Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 823

Dezeen recently announced its 2019 interior award winners and this 17.6 square meter (~190 square foot) flat in Taipei was selected for "small interior of the year." Designed by the Taiwanese studio A Little Design , the space features a 3.4m ceiling height and a queen-size sleeping loft. The design is very well done.

But as I was looking through the photos, I couldn't help but think, "This is about the size of a parking spot in Toronto." Typically, the minimum dimensions for a parking space are 2.6m wide by 5.6m long. If either side is obstructed or the drive aisle is substandard, these dimensions need to be increased.

So we're not far off.

Some of you will interpret this to mean that the apartment is too small; whereas some of you will interpret this to mean that the spaces we dedicate to cars are too big. It's a matter of perspective. But what is clear is that there is a market for small urban spaces. Here are some other examples from São Paulo , Beirut , and Moscow .

Photo: Hey! Cheese

The CEO of Foursquare -- Jeff Glueck -- published an interesting op-ed in the New York Times today, calling on Congress to regulate the location data industry. Currently, there are no formal rules in place.

In case you're not aware, Foursquare is one of the largest independent companies operating in this space. I have written about them many times before on the blog.

Here's an excerpt from Jeff's op-ed explaining why this matters:

But location data can also be abused. Bounty hunters were able to buy the current location of a cellphone for $300, Vice reported , because telecom companies sold the real-time location of phones to shady companies. And apps that track location data may turn around and sell that data, revealing someone’s every movement — whether it is to a retail store, an abortion clinic or a gay bar. Bloomberg Businessweek  recently reported  on a company with thousands of cameras selling car locations to debt collectors and others; there is no “opt-in” involved, and it’s illegal in all states to cover your license plate.

I am writing about this today because I think it's relevant to city building. Location data is inherently spatial. It is how we exist in cities. So it shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you that this is valuable information -- hence why it is being abused.

Here we have a company advocating for more, not less, regulation. They, of course, want it to be sensible. But I still think it says things about the current location data environment. To learn about the specifics of what Jeff is proposing, click here .

My recent post about minimum project sizes triggered some great follow-up discussions over email. Today, I learned about a Master Plan that was recently completed for Little Havana, Miami by the urban design and planning firm Plusurbia .

In it, they try to address some of the problems that I described in my post through something they call "Inverse Density." Given the tendencies toward larger projects, they are proposing to incentivize the development of smaller and underused lots with more density.

The idea being that if you can encourage more smaller scale development, you can actually help to protect the character of a place. In 2017, the National Trust for Historic Preservation declared the neighborhood a national treasure.

Here's a screenshot from the plan :

What you are seeing here is existing vs. proposed policies. The proposed scenarios both result in higher densities, even though the lots are smaller. Alongside this, they are proposing to get rid of parking minimums for lots less than 7,500 sf.

It's an intriguing idea and I'm glad they shared it with me. If you'd like to download a copy of the full Little Havana Master Plan, click here .