Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1565

One of the places I had to visit during my trip to Detroit last weekend was Lafayette Park . Designed by famed German-American architect Mies van der Rohe , it’s the largest collection of his buildings and one of the most successful examples of urban renewal in America.

Still today it remains one of the most economically and racially diverse neighbourhoods in the city and a bastion of stability within Detroit’s eroding urban fabric. But from a planning standpoint, it shares many of the same characteristics as other tower-in-a-park renewal plans. 

It was built at a lower density than the neighbourhood it replaced (the unfortunately named Black Bottom slum) and it was far more insular in terms of its relationship to the greater city. From cul-de-sacs to expansive green space areas, it’s an island in the middle of Detroit.

This recipe has created many spectacular urban failures all across the world. So why not in Detroit? One would think that Detroit of all places would suffer the same fate.

I have 3 hypotheses.

First, the fact that it’s a Mies community matters.  I’m sure it attracted and continues to attract residents simply because of who designed it. The entire neighbourhood is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Second, the community doesn’t have the same monoculture that many other master planned communities had. From the beginning, the intent was to develop a self sustaining mixed-income neighbourhood with shops, restaurants, schools and so on.

Third, I think the fact that the neighbourhood was more insular actually helped it. As the rest of the city’s fabric crumbled, Lafayette Park remained this kind of curated semi-urban space in the core of the city.

These are just some of my initial thoughts.

There has, of course, been a lot of rigorous academic thought on this topic by the likes of Charles Waldheim , the late  Detlef Mertins , and others. 

MaRS has just launched a Social Venture Exchange (SVX)  here in Toronto in collaboration with the TMX Group. And I’m proud to announce that TAS is a founding venture member.

Here’s the mission of the SVX:

"The SVX is a local, impact first platform connecting impact ventures, funds, and investors in order to catalyze new debt and equity investment capital for local ventures that have demonstrable social and/or environmental impact, including nonprofits, co-operatives, and for-profit corporations."

The focus of the SVX Is on  triple bottom line accounting . So it’s very well aligned with the philosophy of TAS. However, I like to think of our  "four pillars"  as a kind of quadruple bottom line framework. In addition to measuring social, environmental and economic impact, we also care about  cultural  impact.

According to Sequoia Capital, Americans spent $4 trillion on retail shopping last year - 95% of which was still done in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. I’m actually a bit surprised by how high this number is. I would have thought that a larger percentage of people would be shopping online.

For me personally, I’d say that my split might be close to 50/50. From furniture to clothes, to even a new bicycle, I buy a lot online, come to think of it. Part of the reason is convenience, but the other reason is that I like having easy access to a broader selection.

About the only thing I really prefer buying in person is groceries. However even there I’ve been exploring ways to regularize shipments of the items I typically buy. I can’t recall where I read it, but I remember seeing something about less than 1% of groceries in America being bought online.

Intuitively, the percentage of online sales is only going to rise, particularly given the shift to mobile. Consumers can now shop anytime, anywhere. Real estate companies and retailers certainly need to pay attention.

But just like the internet didn’t make cities irrelevant, I don’t think it’ll make shopping in person completely extinct. As Sequoia Capital points out in its article, mobile phones are creating new opportunities at the intersection of online and real world shopping.

So while I don’t know what the future online/offline split might be, I suspect that the two worlds will continue to blur together. I might buy a bicycle online, but when it comes time to service it, I’d like to be able to bring it into a store.