Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 964

I like this article and photo essay in the Guardian talking about “Hong Kong’s fight to save its neon shimmer.” Neon lights have been a ubiquitous feature of the Hong Kong nightscape since about the middle of the 20th century. They were an outcropping of increasing economic prosperity. And in many ways they really represent the culture of the city – a frenetic free market where entrepreneurs have no choice but to compete for attention. 

But thanks to more restrictive sign ordinances and new technologies (though LED can be made to look pretty similar to neon), there’s growing concern that a fundamental part of Hong Kong’s urban landscape may be disappearing. The article mentions a newish (2017) advocacy group called the Hong Kong Neon Heritage Group , which is trying to raise awareness about the city’s remaining lights.

Love live the neon.

Photo by Sean Foley on Unsplash

A reader recently suggested that I write about my workflow as a developer, as well as some of the software that we use to manage projects. I like this topic because, like most of you I’m sure, I am constantly trying to improve productivity. But I don’t think I have a great answer to it. And I don’t think any of the software tools out there have fully solved the work/project management problem, for any kind of project.

We all live in our inbox and our calendar. Over the years, I, as well as the companies I have worked for, have tried a number of different document management (building things creates lots of documents) and work management tools. None of them really stuck, other than 

I know people who have elaborate flagging/tagging systems within their inbox. I flag things, but I don’t find the time dimension strong enough. Lately I have instead become is a prolific archiver. As soon as an email has been actioned, I archive it so it’s gone and it is clearer what I have left to address. If there’s further follow-up, I’ll add it to my calendar as a task or enter it into Asana (more on this later).

I like adding tasks to my calendar and sending meeting invites (sorry) because there’s a time dimension to it and it creates a greater sense of urgency. I also try to be very disciplined about digitally filing everything . There’s no magic to this other than creating lots of date stamped folders organized by discipline. When a set of drawings come in, they go into a folder under the appropriate discipline (architecture, planning, structural, and so on). This is way better than searching through an inbox trying to find what you need.

We kno

Email. Calendar. 

Box. Asana. 

Google Drive.

S

MS Project

Project management tools

Rider Levett Bucknall recently released its RLB Crane Index for Q3-2018 . Here are the top 10 cities in North America (table via the New York Times ):

For the third consecutive reporting period, Toronto has taken the number one spot at 97 cranes – 85 of which are being used on residential projects. 

I’m not at all sure how the study defines “mixed-use” projects. But given that Toronto only has 2 of them, it must not include projects with grade-related retail.

Across North America, residential and mixed-use projects (whatever they are) make up approximately 70% of the total crane count. 

I am surprised that Miami didn’t make the list.