Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1294

Jarrett Walker of Human Transit recently published an interesting post talking about downtowns . His argument is that we shouldn’t be planning our transit networks around the traditional notion of a single-centered city.

Here’s a snippet:

So growing a single downtown isn’t the key to becoming a great transit city. Quite the opposite, it’s best to have a pattern of many centers, all generating high demand, and supporting balanced two-way flows between them that let us move more people on less infrastructure.  This is the great advantage of Paris or Los Angeles or the Dutch Randstad over Chicago or Manhattan.

Now, there are many cases where a singular economic center still dominates an urban region. See downtown Toronto . And many will argue that the current economic environment is creating more, rather than less, concentrated urban spikiness.

But at the same time it is quite clear that many of our cities have shifted away from a monocentric model to a polycentric one. 

I mean, just look at all employment nodes that have developed across the Toronto region. The idea that everyone comes downtown in the morning and then leaves in the evening has become an anachronism for many. Early in my career I spent 4 years commuting from downtown to the suburbs.

So what is happening is that our cities need to start performing more like point-to-point networks. This isn’t a new thought. But it’s a lot harder to execute on compared to what many cities have been used to. 

You need a critical density of both residents and employers and the right kind of connectivity to create a true “mobility hub.” In Toronto, you could argue that we really only have one of those and it’s centered around Union Station.

But I think that will change for many cities. And when we do get it right, we will be doing a lot to improve the crippling traffic congestion that so many of our cities are suffering from.

A reader recently sent me a New York Times article talking about Chinese buyers flooding into the US residential real estate market. This is something that I’ve written about before, but I liked the “graphic” section called  The Roots of China’s Real Estate Rush .

Here are two of the graphs:

The second chart shows you just how much more significant Chinese buyers are compared to the next biggest foreign customer of American homes: Canadians. And with the Canadian dollar where it is, it is no surprise that we are trending downwards. That doesn’t seem to be the case with the Chinese.

I’m off this week to South Florida to check out Art Basel (among other things). This week isn’t a great week to be leaving the city since it’s the Toronto Real Estate Forum  and lots of people are coming to the city for that. But I’ve wanted to go to Art Basel for over a decade, so it was about time I did that.

I also decided to pick up the new Monocle Travel Guide to Miami . This is the 8th city that they’ve covered and, as you might know from reading this blog, I’m a big fan of Monocle. (I’m still waiting for the Toronto edition, guys.)

As part of this guide launch – which was timed to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach – they also released a short video  that is worth watching.

When most people think of Miami they probably think of sun and flash. And that is certainly part of the DNA of the city. But Miami has also grown into a global city with important and extensive connections to Latin America. It’s also an incredible place for those who love art, architecture, and design. If you watch the Monocle video , I’m sure you’ll feel that. 

Miami is absolutely one of my favorite cities.