Tag: ukraine

• Digitally twinning our cities

  Many of you have probably heard of the concept of a “digital twin.” Put simply, it is a digital representation of a physical thing. This could be a thing that already exists or, in the case of a new building, it could be a thing that you’re about to make exist.

  But there’s no reason to stop at the scale of a building. Right now, there are groups working on modeling entire cities. Sadly, in Ukraine, it is being done to document important buildings that could get destroyed. But in other places, it is being done in order to create a new kind of urban testing environment (via FT):

  “In the city, you don’t have a development environment; you only have one city. The laboratory is the place where the planners go to test. So test in a digital twin and then develop or implant in the city. That’s going to be the value.”

  The thinking is that if you combine a digital twin with good real-time urban data and AI, then you might actually be able to start testing new city building initiatives. For instance, maybe you could ask it: What would happen if we added a traffic lane, here? Would it actually help congestion or would it induce new demand?

  It’s hard to model this kind of stuff today, which is one of the reasons why there’s usually fierce debate about seemingly everything. But if we had accurate models that could tell us something close to reality, that feels like it would be a game changer for city builders.

  2024.02.21

• New KYIV city collection t-shirt

  

  

  

  At the beginning of this year, Globizen announced a new collection of city t-shirts. They have been very popular and we only have a few left from our original batch (which included some of the greatest places in the world: Toronto, Paris, and Park City). But we recently added a new city: Kyiv. This is obviously a really important one, and 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this shirt are going be used to support Ukraine. The plan is to allocate 50% to the Toronto Ukrainian Foundation, which has been helping displaced Ukrainians settle in Canada, and the balance to Ukraine directly (via cryptocurrencies).

  If this sounds good to you, click here.

  2022.07.08

• Price of carbon permits has fallen

  

  At the beginning of this year, I predicted that we would see the price of carbon continue to rise, and in particular the price of EU carbon permits. Well the year is still young but so far the opposite has been happening. Back in January, the price of EU carbon permits were hovering around €80 per tonne. Since Russia bullied its way into Ukraine at the end of February, this market has corrected and now hovers around €66 per tonne. Generally carbon prices tend to increase alongside energy prices, but the opposite dynamic is happening right now because of all of this geopolitical uncertainty. But over the long-term, I don’t believe that this will remain true. So this feels like possible mispricing to me. Climate change may be a relatively less important issue in Europe right now, but it’s not going away.

  Chart: Trading Economics

  2022.03.05

• Weekend link roundup — Ukraine and gas supply to Warren Buffet and Canadian housing supply

  I spent much of this morning reading about and listening to discussions about what’s happening in Ukraine and so, instead of a typical post this morning, I’m just going to share a mélange of links.

  • Monocle 24 Foreign Desk episode talking about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Speakers are Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko, former NATO chief Richard Shirreff, Russian journalist Ekaterina Kotrikadze, and Russia expert Mark Galeotti. I found this helpful in better understanding some of the dynamics at play here and what might happen going forward — though, of course, who knows. All of this is both deeply sad and frustrating. [Link]
  • Discussion in Bloomberg Green about the feasibility of the EU shutting off Russian gas right now, as opposed to through a protracted transition. Currently, the EU satisfies about 20% of its total energy needs through gas and about 40% of it comes from Russia. [Link] Also, a chart showing Russian natural gas exports, by destination. [Link]
  • Warren Buffet published his widely read annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders this weekend. He likes to deliver news like this on a Saturday so that people have time to digest it before the markets reopen on Monday. The overall message was one that we have heard before: BH has a lot of cash (~$144 billion to be exact) and they’re not finding very many compelling opportunities in which to deploy it. [Link]
  • To add to the above, here is a longish Q&A session with Buffet’s partner, Charlie Munger. He continues to be worried about excess money in the system and high inflation. [Link]
  • Construction has been recently completed on a Mies van der Rohe design from 1952 that had been forgotten and buried in some archives. Originally commissioned to be a fraternity house at Indiana University, the building is now the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. This is a supremely cool story, particularly for an architecture school. [Link]
  • Yet another simple example by Bobby Fijan on how highly restrictive zoning codes and design guidelines don’t always produce the end results that we might want. Different times and different contexts in this example. But it’s interesting to think about how best to promote design excellence in our cites. Is more creative market freedom the answer? [Link]
  • My friend Randy Gladman, who is senior vice-president of development advisory at Colliers here in Toronto, published an opinion piece in the Financial Post last week about the hidden costs of inclusionary zoning. It is consistent with the ad nauseam discussions that we have been having on this blog for the past few years, but it of course remains an important read. [Link]
  • Steve Pomeroy of Focus Consulting makes an argument in the Globe and Mail that elevated home prices in Canada isn’t primarily the result of a supply deficit. Using recent census data that allegedly shows that housing supply in Vancouver actually kept pace with demand (over how long of a period?), Pomeroy instead points to the other typical culprits: strong demand, low interest rates, unused homes owned by non-residents, and so on. This one likely deserves a dedicated post at some point. [Link]

  Ironically, the post turned out to be wordier than my usual ones.

  2022.02.26

• 🇺🇦

  

  Photo of Kyiv, Ukraine by Tanya Pro on Unsplash

  2022.02.24

• The Russian gas network

  

  

  Reuters recently published an extraordinary set of diagrams (here in this article) that help to explain the energy dynamics at play right now across Europe. Above are two examples. Among other things, the graphics show the various gas pipelines in use (or planned), which countries they flow through, their vintages, and ultimately who depends on who. It’s worth a read or, at the very least, a scroll through.

  2022.02.16