Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1183

Earlier today The Economist published the below chart showing where Canada’s immigrants have come from (place of birth) between 1871 and 2011. So basically from Confederation (1867) to today – almost.

It’s a great chart. It really shows our evolution.

Perhaps the most meaningful date to point out is 1962. That is the year Canada introduced new immigration regulations which effectively privileged skill and talent over race and national origin when it came to deciding who would be allowed to enter the country. 

Look at the impact that had.

Oscar Wilde once said:

“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

I’m sure that all of you can think of someone right now who subscribes to the philosophy that any press is good press.

But there is something to be said about exposure. Almost every company on the planet wants it. They pay for it. They fight for it. It’s the lifeblood of business. If nobody knows who you are and what you do, you’re dead.

In my view, one of the best ways to gain exposure today is content marketing. Marketing sometimes has negative connotations, but content marketing is probably the least offensive varietal. It’s a soft, rather than hard, approach. It invites you in and tries to earn your trust, instead of hitting you over the head with an ask.

But at the same time, it’s a more difficult form of marketing. You have to be insightful. You have to be useful. And you have to try and create value for people on a regular basis. That’s easier said than done. I try and do that every day, but I don’t always succeed.

I say all this because we live in a content-driven world. In fact, this blog – despite it being a personal one – is a form of content marketing. I like how Fred Wilson responded on his blog to the criticism that too many entrepreneurs treat venture capital blogs as scripture:

“So how should entrepreneurs use this knowledge that is being imparted by VCs on a regular basis? Well first and foremost, you should see it as content marketing. That is what it is. That doesn’t mean it isn’t useful or insightful. It may well be. But you should understand the business model supporting all of this free content. It is being generated to get you to come visit that VC and offer them to participate in your Seed or Series A round. That blog post that Joe claimed is not scripture in his tweet is actually an advertisement. Kind of the opposite of scripture, right?”

Again, that doesn’t make the content necessarily bad. It’s just the truth. It’s content marketing.

Richard Florida has a new book coming out in the spring called, The New Urban Crisis . 

Noteworthy about the book is that he has changed his tune with respect to the potential of the “ creative class ” to form the new middle class. Here’s a quote from the Houston Chronicle :

“I got wrong that the creative class could magically restore our cities, become a new middle class like my father’s, and we were going to live happily forever after,” he said. “I could not have anticipated among all this urban growth and revival that there was a dark side to the urban creative revolution, a very deep dark side.”  -Richard Florida

Regardless of what you think of the work of Richard Florida, I’m sure this book will be bedside for most urbanists. The focus is on creating a new kind of inclusive urbanism, which is top of mind for so many of us today.

If you’d like to pre-order it, you can do that here .