Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 624

I was reading about a proposed development earlier today (it doesn't really matter which one for this story) and I immediately thought to myself, "wow, this is a beautiful development. I like what they've done here." The project happens to be by one of my favorite architects in the city. Sadly though, we have yet to work with them on any of our projects.

I then decided to read the comment section of the article. There were dozens and dozens of comments and virtually all of them were negative and against the development. What is, of course, clear is that we all have different beliefs. We all see things differently. And that's part of the reason why creating any sort of change is usually so difficult.

But if you think about it, so much of our world resolves around change. If we want to address climate change, we are going to need to make changes. If we want to improve housing affordability, we are going to need to make changes. If we want to build more inclusive and economically prosperous cities, we are going to need to make changes.

The challenge with all of this change is that we have inertia working against us. Case in point: I'm sure that most of us have been in a meeting at one point or another when a decision was made purely based on what was done the last time around. We did X. So let's do X again. Why change? Probably a safe bet.

Seth Godin once said that, "if you do anything that matters, it means you're trying to change something." He was talking about the world of marketing. But I believe that there's a universal truth to this. Change unlocks potential.

https://youtu.be/iIRw1--km4s

Tangible , which is a Vancouver-based art and design studio, has just unveiled its latest "immersive experience." It's called Parasol and it can be found in downtown Vancouver in front of the Bentall Centre near the intersection of Dunsmuir and Burrard. An illuminated canopy-type structure, the 40 fins that make up each Parasol are equipped with LEDs and are designed to mimic the underbelly of a mushroom. If you can't see the embedded video above, click here .

I am a big fan of urban lighting and I have long felt that we don't do nearly enough to light our cities in ways that are fun and playful and that promote a stronger sense of place. This is particularly true during the winter months where, in cities like Vancouver, the sun sets before many people even leave work. So I am sharing Parasol with all of you today as a kind of call to action: Let's be more fun with our cities. This is a great example for how to do that.

Well here are some interesting figures (via MIT Technology Review ):

• In the past two decades, about 400 million people moved into China's cities -- so more than the entire population of the United States

• By 2035, about 70% of China's entire population is expected to be urban (up from 60% today and up from 30% two decades ago)

• To accommodate this scale of growth, China's national urban development approach has shifted to something that now revolves around city clusters, or megalopolises (term coined by French geographer Jean Gottmann back in the 1950s to describe the Boston-Washington corridor in the Northeastern US)

• By 2035, there are expected to be five major city clusters (see above)

• One of the reasons for this is to improve cooperation across the various clusters -- less competition and less redundancy

• But it's also about creating smaller more manageable cities -- is this what one needs to do after a certain scale, go polycentric?

• To service these clusters, China is rolling out a network of 16 new high-speed rail lines

• By 2035, China expects to have 200,000 kilometers of rail, with a third of it being high-speed -- assuming this happens, China will be home to 60% of the world's high-speed rail coverage

• Current cost estimates for the construction of this network comes out to about US$150 million per kilometer

• 1-2-3 Rule: The plan is that everyone should be able to get around a city within 1 hour; a city cluster within 2 hours; and travel between the country's clusters inside of 3 hours

China is building.