Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1370

This morning I stumbled upon an interesting Medium article talking about the need for an all-day two-way urban rail service between Toronto and Waterloo. 

The argument is that along this corridor sits a technology ecosystem that is second in size only to San Francisco-Silicon Valley and that current connectivity levels represent a missed opportunity of epic proportions. Presently this rail service will feed you into Toronto during the morning rush hour and take you back out in the evening rush hour. But that’s it.

According to this report prepared by the City of Kitchener (which is beside Waterloo), efficient train service would stitch together an ecosystem of approximately 12,800 technology companies, 2,800 startups, and 205,000 technology employees. It would also connect 6 universities and 4 colleges, many of which are ranked top in the world.

There’s an argument here that this is exactly the sort of thing that governments should be doing to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. Rather than trying to be heavily involved in actual startups, they should be creating an environment that maximizes output and then getting out of the way. 

I think this makes a lot of sense. Don’t you?

Image: The Innovation Express

Last month it was announced that Amazon will be taking 127,000 square feet across 5 floors in a new office tower in Toronto’s emerging South Core neighborhood. The space will be used for about 800 employees and they’re expected to take occupancy this fall.

At the same time, I learned that Amazon will be joining Apple (positioned 6 floors below them in the same tower) and Cisco in South Core.

On top of all this, a friend of mine then tweeted out a list of major tenant re-locations here in the city . The data is from CBRE and the timeframe is from 2009 to 2014 (Q1).

The first thing I noticed when I looked at the data is that there’s a clear trend towards downtown. Perhaps that was the point of the study, but it’s still interesting nonetheless. 

From Google and Deloitte to eBay and Aol, every single tenant in the CBRE list is or will be moving downtown (or to the shoulders of downtown).

Here’s what that looks like from a regional scale (red marker is where they were; green marker is where they are going):

And here’s what it looks like zoomed in closer:

This, of course, is a trend that has been happening for years . But I still think it’s worthwhile repeating how clearcut it seems to be. 

Companies know that their greatest asset is human capital. And they have quickly realized that a lot of young smart people want to live and work in dense walkable communities. They’re simply moving to where people already want to be.

So here’s a question for the Architect This City community: On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is a company’s location when determining whether or not you’d like to work for them? Let’s talk about it in comment section below.

I recently heard someone define a habit as something that you need to do in order to feel normal. In other words, until you do it, you don’t feel yourself. 

This, of course, could refer to both good habits and bad habits. And most of us probably have habits from both camps. But I like it as a clear and simple definition. 

I’ve written about disciplines and habits a few times before, because I think of myself as having a few. The most public of my habits is this blog and, at this point, I certainly don’t feel normal if I don’t write everyday. I’ve missed a few days since I started writing in 2013 and each time I felt bad.

My other big habit is going to the gym and lifting weights. And since my snowboarding injury back in February , I haven’t been able to do this properly (though I still tried). It’s easily the longest break I’ve taken from it since I started this particular habit when I was 16.

Because of this, I really haven’t felt myself for about 2 months. My energy levels aren’t the same and I just don’t feel as mentally sharp. Those are some of the main reasons why I love this habit. And I still haven’t adjusted.

Thankfully (with some help from Totum Life Science ), my back and shoulder are finally starting to feel better. And so today, instead of writing about cities, I’m going to go to the gym and try and do one of my regular workout routines.

I’m not quite at 100% yet, but I should be soon. And then I’ll finally feel normal again.