Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 273

One perfectly sound approach is to just be the cheapest. This often entails lower margins, but hopefully higher volumes. However, the problem with this approach is that it can become a race to the bottom. At some point, somebody will find a new corner to cut. As Seth Godin says , "the problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win."

On the other end of the spectrum is this approach:

This is a pamphlet describing full ripeness mangoes from the Miyazaki prefecture in Japan . These are not the cheapest mangoes around. In fact, it's the opposite; they're generally known to be the world's most expensive. But they will almost certainly be the best mangoes that you've ever tasted . And you'll only be able to get them between the months of April and August.

Sometimes it's possible to be both cheaper and better. And that's obviously an ideal position to be in. But in many, or perhaps most cases, you'll need to choose. Cheaper, or that much better.

Today is my forty-first birthday.

I had aspirations of making it a slower day, but that didn’t really happen. I did, however, start my morning “ on the Bench ” for one of our development projects and that was pretty spectacular, especially with the weather we had. Today has to have been the nicest day of the year.

I very much enjoy my birthdays, but the cadence of them seems to only speed up. It feels like just last month that I turned forty. And so in many ways, birthdays are a reminder to me that it’s important to be decisive and not waste time. Life keeps moving forward whether we like it or not — usually quickly. So it’s best to optimize accordingly.

At the same time, this is probably one of my biggest faults. I’m bad at slowing down and living in the moment. I get restless. Neat B tells me that I am at my most relaxed when we are traveling in Paris and just sitting idly in a cafe somewhere. That sounds right. But I’d like to do more of this at home.

So that’s my birthday wish (goal) for this year.

So, Dubai has just announced that it will be building the largest capacity airport in the world at the site of its existing Al Maktoum International Airport . At an expected cost of approximately US$35 billion, the expanded airport is planned to have 400 gates, 5 parallel runways, 5 passenger terminal buildings, and capacity for up to 260 million passengers per year.

To put this into perspective, Atlanta International Airport is currently the world's busiest with nearly 105 million passengers last year . Dubai International Airport -- their other and main airport -- is second with just under 87 million passengers last year. From a physical perspective, though, this new airport is expected to be 5x the size of Dubai International.

On top of this, Dubai is also planning for the area around the airport -- called Dubai South -- to form the basis of a new city for 1 million people.

The scale is mind boggling.