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...
About Here makes excellent videos about cities. Here's their latest about missing middle housing:
https://youtu.be/DX_-UcC14xw?si=xV99TXiMbuTQaEEH
In my view, there are two key takeaways.
The first is that cities need to spend way more time understanding the economics of missing middle housing. As Uytae Lee says in the video, our land use policies need to respond to real math and overall financial viability.
The second is that there's real potential here. Uytae gives the example of Auckland which, according to the video, managed to deliver 20,000 new missing middle homes in a 5-year time period.
This is meaningful! And, it is suggested that this has reduced rents in the city by somewhere between 13-35% compared to where they might have gone had this new housing not been built.
As I've said many times before on the blog, the devil is in the details. The headline may sound really great that some city is now allowing 4 or 6 homes on every single-family lot, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any new homes will actually be built.
It's important we change that.
P.S. Thanks to Michael Geller for sharing this video with me.
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Brandon DonnellyWhy your city is still struggling to build missing middle housing
About Here makes excellent videos about cities. Here's their latest about missing middle housing:
https://youtu.be/DX_-UcC14xw?si=xV99TXiMbuTQaEEH
In my view, there are two key takeaways.
The first is that cities need to spend way more time understanding the economics of missing middle housing. As Uytae Lee says in the video, our land use policies need to respond to real math and overall financial viability.
The second is that there's real potential here. Uytae gives the example of Auckland which, according to the video, managed to deliver 20,000 new missing middle homes in a 5-year time period.
This is meaningful! And, it is suggested that this has reduced rents in the city by somewhere between 13-35% compared to where they might have gone had this new housing not been built.
As I've said many times before on the blog, the devil is in the details. The headline may sound really great that some city is now allowing 4 or 6 homes on every single-family lot, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any new homes will actually be built.
It's important we change that.
P.S. Thanks to Michael Geller for sharing this video with me.
Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly
>4.2K subscribers
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyWhy your city is still struggling to build missing middle housing
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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