Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1151

Today was a snowboarding day. It was also the first day that I used my new (totally obnoxious) 40″ selfie stick. Note: It wasn’t fully extended for the above photo.

Internet access and time has been pretty scarce, so there won’t be much of a post today, which actually seems appropriate given yesterday’s post about being so busy. 

See you all tomorrow.

“How are you?”

“Busy!”

How many of you say this? I say this all the time, even though I am trying to resist and come up with more creative responses.

I recently tweeted this idea out and then my friend Brad sent me this article from HBR: Why Americans Are So Impressed by Busyness . It’s a fascinating topic because, historically, not being busy was a sign of status. It meant you had enough money to not have to do anything. 

But things have changed – at least in this part of the world. (Italy doesn’t seem to feel the same way based on some studies.) Here’s a snippet from the article :

“What has changed so dramatically in one century? We think that the shift from leisure-as-status to busyness-as-status may be linked to the development of knowledge-intensive economies. In such economies, individuals who possess the human capital characteristics that employers or clients value (e.g., competence and ambition) are expected to be in high demand and short supply on the job market. Thus, by telling others that we are busy and working all the time, we are implicitly suggesting that we are sought after, which enhances our perceived status.”

So the reality is that there’s actually a good reason for always talking about how busy we are. But as Silvia Bellezza points out in her article, there are also physiological consequences to always being: “busy!” 

On that note, I think I’ll go snowboarding.

“How are you?”

“Just living the dream.”

For those of you interested in real estate development (and architecture), the New York Times recently published an article about New York developer Harry Macklowe . 

At 80 years old, he has been in the business for almost 60 years and he has what some might describe as the typical developer story. He has seen ups. And he has seen downs. As a result of the 2008 economic crisis, he was forced to give up seven landmark properties in New York.

The article doesn’t paint a particularly nice picture about developers. It talks about how he demolished several single room occupancy hotels in midtown Manhattan (hours before a new moratorium was set to go into effect) and how he recently filed a lawsuit against his son, William Macklowe. After their relationship went south, William went off and started his own real estate company and presumably that is causing some problems.

There’a also mention of a book called The Liar’s Ball , which I am pretty sure would be a good read:

Real estate “is not an industry full of camaraderie and good will,” said Vicky Ward, the author of “The Liar’s Ball” (Wiley, 2014), a book about Mr. Macklowe and the G.M. building. Developers “are set up to dislike each other, yet occasionally they do come together to partner.”

If the real estate business has anything, it has characters. Click here for “Harry Macklowe on New York Real Estate.”