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 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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>4.2K subscribers
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This is a telling map from Jens von Bergmann. It shows the changes in population density across Toronto from 1971 to 2021 (measured in people per hectare). What is obvious is the spikiness of our city. We have been very effective at adding lots of people downtown, along the central waterfront, and in certain other pockets. But at the same time, we have let our older inner city neighborhoods move in the opposite direction and lose people.
The irony of this outcome is that we have long created policies that refer to these areas as being "stable" neighborhoods. The idea was that they weren't supposed to change, at least not too much. But what this data shows is the opposite. By restricting growth, we actually created the right conditions for them to lose people as demographics changed and household sizes got smaller, among other things. We created unstable neighborhoods.
Thankfully, we have started to change course and allow some intensification. We're not there yet, but I do believe that the next 50-year map will look quite different than the one you see here.
This is a telling map from Jens von Bergmann. It shows the changes in population density across Toronto from 1971 to 2021 (measured in people per hectare). What is obvious is the spikiness of our city. We have been very effective at adding lots of people downtown, along the central waterfront, and in certain other pockets. But at the same time, we have let our older inner city neighborhoods move in the opposite direction and lose people.
The irony of this outcome is that we have long created policies that refer to these areas as being "stable" neighborhoods. The idea was that they weren't supposed to change, at least not too much. But what this data shows is the opposite. By restricting growth, we actually created the right conditions for them to lose people as demographics changed and household sizes got smaller, among other things. We created unstable neighborhoods.
Thankfully, we have started to change course and allow some intensification. We're not there yet, but I do believe that the next 50-year map will look quite different than the one you see here.
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