
This is an interesting chart from the New York Times showing the breakdown of (real estate) uses across the largest downtowns/CBDs in the US. It was put together using satellite data and data from CoStar, including their boundary definitions for each downtown/CBD. The point of the chart is to show that some US downtowns are heavily dominated by office square footage. But if you look a bit closer, there are other interesting takeaways. Look at retail in Honolulu, hotels in Austin, and how much residential many US cities have in their CBDs.

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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.

This is an interesting chart from the New York Times showing the breakdown of (real estate) uses across the largest downtowns/CBDs in the US. It was put together using satellite data and data from CoStar, including their boundary definitions for each downtown/CBD. The point of the chart is to show that some US downtowns are heavily dominated by office square footage. But if you look a bit closer, there are other interesting takeaways. Look at retail in Honolulu, hotels in Austin, and how much residential many US cities have in their CBDs.

Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.

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...

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...
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