Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 607

When you look at some of the most iconic home designs from around the world -- which Bloomberg CityLab has been doing -- there are some trends that emerge. One of them has to do with desirability. Whether we're talking about Stockholm or Montreal , a lot of the housing that is today cherished, started out as fairly utilitarian. There was a need for housing and so governments and developers stepped up to build, often as cost effectively as possible. The result was housing that a lot of people seemed to dislike. At least initially.

Here are a few excerpts from a recent post by CityLab talking about Montreal's famous walk-up apartments:

Their shape was dictated by the dimensions of the lots sold by developers: Narrow at the front, they run as deep as 120 feet and open onto an alley, leaving enough space for backyards and sheds behind. Inside, the units are not particularly big, with duplex apartments, often rectangular in shape, typically from 750 square feet to 1,000 square feet. Triplex apartments are a little larger and sometimes configured in an L-shape, a trick that builders used to make the most of the lot’s depth while getting some side light. Rooms unfold on one or either side of a corridor, with the kitchen at the back.

Despite their reputation for charm today, the plexes were long criticized for their overcrowding and lack of light. Working-class homes were sometimes known as “the poor man’s coffin,” says Noppen. 

“These are very narrow, dark, long buildings, which above all, were overcrowded,” he says. Today the apartments may be sought after, as “part of a considerable gentrification movement, but that’s because, two, three people live inside — that used to be 15.”

I think most people forget that the housing we love today was probably built by a developer and almost certainly done in the pursuit of profit. Which begs the question: What has to happen before people suddenly start appreciating? Eliminating overcrowding certainly helps. But is it also a question of time? Do we just need time for the housing to settle in and get absorbed into the market? Or do we simply tend to dislike that which is new and so we need something even newer to hate before we can appreciate the now old?

The research isn't absolutely conclusive, but Matt Clancy -- who is an assistant teaching professor of economics at Iowa State -- makes an interesting case ( over here ) about entrepreneurship being mostly contagious.

The article cites a long list of studies that have more or less found that being around entrepreneurs can have a measurable positive effect on whether you yourself might also become one.

There is evidence to suggest that this is true whether you're a scientist working with someone who has previously commercialized a piece of research, a community with entrepreneurial neighbors, a student with an entrepreneurial mentor, or a child with parents who have started their own business(es).

According to one Swedish study, the children of entrepreneurs are about 12 percentage points more likely to start a business at some point in their life compared to people with non-entrepreneur parents.

But as I said at the beginning of this post, the research isn't entirely conclusive. Could a proclivity for risk and independence be instead genetic? Could it be that entrepreneur types simply seek out other entrepreneurs to hang out with? Perhaps these associations aren't causal. Maybe.

But my gut tells me that there has got to be some contagiousness. Here's an excerpt from Matt's article:

...being around someone who has done it plants the seed in your mind that it’s a possibility, something you really could do. For most of the studies, the population exposed to entrepreneurship is a population that wouldn’t normally consider it. For them, exposure has a measurable positive effect.

What this once again tells me is that there's immeasurable value in people clustering in cities, local communities, offices, coffee shops, and many other spaces. It's a hard (probably impossible) thing to replace. And it could be the difference between taking initiative and starting a business, and not doing that.

Today's post is going to be a self-serving one.

Some of you might remember that back in June I wrote about One Delisle being a finalist for four 2021 BILD Awards . One of them was the People's Choice Award, where I also mentioned that voting would open in August. Well, it is now August (yes, already) and voting is open. If you'd like to cast a vote, you can do that over here . (No login necessary.) There are some wonderful projects on this top 10 list. But in my entirely biased opinion, One Delisle is the project for you.