Delivering value for the user
With ever-evolving technologies and the needs of society shifting, how do public sector authorities effectively and efficiently deliver infrastructure?
Double Default Alive and Well
When neither the vendor nor the purchaser is ready to close, the deal does not die: it lays in suspense, waiting to be re-started by the first party ready to close.
Podcasts and cities: ‘you’re always commenting on power’
More and more podcasts about cities are being produced by journalists and academics. They’re being recorded in research labs, urban planning offices, on the streets and in the neighbourhoods of our cities.Podcasting allows academics to…
Is the real estate development industry facing its Uber moment?
PropTech crusader and entrepreneur, George Carras, recently opened an Urban Land Institute (ULI) Toronto symposium with two photos: one of an airline pilot and the other a construction worker, each from the 1950s. Imagine, he asked, if they…
Weird Science
When it comes to development, there is a world governed by science and there is a parallel world of political science.A colleague and I were admiring a stuffed mountain lion outside a state Senator’s office when he greeted us…
Smart cities: The promises and failures of utopian technological planning
Technology and innovation transform the ways that we interact with governments, purchase products and manage our health and lives. This turmoil affects cities, where the accelerating digitalization of our economy has opened the door for…
Are urban planners overstepping their bounds?
In March, urbanist and author Alain Bertaud, a senior research scholar at the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management, visited Toronto to give a presentation on cities and discuss the findings of his new book, Order Without Design: How…
Once-in-a-generation moment for Canadian commercial real estate: CBRE
Safety and stability thrust Canada into the spotlight during the Global Financial Crisis and initiated a transformative decade. An influx of global capital, record construction activity, rising home prices and the pace of technological…
Good News Gloom
“Canadian commercial real estate has been a primary benefactor of a decade of economic growth and distinction on the global stage. Further integration into the global economy coupled with technological change has produced new sources of…
Green buildings must do more to fix our climate emergency
After more than three decades of talk about the potential of building green, we’ve still failed to change the way we design and construct buildings so that the built environment stops being a dominant contributor to runaway climate change.…