Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Brandon DonnellyTesla to open (a portion of) its charging network to all EVs
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Brandon DonnellyTesla to open (a portion of) its charging network to all EVs
The current electric vehicle plan in the US is to build a national network of 500,000 chargers and have EVs make up at least 50% of new car sales by 2030. (Here's where we are today with adoption.) To this end, a big announcement was made today that included lots of public funding, a Made-in-America agenda, and lots of other goodies. But perhaps the two most important points are that (1) Tesla has, for the first time, agreed to open a portion of its charging network to non-Tesla EVs (so that it can gain access to the new $7.5 billion EV charging initiative) and (2) there is a requirement for all of the station connectors to use the "combined charging system" (CCS). I'm not a connector expert but, in my mind, this is both exciting and directionally right. To fully transition to electric vehicles, we need universality.
The current electric vehicle plan in the US is to build a national network of 500,000 chargers and have EVs make up at least 50% of new car sales by 2030. (Here's where we are today with adoption.) To this end, a big announcement was made today that included lots of public funding, a Made-in-America agenda, and lots of other goodies. But perhaps the two most important points are that (1) Tesla has, for the first time, agreed to open a portion of its charging network to non-Tesla EVs (so that it can gain access to the new $7.5 billion EV charging initiative) and (2) there is a requirement for all of the station connectors to use the "combined charging system" (CCS). I'm not a connector expert but, in my mind, this is both exciting and directionally right. To fully transition to electric vehicles, we need universality.
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