Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1049

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 .

I like the built form aerial photography of Jeffrey Milstein . Here is one of Stuyvesant Town in New York City:

It shows a symmetrical plan view that followed a particular dogma at the time.  But it’s also a view that few people or residents would ever see or appreciate.

The above image is from his exhibition at the Bau-Xi Gallery here in Toronto (340 Dundas Street West). It runs until December 16, 2017.

On January 25, 2018, the exhibition moves to the Benrubi Gallery in New York City (521 W. 26th Street). Check them out if you’re interested.

The Toronto Real Estate Board (Canada’s largest real estate board) and the Competition Bureau have been fighting for years over whether TREB’s housing market sales data, including realtor commissions, should be publicly available online.

The Competition Bureau, as well as many forward thinking realtors, believe that gatekeeping historical sales data is stifling competition and innovation. It is. But TREB has been arguing – for a number of years I might add – that it is genuinely concerned about consumer privacy.

Well on Friday the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that TREB cannot prevent its members from freely publishing data about what properties have sold for. This is a positive, albeit a small, step forward for open data and innovation.

But perhaps not surprisingly, TREB has already said it would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada and apply for an order staying the release of the above data until this new appeal gets decided.

So there’s still more fighting to take place. Nevertheless, I do have a few thoughts.

The claim by TREB that they are deeply concerned about consumer privacy is nonsense. Call up any realtor in this city and they’ll tell you and send you whatever historical sales data you want. This is about maintaining an information asymmetry that forces more consumers to connect with agents.

But as many sensible realtors have already explained publicly in the media, if gatekeeping information is such a critical component of the value that TREB members bring to clients – and the board is certainly clinging to it – then realtors and/or the industry have a serious problem on their hands. 

Time to evolve.

I would also argue that our current archaic setup distorts the market. There’s simply too much friction associated with accessing good sales records and so the result is greater opacity in the market. Say all you want about the efficacy of realtors, more friction = less engagement. Free the data and empower members to leverage and build on top of it.

In my view, this is a positive step forward. But it still feels like a small one. I’m actually surprised by how long this status-quo battle has been going on. Hopefully it gets wrapped up soon so everyone can get on with what matters most: innovating.

Photo by Fernando Reyes on Unsplash