Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 803

The Nib's recent comic about Jane Jacobs vs. The Power Brokers (i.e. Robert Moses) is a good little overview of her lessons and legacy. But I don't understand the claim that developers co-opted her ideals in order to exploit and gentrify urban neighborhoods. According to the comic, gentrification is always a top-down affair by developers, and never a spontaneous emergence as a result of other humans and/or industry wanting to be in a particular place.

I can think of many neighborhoods that have seen investment from groups other than traditional developers, including from individual homeowners. Take, for example, Cabbagetown in Toronto . There was never a top-down developer moment. It was individuals who saw beauty (and also opportunity) at a time when others were scared of the area. Is that acceptable? Perhaps more importantly, did these people wear black suits?

The other missing piece is the fact that desirable urban neighborhoods are, today, in incredibly short supply. During the reign of Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs had a view of cities that was in opposition to the planning zeitgeist of the time. But over time, she went from controversial to enlightened, and alongside this we saw a return to cities.

Combined with strict land use policies, this rising demand for Jacobian-style neighborhoods has meant that many/most dense urban centers operate with a perpetual housing supply deficit. There's not enough cool urban housing to go around. Add in the current low interest rate environment, and you then have even more money searching for that perfect home in the West Village. That tends to do things to prices.

Image: The Nib

This week it was announced that Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance are joining forces to develop a new royalty-free connectivity standard for smart home products. The working group is called Project Connected Home over IP and the goal is to develop a " USB-like plug-and-play protocol for the home ." If successful, this standard would get applied to all smart home systems, including the Amazon, Apple, Google, and other "assistants" that you may already have in your home.

The thing about smart home devices is that most of them are exactly that: a device. They're something you buy and append to your home, as opposed to something that gets built into the core of your home. This, of course, makes sense, given how difficult it is to innovate within the real estate space. If you're in the business of creating smart home products, you ideally want everyone to be able to buy it and quickly add it to what they already have. And as a consumer, you don't want your permanent fixtures to become quickly outdated.

But if/when a standard emerges, I wonder if that doesn't make it easier to develop a more holistic approach to smart home products. That could be really interesting. If you'd like to learn more about the project, click here .

I was recently having a debate with one of our architecture partners about the interrelationship between architecture, interiors, and branding. This came up because, in New York City, you almost need a name brand architect attached to your project in order to sell luxury condos.

But this raises an interesting set of questions: How much value is driven by the quality of the architecture versus the architect's brand? (Though, presumably you need the former in order to build the latter.) And how much of the value is actually just driven by the finishes (interiors) and the branding that you layer on after?

This latter scenario is a depressing thought for architects. It is architecture as a kind of "empty vessel." One that just gets dressed up for today's Instagrammable moments. And I am sure that you can think of some examples of this. Not everything can be capital A architecture.

But what is clear is that the most successful design-driven projects don't think in this way. They are thoughtful and deliberate about each component, and they all work together to strengthen each other. Marketing, after all, is about telling the right story. It is always helpful when you actually have one to tell.