Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 404

I just learned about Blackbird's technology platform and the restaurant loyalty program that they are currently building. On the surface, the way it works is that you walk into a restaurant and then tap your phone on one of their NFC-enabled chips (see above).

This then signals that you are/were there and so you earn loyalty points, kind of like a stamp on one of those cards in the food court. Except here, the idea is to create an endless and customizable array of wonderful customer experiences.

Maybe after 15 fifteen visits you're now considered "fam" (decided by the restaurant), and so you get a designated table at the restaurant and your favorite dessert automatically sent to your home on your birthday. This is just one example.

At the same time, you also earn $FLY, which is the platform's native crypto token (built on Base by Coinbase ). And this to me is one of the most exciting aspects of the platform.

Because here is a crypto or web3 product that is seemingly really easy to use. In fact, nobody needs to know that it is doing things on a blockchain. Just tap your phone on the thingy. Earn stuff. And move on.

So I think it's a really good example of where we're headed in this space. The underlying technologies are going to recede into the background and all that we'll see are useful products and services.

I cover a lot of different topics on this blog. It's hard to write daily for a decade and not meander every now and then. But generally speaking, I do try and keep this forum focused on things that are related to city building -- real estate, housing, design, transportation, etc. And I do try and share some of the things that I have learned (and the mistakes that I have made) since I started working in real estate development back in 2007.

But we all have limits, and different perspectives are vital for solving problems. So I'd really like to introduce more Q&A features on this blog, similar to this recent one that I did with structural engineer, James Cranford. If this sounds interesting to any of you, please reach out . I'm open to anyone who touches the built environment: architects, artists, planners (private or municipal), lenders, furniture designers, bollard manufactures ... you name it!

Image: Jason Adam Katzenstein

Let's assume that you're Mayor of your city and that, for whatever reason, you have no need to pander to voters. You're a benevolent dictator. You can do whatever you think is best overall for the city and it will just happen. What would you do? This is more or less the question I asked on Twitter this morning , and I think it's only fair that I answer my own question. So here is a non-exhaustive list of items that came to mind while thinking of Toronto:

• Substantially increase the pay of public sector workers throughout the city and bonus them based on measurable outcomes. Forget things like time limits on development applications; instead align incentives. For example, if we're trying to get more shovels in the ground on affordable housing, incentivize people based on building permits issued. I'll never forget what Roger Martin told me while I was at Rotman. When he became Dean of the school, Rotman was a whatever business school that wasn't faring all that competitively in the rankings. One of the problems he discovered was that the school's professors were getting paid far less than those at Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, and so on. So if you were a star, why would you ever want to teach at Rotman? He immediately matched the salaries of those top-tier schools and then, not surprisingly, the top-tier talent arrived. You get what you pay for.

• Immediately price roads and congestion, and direct, to the fullest extent possible, the funds toward transit and cycling infrastructure. At the same time, the planning and building of transit would be depoliticized. There would be a reccurring funding stream and a plan that we're continually building out. Minimize protracted debates. Never stop building. There's a lot of talk this mayor election about solving traffic congestion. I have yet to see a plan that will actually work. Accurately pricing congestion likely won't be popular, but I can guarantee you that it will be highly effective .

• Ensure that property taxes are sustainably covering the costs of operating the city and then, at a minimum, peg all future increases to CPI.

• Make any new housing development less than 12 storeys as-of-right. That would mean, no rezoning process and no site plan approval; just straight to building permit.

• Empower the private sector to build affordable housing through incentives and subsidies. Affordable housing isn't feasible to build on its own, which is why nobody is doing it. Inclusionary zoning also won't get us there. Make developers want to build it and they'll do it.

• Liberalize licensing and cut red tape to empower small entrepreneurs across the city in various industries. A perfect example in my mind is street food. Toronto is the most diverse city in the world with some of the best restaurants, and yet the only thing you can buy on the street is a stupid hot dog. If we empowered small entrepreneurs to setup shop on our streets, we would easily have the best street food scene in the world. And I am positive that there are countless other latent opportunities in this city that are being held back by dumb and archaic rules.

• Make dramatic improvements to our public realm with an eye toward becoming the most beautiful and livable city in the world. Finally pedestrianize Kensington Market , remove the elevated Gardiner Expressway , make it so that we can swim in the Lake , build beautiful public washrooms all across the city that are actually open and aren't gross, and the list goes on. And yes, "beauty" should be requirement so that we don't end up with shit like this .

• Focus on art, design, culture, and innovation as central pillars of Toronto's brand. Miami is a good example of what this approach -- along with favourable taxes and nice weather -- can do for a city. I've said this before, but here's just one example: Toronto is in many ways the birthplace of the cryptocurrency Ethereum . Why is nobody talking about this? Why are we not celebrating and leveraging this? It's a missed opportunity. Broadly speaking though, I think just having and doing three things can be effective in promoting new ideas for these pillars: have reasonably affordable housing, be a city that young people want to live in, and remain open and tolerant to immigrants .

• Stop thinking of the night-time economy as a nuisance and instead think of it as a powerful economic development tool. I recently responded to this " night economy survey " that the City of Toronto released and the obvious bias is that nighttime things are seen as a terrible nuisance. In other words, "tell us how do we make all of this less annoying for grouchy voters." My response was to extend last call to 4am and to start thinking of it as an opportunity to draw in young people, tourists, and whoever else. This complements my previous point.

This is, again, a completely non-exhaustive list. But if I had to summarize the overall ambition, it would be to make Toronto a truly exceptional and remarkable city. We should never be happy with mediocrity.

What else would you do? Leave a comment below.

Photo by  Aditya Chinchure  on  Unsplash