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 DonnellyWithin-city house price gradients
The Federal Housing Finance Agency recently published a working paper where they looked at within-city house price gradients for a selection of US cities over a 40 year period. The goal of the study was to address what they call a “persistent blind spot” in local house price measurements.
Here is their diagram showing annual average real appreciation from 1990 to 2015 for 9 US cities:
The Federal Housing Finance Agency recently published a working paper where they looked at within-city house price gradients for a selection of US cities over a 40 year period. The goal of the study was to address what they call a “persistent blind spot” in local house price measurements.
Here is their diagram showing annual average real appreciation from 1990 to 2015 for 9 US cities:
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyWithin-city house price gradients
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...
The darker areas indicate more appreciation. They are generally clustered around each city’s CBD.
And here is an excerpt from the paper’s conclusion:
“In an area with a highly elastic housing supply, a permanent housing demand shock is first capitalized into prices, but over time as quantities adjust, prices return to pre-shock levels (see Glaeser, Gyourko, Morales, and Nathanson, 2014). In contrast, near the CBD, where buildable sites are less available and regulation is presumably more onerous, a permanent demand shock can outpace supply responses, leading to permanent price increases.”
What stood out for me was this last sentence. It’s a reminder of the perfect storm that many cities now find themselves in.
When everyone wanted to live in the suburbs, it was fairly easy to just build more homes. Supply was relatively elastic. And this kept prices in check.
However, the same is not true for city centers. Supply is relatively inelastic, meaning it’s much harder to build more homes when demand increases. And demand has been increasing.
So what we have today is a situation where many central cities are operating with basically a perpetual supply deficit. Hence the the comment about “permanent price increases.”
I don’t want to oversimplify the situation, the potential solutions, and/or the well-documented mistakes, but there was arguably a middle class price benefit to mass produced sprawl.
What should we be doing today to address housing affordability concerns?
The darker areas indicate more appreciation. They are generally clustered around each city’s CBD.
And here is an excerpt from the paper’s conclusion:
“In an area with a highly elastic housing supply, a permanent housing demand shock is first capitalized into prices, but over time as quantities adjust, prices return to pre-shock levels (see Glaeser, Gyourko, Morales, and Nathanson, 2014). In contrast, near the CBD, where buildable sites are less available and regulation is presumably more onerous, a permanent demand shock can outpace supply responses, leading to permanent price increases.”
What stood out for me was this last sentence. It’s a reminder of the perfect storm that many cities now find themselves in.
When everyone wanted to live in the suburbs, it was fairly easy to just build more homes. Supply was relatively elastic. And this kept prices in check.
However, the same is not true for city centers. Supply is relatively inelastic, meaning it’s much harder to build more homes when demand increases. And demand has been increasing.
So what we have today is a situation where many central cities are operating with basically a perpetual supply deficit. Hence the the comment about “permanent price increases.”
I don’t want to oversimplify the situation, the potential solutions, and/or the well-documented mistakes, but there was arguably a middle class price benefit to mass produced sprawl.
What should we be doing today to address housing affordability concerns?
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