Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1117

Los Angeles is a city that I have been indoctrinated to dislike. It sprawls and it’s car-oriented. But every time I visit I think to myself: This place is awesome.

I’m going to be in LA and Palm Springs this weekend catching up with a good friend, looking at architecture, taking photos, and escaping spring allergy season. 

I don’t know the city very well, so if any of you have recommendations for things I need to see or do, I would love to hear from you in the comment section below.

Also, if you’re in town and you think we should meet about design, real estate, startups, photography or something else, definitely drop me a line.

This month’s issue (May 2017) of Monocle magazine is a special “design & property” edition. It includes their annual property survey (shown above), which showcases interesting projects and people from around the world.

I was excited (but not surprised) to read the editor’s letter at the beginning of the issue and learn that the Monocle folks “think all the time” about launching their own property company. I would love to see how they execute on a development project, because I am sure it would question conventional norms.

Ian Gillespie of Westbank (headquartered in Vancouver) is featured and interviewed under the heading: “a more beautiful city.” Here you’ll hear him say that they build Porsches and not Fords. I also learned that they acquired a district energy company called Creative Energy , which they are looking to bring to Toronto and Seattle.

Because it’s a property issue, the ads are also tailored to that, so you get a good cross section of international projects. This morning was my first time seeing One Park Drive in Canary Wharf – London’s first residential tower by Herzog & de Meuron .

So if design and property also happen to be your jam, you may want to pick up the May issue of Monocle.

The idea of providing everyone with an unconditional “basic income” is a popular topic these days – though it’s clearly not a new idea. I know many people today who think it is positively inevitable. At some point in the foreseeable future, inequality will reach such extreme levels that we will discover the need to give everyone free money, without any strings attached to it.

Below is a TEDx talk by Rutger Bregman where he explains why this is what we should be doing. One of his examples is a study that was done in London where they gave a group of homeless people free money. What they discovered was that they didn’t just go out and buy alcohol and drugs, which is what some of you may be thinking. They did positive things with it. They became empowered.

If you can’t see the video below, click here .

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIL_Y9g7Tg0?rel=0&w=560&h=315]