Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1085

The chief economist at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Bob Dugan, recently published a piece in Macleans called:  why the foreign buyers tax isn’t making Vancouver more affordable .

Here’s an excerpt:

One year after the implementation of the foreign buyers tax, monthly sales to foreign investors now hover around 4 per cent of all sales. But our latest Housing Market Assessment, released in July, still shows a red flag for Vancouver—with particular concern given to overvaluation and price acceleration. Average prices in Vancouver have rebounded to where they were before the tax’s implementation. In between, there was a marked drop, but it appears to have been temporary. In short, Vancouver is largely right back to where it was before the tax.

He goes on to argue that while there are many factors affecting home prices, “supply is by far the chief factor.” This, of course, is a refrain you hear from everyone in the real estate business, so I’m not going to belabor the point.

But I would like to point out some of the percentages. 

Before the tax, foreign sales in Vancouver (to buyers who do not have a permanent address in Canada) were thought to sit at roughly 10%. Immediately following the tax, when everyone was trying to assess the impact, this dropped to ~0.9%. And now it’s back up to somewhere around 4%, according to the article.

Arguably, there has been a slight reduction. Though who knows how accurate these percentages are. There is now a strong incentive to hide foreignness. 

Regardless, CMHC doesn’t believe it’s working.

This afternoon I walked Trent University’s campus with my father on our way back from the cottage. It is embarrassing that it has taken this long.

Trent University straddles the Otonabee River in Peterborough, Ontario. It admitted its first students in 1964 and by the early 1970s the renowned Canadian architect Ron Thom had completed the campus plan and its original college buildings, including Champlain College, Lady Eaton College (originally a female-only dormitory), the Bata Library, and the Chemistry Building.

The photo at the top of this post is one I took of the south elevation of Champlain College , on the north edge of the west bank’s main plaza. (Yes, the sign on the far left says “no skateboarding.”)

Rob Thom is perhaps not as well known as other Canadian modernists such as Arthur Erickson . But his two masterpieces – Massey College at the University of Toronto and this campus – were instrumental in helping to define modernism in Canada. It is a shame that alcohol and illness ended his life at the young age of 63.

The first thing that struck me was the rubble aggregate walls. I immediately went to touch them. (See, again, above.) That, combined with the very clear Prairie influences and the terracotta colored pavers, gave the campus grounds an incredible warmth.

Also notable was the connection to the natural landscape. Around the corner from where I took the above photo was a staircase leading down to the river. At the bottom of the staircase was a broad set of concrete steps and a handful of young people jumping in and out of the water.

If you happen to find yourself in this part of southern Ontario, I would encourage you to check out Thom’s campus. And maybe bring your bathing suit.

Swarm recently released version 5.0 of its mobile app. Blog post here . Instead of gamification (leaderboards and so on), the emphasis is now on lifelogging – a more personal collection of all the places you’ve been.

Here’s what that looks like:

The most notable change is a front and center map that shows you all of your check-ins. You can also zoom in and really explore where you’ve been, geographically. Swarm refers to it as a “virtual memory book.”

Lifelogging is absolutely the main reason why I use Swarm and why it still finds itself on my home screen. One of the reasons I enjoy blogging is that it’s a public diary. Swarm is a modified version of that for me. So this change feels right.

My other Swarm use cases are being able to share check-ins to Twitter and serendipitous encounters with friends.

But the more I use Swarm the more I think that divorcing this use case from Foursquare (this happened in 2014) was a mistake. If Swarm is now about lifelogging (instead of just playful check-ins) and if Foursquare is about finding the perfect place to go out, then why not merge these experiences? 

Tell me where I should be going, let me make lists of places I want to go, and then let me log it to my diary along with tips for other people.

At the time of the divorce, the data seemed to suggest that very few people did both of these things within the consolidated app. People either checked-in or they looked for a place to go. Rarely did they do both.

Perhaps that would be different with lifelogging.