Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1143

I have been very vocal on this blog about the importance “nighttime economies” for cities and for its creative industries. So I continue to be encouraged by all of the attention that this topic is getting over the last year or so.

Recently, the Creative Industries Federation released a report called:  Because the Night - Why what happens after dark matters to the creative industries . It’s a look at creative industries in the UK and the role that nightlife plays in supporting them.

Here are some of their takeaways:

Creative industries in the UK have been growing faster than any other sector since 2008. CIF estimates that 1/11 people now work in this space, with the number being much higher in London: 1/6.

The value of restaurants, clubs, bars, pubs, live music venues, and theaters, is that they are places to connect, showcase talent, develop ideas, and so on. They are also critical in attracting top talent because, well, people not surprisingly like to have fun.

In the span of one decade (2005 to 2015), it is estimated that the UK lost roughly half of its nightclubs. The total went from 3,144 to 1,733. From 2007 to 2015, London lost 35% of its “grassroots music venues”, which, historically, have served to support emerging artists.

Arguably, some of this may be due to changes in consumer preference and broader shifts in terms of the way people discover/consume music. But it’s also thought to be because of rising urban rents, concerns around noise and revelry, and so on.

Still, the nighttime economy in the UK is thought to be worth £66 billion per year and to employ some 1.3 million people. It’s an integral part of our urban economies and so it’s time we acknowledged and celebrated it as such.

My friends in New York tell me that if you want to sell a luxury residential building, you need a name brand architect. People care about architecture and it’s part of the buying process: “Oh, it’s a Herzog building.”

To that end, Toll Brothers City Living just released the following video for their 121 E 22nd project in New York. If you can’t see it below, click here . What’s notable, is that it is  OMA’s first full building in New York. So the story is: star architect + first building in the city.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSQq8W8od9g?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

But there’s more. It’s almost unbelievable that, until now, OMA hadn’t designed and constructed a full building in New York. I reread this Dezeen article 5 times just to make sure I wasn’t missing something.

So much of Rem Koolhaas’ career (founding partner of OMA) is centered around New York City. In 1978, he published  Delirious New York , where he both dissected and celebrated the city’s “culture of congestion.” Oysters at the downtown athletic club, anyone?

This book was so influential that I bet you’d be hard pressed to find an architect that doesn’t have it in their collection. I have his approximation of New York hanging on my wall. So this was clearly overdue. Kudos Toll Brothers City Living.

Note: OMA’s New York office is led by Shohei Shigematsu .

Earlier today Richard Florida published a piece in CityLab called: Anatomy of a NIMBY . The article cites a recent paper by Paavo Monkkonen (of UCLA) that focuses on the relationship between NIMBYism and housing affordability – a much talked about subject these days.

More specifically, the paper identifies “four different strains of NIMBYism” and then offers up some possible solutions, which include things like a more inclusive process and better data. I’ve publicly supported these kinds of approaches on this blog many times before.

But in addition to the above, I wanted to point out two other ideas from the paper and Florida’s article.

The first is about shifting land use decisions up to the regional level, and maybe even the state level. This one is particularly timely given that there’s a lot of discussion in Toronto right now about shifting land use decisions in the exact opposite direction – from province (OMB) to city.

The second is a suggestion from Yale professor David Schleicher  that he refers to as “tax increment local transfers.” Essentially, the idea is to somehow allow current residents to participate in the future tax revenues generated from new development in their neighborhood.

There’s lots of interesting reading buried in the above links.