Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

Waste and efficiency

Here are a couple of cut-up snippets from a recent post by Seth Godin titled: “Waste and the new luxury.”

Luxury goods are built on a foundation of waste.

The front lawn is a luxury good, a sign that you don’t need to graze your cows on every square inch, and that you’re willing to waste the lawn.

There’s a new luxury that’s occurring, though, one that’s based on efficiency.

A luxury that’s based on investing in renewables, in resources that might be seen as endless, in smart design, in the satisfaction of knowing that others are benefitting, not paying, for the experience or the object you’re buying.

Waste vs. efficiency.

(Above is a photo I took this week in Dundas Square.)