
Canada 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...

The 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...
The 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.

Back in February, I shared a presentation by Benedict Evans about the macro and strategic trends that have been playing out in the tech industry. (Of course, the potential impacts go well beyond tech.) Well that was February and lot has happened since then. So he has updated a bunch of his slides and it is now called, "Tech and the new normal." We know that things have changed, but we don't know what things will really look like when this is all over -- and which changes will have durability. Benedict doesn't necessarily prognosticate in his presentation, but he does provide valuable historical context and some great data. So there are a lot of conclusions that you might be able to draw from it on your own. It's also my kind of slide deck. Not a lot of text. Lots of graphics/diagrams. And really only one key takeaway per slide.

Back in February, I shared a presentation by Benedict Evans about the macro and strategic trends that have been playing out in the tech industry. (Of course, the potential impacts go well beyond tech.) Well that was February and lot has happened since then. So he has updated a bunch of his slides and it is now called, "Tech and the new normal." We know that things have changed, but we don't know what things will really look like when this is all over -- and which changes will have durability. Benedict doesn't necessarily prognosticate in his presentation, but he does provide valuable historical context and some great data. So there are a lot of conclusions that you might be able to draw from it on your own. It's also my kind of slide deck. Not a lot of text. Lots of graphics/diagrams. And really only one key takeaway per slide.

Canada 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...

The 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...
The 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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