Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1109

Tonight was the opening party of the new Drake Commissary in the quickly emerging Junction Triangle neighborhood of Toronto. It officially opens on June 12th (2017).

The concept is a “ gastronomic town square .” It’s a bakery. A bar. And a larder. You can get fresh breads, pastas, charcuterie and pantry items, and you can consume them on the spot or take them home.

The space (see above) was designed by + tongtong . Not surprisingly, it’s beautiful. It also very clearly blurs the boundaries between guests and the bakers and chefs.

From a city building standpoint, it’s interesting to consider what all of this means for Sterling Road (where the Commissary is located).

The original Drake Hotel was and continues to be a powerful cultural anchor in the West Queen West neighborhood. In fact, it’s my belief that the Drake was the most important catalyst for what eventually emerged along that strip. 

So I can’t help but think that we are about to witness a very similar transformation in the Junction.

According to NewGeography , ~85% of the population in the 53 major metropolitan areas in the U.S. lives in the suburbs or the exurbs. (Data from 2011-2015.) And according to some definitions, a number of these cities could be classified as being 100% suburban.

NewGeography recently looked at America’s most suburbanized cities using the “ City Sector Model ” of classification. Here’s generally how it works:

1. Urban core-CBD: Employment density > 19,999 people per square mile
   

2. Urban core-inner ring: Population density > 7,499 per square mile and > 19.9% transit/walk/bike modal split
   

3. Earlier suburb: Not urban core or exurb, and median year house built before 1980
   

4. Later suburb: Not urban core or exurb, and median year house built after 1979
   

5. Exurb: Outside of 2010 principal urban area or under 250 people per square mile 

Based on the above criteria, here are the top 10 most suburban cities in America:

All of these cities have virtually no urban core. To break the 10 way tie, they were simply sorted based on the size of their exurban population. To see all 53 metropolitan areas, click here .

Mary Meeker – who is a partner in the VC firm Kleiner Perkins – just recently released her annual Internet Trends report. 

I’ve pasted the table of contents above so you can quickly decide if you’d like to spend your time going through it. The entire report is over 350 slides.

If you can’t see the embedded slideshow below or if you’d like to access the reports from previous years, click here .

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Internet Trends 2017 Report from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers