Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1203

The following chart was created by Branko Milanovic (Visiting Presidential Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York and Senior Scholar, Luxumberg Income Centre) and by Christoph Lakner (Economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank.

It is known as the “elephant graph” because, well, it kind of looks like an elephant. The trunk is on the right.

What it shows is global cumulative real income growth from 1988 to 2008 for every percentile around the world.

The trunk on the right is the world’s 1%. Their income is up.

The 50-60th percentile range is also up. These are people in the developing world who started making a bit of money as a result of industrialization. In percentage terms things look good, but in absolute terms they’re not making a lot of money. Still, they are becoming better off.

Where things fall apart is in the 75-90th percentile range. These are essentially the lowest income folks in the developed world. Their incomes haven’t been growing at the same rate and, in some cases, their incomes decreased in real terms. They are falling behind.

Kaila Colbin wrote a Medium post about this graph and asks whether the exponential growth in technology that we are seeing today, will end up creating more jobs than it eliminates – as it did before in the past. 

She also wonders whether the dip we are seeing in the 75-90th percentile range could spread left as automation eliminates jobs for those folks in the developing world.

These are important questions.

I was recently asked: How do you go into a neighborhood, build new, and not erase and/or sterilize what makes that neighborhood interesting in the first place? 

Gentrification is a controversial topic in city building. Too often I think we ignore what happens when we don’t invest in communities , but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be deliberate when we do make investments.

Development is filled with tensions. We are constantly trying to navigate through constraints and balance out the wants of each and every stakeholder. It becomes an art. It doesn’t always work out as planned.

To state the obvious, I would say that it starts with caring. If you’re not interested in community and city building, then the default response will be to simply replicate what worked on the last project.

But every place has a local culture. And if city builders are to have any hope of preserving and building upon what makes that place unique, we have to first understand it. What made it successful in the first place? What is its DNA?

Because then you’re in a position to think about both built form and programming in a way that is culturally sensitive.

One example that comes to mind is the proposed redevelopment of Honest Ed’s / Mirvish Village here in Toronto. 

The “micro tower” design is intended to create the sense that the area was built up organically over time. And the fine grain retail (50-60 individual retail spaces) is intended to house local retailers, micro retail startups, and pop-up shops. To me, both of these elements speak to the history and fabric of the area.

Adopting a unique approach can also sometimes mean rethinking how you measure ROI. If all you care about is who will pay you the highest rent –  right now –  then you’re going to make a decision based on that metric.

Maximizing revenue is not a bad thing. That’s what businesses are supposed to do. But sometimes there is or should be a larger vision at play. And sometimes you need to take a longer view.

In Toronto’s Distillery District , the developers made the decision to eschew large chains and franchises (in favor of more local retailers) so that they could create a very particular place. Ultimately that particular place became a great place to sell condos, but they suffered early on for it.

I like how Gary Vaynerchuk put it when he asked: What is the ROI of your mother? Sometimes you may not be able to measure it, but that doesn’t mean the ROI isn’t there.

Any other suggestions?

I used to be more into photography. In architecture school, I had an old Canon Rebel and a photoblog where I posted one photo every day. Clearly I have a thing for daily routines.

But that was the pre-social media era and before mobile phones had cameras. With the rise of those two things I eventually moved over to just taking photos on my phone and posting them to my Instagram . Today we are all photographers.

However this week I decided that I want to start taking that creative outlet a bit more seriously again. So I asked my talented photography buddy (founder of DSCBRD ) if he could recommend a reasonably priced camera for my purposes. 

I then sifted through all of the reviews – because that’s what I do – and decided on the mirrorless Fuji X-T10 . I love the retro design. It’s also compact enough that it’s easy to carry around. The best camera is the one you have on you.

So I’m spending this afternoon at a cottage playing around with it. It’s a fun place to experiment. I hope you’re all having a great weekend. Talk to you tomorrow.