Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1460

Last week Toronto City Council voted to support planning staff’s recommendation to approve the landmark Mirvish + Gehry development on King Street West in the Theatre District. 

The revised design now includes 2 towers (as opposed to 3) at 82 and 92 storeys tall. As a result of this change, 3 of the 5 existing buildings on the site will now be retained. I think this represents a good balance between (historic) preservation and progress.

If you’re interested in a bit more of the backstory, Toronto Life published an article today called David Mirvish on the Edge . It talks about his father ( Ed Mirvish ), his upbringing, and how he got into the real estate development business.

I thought you all might enjoy it.

Image: Projectcore

The New York Times published an interesting and popular article last Friday called The Post-Post-Apocalyptic Detroit . It of course talks all about the efforts of billionaire Dan Gilbert , but it also talks about the initiatives of many small and local entrepreneurs who are doing their part to help revive the city – while at the same time making a profit.

One thing that I found interesting about the article is the extent to which the private sector has taken over the responsibilities of the public sector. With only 35,000 of the city’s 88,000 streetlights actually working, the city simply doesn’t have the money to pay its bills. When I visited the city last fall , I was told that the city couldn’t even afford batteries for its parking meters. 

So the private sector has stepped up. 

In downtown, Dan Gilbert pays for his own security force to patrol the area 24 hours a day both on the ground and through 300 surveillance cameras. And in the Jefferson East corridor, John Stroh III – of the Stroh Brewery Company – is paying for 3,500 hours of private security in order to help transform the area into a walkable retail strip.

It’s a model that relies on the funding and vision of rich people to catalyze change. And it strikes me as a quintessentially American way of going about it. In Canada, I’m not so sure it would be approached in quite the same way, which I think is both good and bad. I think in Canada there would be more government involvement.

If the rich people are there and willing to step up (like they are right now in Detroit), then I would assume the capital would be deployed more efficiently and that change would happen more quickly. But if the rich people aren’t willing to step up, then nothing happens and the place declines.

That might be an oversimplification, but I think there are differences.

To end, I’m going to leave you with this Bloomberg video about Steve Case’s (former AOL founder) “Rise of the Rest” road trip to Detroit. If you can’t see the video below, click here .

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RUG0H4VThM?rel=0]

Last night my father and I were walking to dinner and he commented to me that he thinks my generation will be a lot healthier than his–at least on average–given how much more my generation walks. I responded by reaffirming to him how little I drive these days and how much I enjoy that.

Then today, I was watching this short clip of the The High Road with celebrity chef Mario Batali , where he interviews venture capitalist Fred Wilson. During their tour around New York City, Mario asks Fred what he thinks the future of transportation will be. Fred responds by saying that nobody will drive anymore. He then went on to say that the technology for driverless cars is already ready, but that we as a society just aren’t ready for it, yet.

Finally, on my way home from wakeboarding today , I stumbled upon this Guardian Cities article talking about Helsinki’s ambitious plan to make owning a car pointless. By 2025, the goal is have a “point-to-point mobility on-demand system” that will integrate all forms of mobility into one booking and payment platform. Think everything from public transit to carpools to taxis. 

As I read on, I then discovered that Helsinki is already offering on-demand public minibuses that allow people to specify their own routes on their smartphone. The system then aggregates all of the requests and establishes the most efficient route based on the immediate demand. Coincidentally enough, it’s quite similar to a use case I wrote about for driverless cars .

All of this got me thinking that one day we’ll probably look back at that time when people used to drive their own vehicles around as some antiquated and hilarious moment from the past.

Image: Observatoire