Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 717

I was in Montreal for the long weekend and I decided to take the time off from writing. I don't do that very often, but it was the right thing to do this past weekend.

Montreal is one of my favorite cities. I spent quite a bit of time there when I was in my early 20s and I almost ended up at McGill for my undergraduate degree. So I have a soft spot for the place.

One of my friends once described Montreal to me (and contrasted it against Toronto) by saying that it has grandeur . And I think that is exactly the right word.

There are so many moments throughout the city where you just feel its impressiveness. It's almost as if, from the very beginning, the city knew what it was destined to become.

In contrast to this, urban planner Joe Berridge has, in the past, referred to Toronto as an accidental metropolis . And I think that is a similarly accurate way of describing our city.

Sometimes in Toronto (or perhaps oftentimes, depending on who you ask), you have to scratch a little beneath the surface to find what makes Toronto a truly great city.

It's as if the city didn't know what it was destined to become, and built accordingly. Things just happened -- accidentally.

Grandeur isn't usually something that is discussed today in city planning circles. We instead talk about things like angular planes, context and, of course, building height.

But maybe it's time we rethink our list of requirements. Maybe it's time we ask ourselves: "Are we creating a city with grandeur?"

Image: Drone photo from the top of Mount Royal

Cities are dead. New York City is dead . That's why it was announced early last month that Facebook has just signed a lease for 730,000 square feet in Vornado's new Farley Post Office redevelopment in Manhattan. Here's what I think is a pretty telling remark from Brian Rosenthal of Facebook:

“So much of what we do is collaborative,” Rosenthal said. “[Software is] like writing a book together where all the plots have to connect and make sense and there are thousands of authors. It’s really hard to do if you’re not co-located in the same space and it’s important to even be able to see each other in the same space.”

Building a building is done in much the same way. Except I would take it even further and say that it's like writing individual sentences together. One person starts the sentence (usually the architect), but then the rest of the team enters (engineers and so on) and informs the architect that the words actually need to be changed around.

After a bunch of back and forth, the sentence is finally complete (for the most part). This is just in time for the editors (construction team) to tell you that the sentences you've assembled in fact don't work at all and that they will cost far too much to print in their current form. So team goes back and, once again, readjusts.

As you might imagine, this is a lot easier to do when you're not fiddling with a mute button and fighting against screaming kids in the background.

Dixie Outlet Mall in Mississauga has just launched a drive-in movie theater that will run for three Saturdays starting on September 12, 2020. Tickets are available for $5 and you have to purchase in advance. It's first come, first park. And there only 100 parking spots available.

Here are the event links:

Sept. 12, 2020

Sept. 19, 2020

Sept. 26, 2020

All of the proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the New Haven Learning Centre , which is a group that works to positively change the lives of people with autism, and other related disorders. For more information about the Dixie Drive-In, click here .

And for those of you who are curious, the answer is yes, a minor variance application was required in order to allow this "pop-up."