Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 696

For a lot of us, this is now month eight of constant Zooming. The big question, of course , is whether this new habit is going to stick or if it will wane along with the virus. Because the degree in which it sticks will have an impact on cities, real estate, and how we move about these spaces. Anecdotally, it would seem that a lot of people seem to think that some element of working from home is destined to remain. People like the increased flexibility. And I don't disagree that flexibility is an attractive feature.

Personally, I am bullish on cities and on old-fashioned human interaction, because here's how I am feeling about virtual meetings. One, we all have too many of them right now. The barriers to scheduling a virtual meeting are extremely low (one click in Outlook), and so it's painfully easy to fill up a calendar with them. Two, it can be difficult to stay focused when jumping from back-to-back virtual meetings all day. And three, because we all have too many of these meetings, everyone is trying to multitask and respond to emails at the same time. This degrades the overall effectiveness of each meeting.

Sarah Gershman published an article earlier this year in Harvard Business Review where she talked about some of the problems surrounding online meetings. One explanation for why many of us are losing focus is something known as the "Ringelmann Effect." The theory here is that as group sizes increase, it can be easy for individuals to feel less responsibility for a meeting's outcome. So they tune out. Max Ringelmann, who was a French engineer, demonstrated this effect by asking both individuals and groups to pull on a rope. What he found was that people generally tried less when they were part of a bigger group. There's always somebody else who will pick up the slack, right?

Sarah makes the argument that this phenomenon gets magnified in virtual meetings. We're all just a little box, sometimes existing on another page, hidden mostly from view. Surely there's another black box somewhere in this meeting who will pull the rope for me.

I don't know about all of you, but I miss traveling. So let's talk about Norway's new passports, which just entered circulation. Designed by Neue , these new passports are the result of a design competition that was launched back in 2014. The goal of the competition was to come up with something that could very clearly express the Norwegian identity, as well as improve overall security (i.e. minimize forgery).

The solution, and one clear idea , is this:

Inside the passport and across each double page spread is a rendition of the Norwegian landscape. Mountains, lakes, streams, and probably a bunch of other beautiful things. But when you hold it under UV light, which is known to happen from time to time inside airports, each landscape image changes to a night view. It's a simple and elegant solution that appears to solve two goals at once: identity and security.

And that's usually how good design works. It feels both simple and elegant.

Images: Neue

How important are urban restaurants? This recent article by Eduardo Porter makes the argument that they are a "central pillar of superstar cities." They are the social spaces that draw young and smart people to cities (see above) and that fuel our creative economy.

According to Eduardo, in the 1970s, urban consumers in US cities typically devoted about 28% of their overall food budget to dining out. As of 2019, restaurants, bars, food trucks, and other dining establishments consumed about 47% of this budget for people living in cities with a population greater than 2.5 million.

By comparison, people who resided outside of an urban area in 2019, spent only about 38% of their food budget on eating out. Still, these are substantial numbers. A big part of the food and drink that we consume is, at least during normal times, happening outside of where we live.

Right now is certainly not the finest hour for cities. Urban amenities (like restaurants) and social networks are part of what make living in a city so enjoyable. And these two things have been greatly (and rightly) reduced. But I don't for a second doubt the overall resiliency of our cities.

This isn't their first crisis and, unfortunately, it won't be their last.

Image: New York Times