Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 447

Dan Frommer has just just released his latest Consumer Trends report (2023). If you'd like to download a free copy, you can do that over here . It is amazing to see how big of a deal Tik Tok has become. In Q3 2022, the average Android user spent 98 minutes per day in the app. That is a lot, and it's roughly 2x what Facebook and Instagram each saw (though if you combine these two apps, I guess they're pretty similar). Either way, this is where people's attention is now being spent. For those of us in real estate, the report also has some interesting slides on grocery stores. The key message here is that physical stores remain hugely important.

The year-over-year change in online grocery spending is now flat to a little negative:

No matter which generation you ask, more people prefer shopping for groceries in-store, versus online:

And even when people do shop for groceries "online", they still tend to pick them up from their local store or have that local store deliver it to them (so the store matters):

For the full report, click here .

Our team is looking to partner with local Hamilton, Ontario-based artists and creatives as part of a new project that we're working on for next year. So this post is intended to be a call to artists. If you're based in Hamilton and doing great work, we would love to hear from you. Please drop me an email (brandon@slateam.com).

In my mind, art and culture is a fundamental ingredient in Hamilton's ongoing renaissance. Each and every time I'm in the city, I feel like I meet someone who is an artist. And there are so many great examples that we can point to.

Take Scott Martin (aka Burnt Toast ). Scott is a Hamilton-based illustrator and co-creator of the fantastically popular Doodles NFT collection . I don't have one in my wallet, but I can tell you that I want one. The current starting price for a Doodle is nearly US$9k. But as an alternative, you could also just go to downtown Hamilton and look at one of Scott's public murals.

Go Hamilton. Please show us what else you are creating.

Photo by Abigail Chen on Unsplash

Toronto doesn't like electric scooters . Something about them being dangerous. But here are some interesting statistics for France , which has apparently become the leading scooter market in Europe:

• The Fédération des Professionnels de la Micromobilité (FPMM) -- yes, this exists -- estimates that there are about 2.5 million regular scooter users in France.

• In 2021, about 900,000 units were sold in the country, which represents a 42% increase compared to 2020.

• Sales directly to users is outstripping the revenue from self-service operators such as Lime, Bird, Dott, and Voi. Current annual estimates are in the range of €310 million and €40 million, respectively.

• About 50% of scooter sales are happening at grocery stores, compared to 30% at other retailers, and 20% online. (This is kind of interesting. I wonder if people are impulse buying while shopping for food.)

I am a big fan of electric scooters. And all of this suggests to me that scooter adoption is likely to continue, that we are going to need to start thinking more about how best to incorporate them into our cities, and that eventually Toronto will have to stop being so conservative.