Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1048

This is an interesting study from a team of AI researchers at Stanford. What they did was use car images taken directly from Google Street View (so images of cars parked on-street) to predict income levels, racial makeup, educational attainment, and voting patterns at the zip code and precinct level.

Admittedly, it’s not a perfect survey, but when they compared their findings to actual or previously collected data (such as from the American Community Survey), it turns out that their study was actually remarkably accurate. Google Street View allowed them to survey 22 million cars, or about 8% of all cars in the US.

Here are some of the things they found :

-  Toyota and Honda vehicles are strongly associated with Asian neighborhoods.

- Buick, Oldsmobile, and Chrysler vehicles are strongly associated with black neighborhoods.

- Pickup trucks, Volkswagens and Aston Martins are strongly associated with white neighborhoods.

Interestingly enough, the ratio of pickup trucks to sedans, alone, is a pretty reliable indicator of voting patterns. If a neighborhood has more pickup trucks than sedans, there’s an 82% chance it voted Republican in the last election.

Perhaps this isn’t all that surprising given that car purchases are highly symbolic. But given that the American Community Survey costs $250 million a year to administer, this study is a good preview of what cheaper and more realtime data collection might look like.

superkül (architects) recently added a new project to their website, namely the renovation and addition to Proper TV’s headquarters at Bloor and Dovercourt here in Toronto.

The original single-storey building dates back to the middle of the 20th century and used to house a Canada Post Office and distribution facility.

But why send letters when you can instead send emails and instant message that are immediately tracked for the purposes of later bombarding you with ads for things you may want to buy? 

The post office closed in 2013.

The main facade along Dovercourt was constructed of limestone and that remains today. Here is photo of the building looking north on Dovercourt from Bloor:

Notice how the road (Dovercourt) curves and the building becomes almost a view terminus.

Here is the east elevation:

And here is a close-up of the bright reddish-orange powdered coated triangulated fins that adorn the second floor:

Apparently the fins are also lit up at night with programmable LEDs. I don’t have a picture of that to show you, but I am sure they look very cool. I’ll have to do a drive-by one night.

All images from  superkül .

The Equality of Opportunity Project has a recent paper out called: Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The importance of Exposure to Innovation . Vox also has a summary of the findings, here .

The overall goal of the project is to “use big data to identify new pathways to upward mobility.” And in this particular study, they discover that in America there are many “lost Einsteins” – people who have the ability, but not the opportunity.

Not surprisingly, socioeconomic class, race, and gender play a significant role. Children from high-income families are 10x more likely to become inventors (measured in patents) as compared to children from low-income families.

Geography, place, and environment also matter. Where and how a child grows up has a significant impact on future outcomes. If a child grows up in a city/network that exposes them to other inventors, it increases the likelihood that they too will invent. 

Where a child grows up also has an impact on the types of inventions, even if the child move cities as an adult. For example, the study found that if a child grows up in Silicon Valley but moves to Boston as an adult, it is still more likely to author patents related to computers because that’s what it was exposed to as a child.

These associations also impact in a gender-specific way. Women are more likely to invent in a particular technology if they grow up surrounded by similar female inventors. The presence of male inventors has no impact. This makes a powerful case for better gender diversity and strong role models.

If you would like to read the full paper, click here .