Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1244

“It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.” -William Whyte

In 1980, the sociologist and urbanist William Whyte published a revolutionary book called The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces . 

The ambition was to discover why some urban plazas are successful and why many others fail. And to do that, he went out and studied urban plazas throughout New York using video and simple observation, such as head counting.

His work has been hugely influential for architects, designers, and other urbanists. But if you think about how often we fail at creating urban spaces that actually attract people, I think it’s worthwhile revising what Whyte discovered way back in the 70s and 80s.

Some of the principles – such as providing places to sit – are dead simple and intuitive. But again, a lot of urban spaces suck. So we’re clearly not doing it.

The other thing I feel we often forget is that it’s not just the space itself that matters, it’s also the urban fabric around it. The Seagram Building in New York plays a central role in Whyte’s work as an example of a successful urban plaza. 

But we can’t forget that Mies van der Rohe’s simple gesture of setting the tower back from the street is strengthened by the remaining urban fabric and the activity along Park Avenue. The plaza acts as a kind of release.

Alongside the book, Whyte also published a 60 minute video. If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend you watch it when you get a chance. Click here if you can’t see the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjxXTsHgc8g&w=420&h=315]

To close out this post, I thought it would be fun if everyone shared their favorite public urban space in the comment section. It can be in your city or it could just be a place you’ve visited.

To kick things off, I’m going to go with with a space that’s close to home: Berczy Park . It has lots of places to sit, including movable chairs. There’s a great water feature. And it’s well connected to the rest of the area and surrounding streets. I often sit there during lunch or when I just want to think.

It’s also in the midst of a revitalization and I’m excited to see that come together .

Toronto can’t make up its mind right now as to whether it would like to invest in additional cycling infrastructure. 

Of course, we have a history of vacillating on topics like this. And I think it’s because we’re at a tricky inflection point. We are weaning ourselves off of the car, but most parts of the city remain underserved by transit and heavily dependent on the car.

So today I thought I would share some numbers from a research study that was published last year by Stefan Gössling of Lund University and Andy S. Choi of the University of Queensland. It’s called, Transport transitions in Copenhagen: Comparing the cost of cars and bicycles .

Much of the focus of the paper is on the cost-benefit analysis that the City of Copenhagen uses to make its cycling investment decisions. Here is an excerpt from ScienceDaily :

“If the costs to society and the costs to private individuals are added together, the impact of the car is EUR 0.50 per kilometre and the impact of the bicycle is EUR 0.08 per kilometre.

The study by Stefan Gössling and his colleague also shows that if we only look at costs/benefits for society, one kilometre by car costs EUR 0.15, whereas society earns EUR 0.16 on every kilometre cycled.

“The cost-benefit analysis in Copenhagen shows that investments in cycling infrastructure and bike-friendly policies are economically sustainable and give high returns,” says Stefan Gössling.”

So there you have it. Now I thought we could debate this in the comment section. Your thoughts?

P.S. The images at the top of this post were taken by me using my new GoPro bicycle handlebar mount.

I have a bit of an obsession with my calendar, lists, and goals. On the home screen of my phone I have Wunderlist, Evernote, Google Drive, and 2 calendar apps (more on that in a second).

This obsession is probably one of the reasons I write this blog. I like writing, drawing, and documenting things. It helps me sort through my thoughts. I have everything from a list of cities I want to visit to a list of billion dollar business ideas (yes it’s really called that).

But the other reason I like to keep lists is because – as I said in this post – I’m trying to be cognizant about overcommitment. And when I write things down, it serves as a reminder of what I’m doing and what I’m allowed to focus on.

One of the ways I do that is through repeatable goals (or disciplines). These are non-negotiable things that I’ve committed myself to and that I just have to grind out – such as writing on this blog every day. I can tell you that some blog posts come out a lot easier than others. But I’m a firm believer that there are few substitutes for just showing up every day and putting in the work.

On that note, let me tell you why I have 2 calendar apps on my phone. I’ve been testing out the latest version of Google Calendar because of a new feature they rolled out this month called Goals .

What it does is automatically schedule repeatable goals. So for instance, you could tell it that you want to work out 3 times a week for 1.5 hours each time and that you prefer to work out in the evenings. It will then go and find 3 times for you to do it every week for all of eternity. 

If a conflict arises, that’s no problem. As soon as you enter another appointment, the app will automatically reshuffle your calendar goals to make sure that you still get your 3 workouts in. It’ll even learn your preferences as you make changes to these appointments over time. 

So far I’ve been finding this feature really useful. I used to do this for myself manually, but now I have a computer that does it for me. Even better.

It’s also a glimpse into the future that Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, was talking about on a recent earnings call :

“We’ve been investing in machine learning and AI [artificial intelligence] for years, but I think we’re at an exceptionally interesting tipping point where these technologies are really taking off,” he said. “That is very, very applicable to businesses as well. So thoughtfully doing that externally we view as a big differentiator we have over others.”

“In the long run, I think we will evolve in computing from a mobile-first to an AI-first world,” Pichai said in closing. “And I do think we’re at the forefront of developments.”

For the past 5 years, it’s been  all about mobile . But now much of the tech community – including the CEO of a pretty big company – is saying that artificial intelligence is next. What do you think this will mean for cities?