Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1130

I was out for dinner this evening and the topic of road tolls (road pricing) came up. All of us at the table agreed that this was a missed opportunity for Toronto. Yes we proposed it , but then we got cold feet and backed away.

Why might this be a good idea?

City Observatory did a good job explaining this with their post about free ice cream day at Ben & Jerry’s . They argued that this sort of promotion actually provides a great crash course in transportation economics. Nobody is paying, but the lines are real long.

Here’s an excerpt:

Substitute “freeway” for “free cone” and you’ve got a pretty good description of how transportation economics works. When it comes to our road system, every rush hour is like free cone day at Ben and Jerry’s.  The customers (drivers) are paying zero for their use of the limited capacity of the road system, and we’re rationing this valuable product based on people’s willingness to tolerate delays (with the result that lot’s of people who don’t attach a particularly high value to their time are slowing down things for everyone).

What we are talking about is simple, but apparently it’s not easy to execute on.

A new architecture book, called Entryways of Milan , will be released next month that profiles some of the city’s most beautiful residential entryways. There are 144 of them and they are housed in buildings dating from 1920 to 1970. For a sneak peek of the architecture, click here .

What makes a book like this interesting is that these are private entryways, which means they are spaces that are largely overlooked within a city. They are the spaces that mediate between public (street) and private (residences). The book also dives into things like materials and the art-historical and social significance of each lobby.

I am now wondering if similar books or photography projects exist for other cities. I think it would be fascinating to compare residential entrance halls across different cities during the same time period. Although the above Milanese lobbies have set the bar pretty high. 

Back in 2015, I was interviewed for a documentary called The Millennial Dream. I then completely forgot about it until somebody tweeted it at me yesterday. So the documentary is out – it was released last year – and you can rent it or buy it on iTunes .

The documentary calls into question the [North] American Dream. This idea that you just have to work hard, save up, buy a house in the suburbs, pay off your debt, and then everything will be just fine. For many, that dream is quickly disappearing, if it hasn’t already.

Enter the Millennial Dream. Our economy is changing. Our jobs are changing. Our cities are changing. And by 2020, the Millennial generation is expected to form 50% of the global workforce . What is this generation dreaming about? That is what this documentary is about.

But I should probably stop here because I haven’t actually seen the film. I could be overselling it. I’ll watch it this weekend and then report back. If you can’t see the trailer embedded below, click here .

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVCNXJk2fT8&w=560&h=315]