Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1082

Opposition to new development is nothing new in this city. In fact, it’s the norm in almost all cities, regardless of how big or small the project might be.

But the battle happening right now in Toronto with respect to the proposed 8 storey condominium project at 321 Davenport Road is certainly taking things to the next level. All over 16 units.

Some of the most recognized names in this city have their hat in the ring and virtually every media outlet has covered the topic. See here , here , here , and here , for a small taste.

Just this evening I saw that Shawn Micallef (yes camp) had sent a copy of his recent book to Margaret Atwood (no camp) in the hopes that she would read it and better appreciate why it behooves our neighborhoods to move past this “ village mentality .”

If you haven’t yet read it, it’s called Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness . I’ve just moved it to the top of my reading pile. I hope more folks do the same.

What’s happening in Houston right now is devastating. Ian Bogost of The Atlantic is calling the flood a “ disaster of biblical proportions .” Harvey has unloaded 9 trillion gallons of water .

It is once again reminding us of the importance of resiliency when it comes to our cities.

One emerging argument is that  this is an almost inevitable outcome  for Houston, brought on by the multiplicative effects of climate change, unfettered urban sprawl, and poor design decisions.

The barriers to development are famously low in Houston, which allows the city to quickly add housing and people. There are many benefits to this. 

But it also means that there has been, among other things, a dramatic increase in the amount of impervious surface.

This matters because impervious surface creates runoff.

According to The Texas Tribune , impervious surface in Harris County (third most populous county in the U.S.) increased by 25% between 1996 and 2011. 

And it replaced things like the below prairie grass (switchgrass), which are highly absorbent as a result of their deep root system. 

But much like climate change, not everyone believes this is to be blamed. 

For more on this, check out The Texas Tribune’s full interactive piece. It’s called “ Boomtown, Flood Town ” and it’s worth a read.

Image from The Texas Tribune

Today is the 4 year anniversary of this daily blog.

Sure, I’ve missed a few days over the years (my estimate is 4-5 days), but for the most part I have shown up here every day and written something. 

Sometimes that something is very short and/or bad. I’ve had a few people say to me: “I can tell when you’re super busy. Your posts are shorter.” I’m okay with that. Part of this exercise for me is simply about the discipline. 80% of success is showing up, right ?

In some ways, what I do here is an anachronism. Here is a good vintage article (2011) that talks about two different schools of thought when it comes to blogging.

The reality is that it’s painfully slow and difficult to build an online audience via a personal blog using your own domain. It takes years, unless you’re a celebrity, which I am most certainly not. That’s why many people give up.

Instead, many people/influencers choose to build their audience on top of an existing network, such as YouTube, Instagram , or Medium . Medium is pretty tempting and I’ve seen lots of bloggers port over their personal blogs.

The idea here is that you simply bring your content to where your/an audience already lives, instead of trying to get them to come to you. 

Of course, one of the risks of this approach is that you don’t own/control the platform. What if people one day decided to stop using MySpace? I like the idea of owning (at least part of) my online presence.

So here’s to another year on the blog. Thanks for reading! I really do appreciate it. Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.