Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1229

I’ve been spending my mornings this weekend, listening , watching , and reading things. I’m always reading to find content for this blog, but I’ve allocating more time to consumption this weekend. So you might be noticing a slightly different varietal of posts over the past few days.

This morning it’s a podcast called Dorm Room Tycoon. It’s an interview with Andy Weissman, who is a partner with the New York venture capital firm, Union Square Ventures. The topic is “how we invest” and I’m enjoying the discussion.

Andy describes their firm as being boutique and thesis-driven. Meaning they have theses and they look for companies that dovetail with them. But in addition, he also labels their approach as “conversational investing.”

What does that mean?

It means they listen, watch, and read. They blog (all the partners write their own personal blog). They engage and discuss. They put themselves and the firm “out there”. And they don’t pretend to have all the answers or to be able to predict the future. Instead they let their conversations – both internal and with the broader market – help them make their investing decisions.

So why do I bring this up?

Because in my own small way, I am trying to do the same with real estate development, architecture, and city building. I write every day to learn and because I am infinitely curious. If you want to know what I’m thinking about, read this blog.

It’s for this reason that my favorite blog posts are the ones in which there’s lots of discussion in the comment section. It’s the market talking back, telling me whether I’m out to lunch or not. Ultimately, this idea of “conversational investing” is really about iterative decision making .

Here’s the podcast embed in case you would also like to listen:

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Regardless, the Dorm Room Tycoon is worth checking out. They have other interviews with people like Malcolm Gladwell and Simon Sinek.

I’m listening to The Foreign Desk this morning while I have my coffee. Steve Bloomfield is interviewing two different politicians: one who believes Britain should remain in the EU and one who believes Britain should leave the EU. 

(Each interview is about 15 minutes short.)

The back and forth is largely centered around two things: the economy and immigration. Will the British economy be better off in or out of the EU? And on the immigration front, will “in” translate into millions of Turks flooding into Britain should Turkey join the EU?

For those of you who haven’t been following, Britain will be holding a referendum on June 23rd (2016) to decide whether they stay or go.

My general view is that a strong economy should trump concerns over foreigners. But I don’t feel as if I know enough about this precise topic to take a firm position.

Regardless, I very much enjoyed The Foreign Desk episode this morning and I would be open to discussing this issue in the comments below if any of you are also interested.

The Wall Street Journal recently published this article  talking about how the young and educated are flocking to high-density urban areas all across the United States. Here’s a set of charts from the article:

There are many people who will point out – probably rightly – that despite the “return to cities” that we are currently seeing,  the world is still suburbanizing . But, it doesn’t appear to be suburbanizing in quite the same way as it did for prior generations. There’s also a socioeconomic shift taking place.

As an example, and to drive home the point that it’s not just the expensive coastal cities that are seeing rising home prices, the WSJ article focuses quite a bit on Ohio City – a neighborhood in Cleveland. Here’s what has been happening:

In the Ohio City neighborhood, the median income skyrocketed to $93,000 from $23,000 since 2006, according to Ohio City Inc., a local nonprofit development group. Median home values shot up 800% since 2000 to $270,000, according to Ohio City Inc. Median rental prices in downtown Cleveland as a whole jumped 47% from late 2010 to late 2015, according to the Center for Population Dynamics at Cleveland State University.

These are pretty dramatic increases – though $270,000 feels cheap to someone from Toronto. Still, it speaks to a trend. You and I both know that Ohio City isn’t the only neighborhood seeing those sorts of numbers.