Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 780

The Centre for London has just published an interesting report called, Core Values: The Future of Central London . Like most city centers, Central London (or the Central Activities Zone as the report calls it) punches well above its geographic weight.

Central London occupies about 0.01% of the UK's total landmass, but is responsible for about 10% of its economic output. It represents about 2% of London's total footprint, but is responsible for about 40% of total employment and about 45% of economic output.

Here's another interesting stat:

From 1961 to 1983, the residential population of CAZ boroughs in London fell from about 2.5 to 1.7 million. And things really didn't begin to turnaround until the late 1980s. It took until 2018 for the population to return to 2.5 million. Makes me wonder: How concerned do you think people were in the late 1970s about housing affordability in Central London?

To read the full report, click here .

Chart: Centre for London

I am a big fan of the work of Reuben Wu . He is, among many other things, a landscape photographer. But he explores and documents his landscapes in highly creative ways. In one of his latest projects -- Field of Infinity -- he photographed the Bolivian landscape at night and used a modified drone (plus a slow shutter speed) to draw light objects in the night sky. The results are incredible. Here is a short video about that trip and his work. (Note: He is an ambassador for the XT Camera System.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3byGGdvg2y0

From the outset, people have been predicting that the internet would become a decentralizing force for cities. That is, technology would allow us to spread out and work from anywhere -- perhaps from a small mountain town in the BC interior . While working from home (WFH) and working from anywhere (WFA) does appear to be on the rise, it hasn't made cities irrelevant. ( US Census data from 2018 estimates that only about 5.2% of Americans work entirely from home.) In fact, the "new economy" seems to have made superstar cities, such as London , seemingly even more important. It has concentrated economic activity; so much so that we're searching for ways to spread out income and wealth more evenly.

But could it be that the technology simply wasn't there yet? Fred Wilson posited on his blog today that right now might be video conferencing's moment. Between not wanting to travel (coronavirus, carbon footprint, time, etc...) and advancements in the actual technology, companies such as Zoom are changing the way people and companies engage over long distances. It is happening in our offices. And come to think of it, there are probably a bunch of meetings that I could and should switch over to Zoom. I'm not yet convinced that it will become a decentralizing force for cities. But it does seem to be empowering less travel and more flexibility.

Photo by  Nastuh Abootalebi  on  Unsplash