the need for projects to be deeply embedded into the local scene.”

    It’s easier to copy and paste. But the results are always better when you take a bit of time to understand a place. 

    Image: Anvil Hotel

  • Probably the greatest life experience

    I’m in Whistler right now and I went heliboarding for the first time yesterday. It had been on my bucket list for maybe 10 years and so it feels fantastic to check it off. 

    Here’s what I can tell you: WOW. It did not disappoint. 

    It was easily one of the greatest life experiences I have ever had. We also got lucky with a crystal clear bluebird day.

    I don’t do many photoblog posts here on this blog, but I’m going to do one today, because I think the occasion demands it. But of course, even these photos don’t do the experience any justice.

    View from the helicopter:

    View over the pilot’s shoulder as we were about to land:

    Sampling of the terrain and conditions:

    Shot of our helicopter when we broke for lunch:

    Greatest turns:

    I also posted a video of the above to my Instagram.

    Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.

  • Snowboarding day

    Today was a snowboarding day. It was also the first day that I used my new (totally obnoxious) 40″ selfie stick. Note: It wasn’t fully extended for the above photo.

    Internet access and time has been pretty scarce, so there won’t be much of a post today, which actually seems appropriate given yesterday’s post about being so busy. 

    See you all tomorrow.

  • Merry Christmas

    Merry Christmas everyone! And, thank you all for reading this past year.

    I just checked into an Airbnb in Mont-Tremblant, Québec and will be spending the next few days here with family and friends. I’ve also brought along some of my favorite wines (see above) and, obviously, my snowboard.

    Hopefully that wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, that you’re with family and/or friends. I know that this time of year can be lonely for some people when things quiet down. So hopefully you have good people to spend it with.