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.
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Brandon DonnellyWhen autonomy is a solution to the wrong urban problem
If you have a long, painful, soul-crushing commute, Tesla has a solution for you: Full Self-Driving (their autonomous, but still supervised, self-driving technology). And it makes sense that Tesla would position its product in this way. A great deal of our built environment (the vast majority of it in some geographies) has been designed around the car. We are dependent. And this is an obvious solution to its negatives.
To be clear, I'm excited about autonomy, which is why it's a frequent topic on this blog. But the urbanist in me can't help but think that positioning it in this way is in some ways a solution to the wrong problem. Here's an alternative solution: live and work in a walkable, transit-oriented community.
Imagine, for instance, pitching this Tesla positioning to a Tokyoite. Tokyo is reported to have the highest railway modal split in the world. According to some measurements, only something like 12% of trips in the city are done by car. So if you said, "FSD is the solution to your long and boring commute. Now you can just sit, relax, read a book, do work, or play on your phone!" it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine Tokyoites saying that they already do this on a train.
Of course, Tokyo is a unique place, and there are lots of car-dependent cities where there is simply no other practical option. I also recognize that housing attainability is a major driver of sprawl. In these cases, FSD represents a meaningful quality-of-life upgrade.
Again, I support this happening, but at the same time, I worry about it placating us into thinking that we've solved one of the major negatives of urban sprawl. Yes, you have to sit in a car for two hours each day, but now you're not actually driving. Isn't that, like, so much better? In a best-case scenario, we maintain the status quo when it comes to our built environment. And in the worst-case scenario, it leads to even more sprawl.
This is an open question that we have on this blog: To what extent will self-driving cars increase our willingness to commute? Historically, new mobility technologies have promoted urban sprawl because they allowed us to travel greater distances in the same amount of time. Consider streetcar suburbs and then our car-oriented suburbs.
If you have a long, painful, soul-crushing commute, Tesla has a solution for you: Full Self-Driving (their autonomous, but still supervised, self-driving technology). And it makes sense that Tesla would position its product in this way. A great deal of our built environment (the vast majority of it in some geographies) has been designed around the car. We are dependent. And this is an obvious solution to its negatives.
To be clear, I'm excited about autonomy, which is why it's a frequent topic on this blog. But the urbanist in me can't help but think that positioning it in this way is in some ways a solution to the wrong problem. Here's an alternative solution: live and work in a walkable, transit-oriented community.
Imagine, for instance, pitching this Tesla positioning to a Tokyoite. Tokyo is reported to have the highest railway modal split in the world. According to some measurements, only something like 12% of trips in the city are done by car. So if you said, "FSD is the solution to your long and boring commute. Now you can just sit, relax, read a book, do work, or play on your phone!" it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine Tokyoites saying that they already do this on a train.
Of course, Tokyo is a unique place, and there are lots of car-dependent cities where there is simply no other practical option. I also recognize that housing attainability is a major driver of sprawl. In these cases, FSD represents a meaningful quality-of-life upgrade.
Again, I support this happening, but at the same time, I worry about it placating us into thinking that we've solved one of the major negatives of urban sprawl. Yes, you have to sit in a car for two hours each day, but now you're not actually driving. Isn't that, like, so much better? In a best-case scenario, we maintain the status quo when it comes to our built environment. And in the worst-case scenario, it leads to even more sprawl.
This is an open question that we have on this blog: To what extent will self-driving cars increase our willingness to commute? Historically, new mobility technologies have promoted urban sprawl because they allowed us to travel greater distances in the same amount of time. Consider streetcar suburbs and then our car-oriented suburbs.
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyWhen autonomy is a solution to the wrong urban problem
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...
A big part of the AV argument is not that they will solve traffic congestion (they won't); it's that they will make your commute suck a lot less, and in an even rosier scenario, become a kind of "third space" where people work, relax, or whatever. This, in turn, will make sprawl more widely palatable.
But the more I think about this, the less I believe it. Marchetti's Constant tells us that humans have generally maintained a consistent "time budget" for commuting irrespective of the technology being used. Will this time really be different?
On the flip side, there are many who would argue that urban sprawl is a natural market outcome. Not everyone wants the "utopian, socially-engineered dream" that urbanists and YIMBYs like me want. And this is a fair response. I believe in individual freedoms. Give people housing options (we're very bad at this) and let them choose where they want to live.
But we should acknowledge the tradeoffs. Traffic congestion is a clear byproduct of urban sprawl and land-use patterns that leave no other practical option for getting around. Complaining about traffic is complaining about sprawl. One more lane or cars that drive themselves have not been shown to change this relationship.
Sprawl also contributes to greater loneliness and declines in happiness. In 2000, Robert Putnam argued in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, that, roughly speaking, every 10 minutes of additional travel time leads to a 10% reduction in social connections. We spend less time with our families, friends, and communities.
There's little doubt that self-driving cars will make commutes more tolerable. But perhaps that's not ambitious enough.
A big part of the AV argument is not that they will solve traffic congestion (they won't); it's that they will make your commute suck a lot less, and in an even rosier scenario, become a kind of "third space" where people work, relax, or whatever. This, in turn, will make sprawl more widely palatable.
But the more I think about this, the less I believe it. Marchetti's Constant tells us that humans have generally maintained a consistent "time budget" for commuting irrespective of the technology being used. Will this time really be different?
On the flip side, there are many who would argue that urban sprawl is a natural market outcome. Not everyone wants the "utopian, socially-engineered dream" that urbanists and YIMBYs like me want. And this is a fair response. I believe in individual freedoms. Give people housing options (we're very bad at this) and let them choose where they want to live.
But we should acknowledge the tradeoffs. Traffic congestion is a clear byproduct of urban sprawl and land-use patterns that leave no other practical option for getting around. Complaining about traffic is complaining about sprawl. One more lane or cars that drive themselves have not been shown to change this relationship.
Sprawl also contributes to greater loneliness and declines in happiness. In 2000, Robert Putnam argued in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, that, roughly speaking, every 10 minutes of additional travel time leads to a 10% reduction in social connections. We spend less time with our families, friends, and communities.
There's little doubt that self-driving cars will make commutes more tolerable. But perhaps that's not ambitious enough.
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