Brandon Donnelly

Manhattan's north-south avenues are generally 100 feet wide (~30 m) and typically accommodate 4-5 vehicular lanes of one-way traffic. They are the foundation of a street grid plan that seemed to know what the city would become. Or maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hugely important point about Toronto’s transit network:

Patience is a virtue A closed-end real estate fund is an investment vehicle with a finite life (call it anywhere from 5 to 12 years, plus extension options). These types of funds have a specific timeframe for raising capi...

Since global real estate markets started to turn downward in 2022, the ability to be patient and think long-term has become a key ingredient for survival.

brandondonnelly.com/patience-is-...

Love them!

Sometimes architecture is irrelevant Tokyo is a city of contrasts. It is both hyper-modern and steeped in tradition. It is known for art, architecture, design, and fashion, yet it's also a city that — through its built form — makes the a...

Decided to follow this up with a blog post:

brandondonnelly.com/sometimes-ar...

Architecture or buildings?

Yes

20” of new snow in Park City over the last 48 hours

Same post: Twitter vs. Bluesky. And this is with 10x the amount of followers on Twitter.

Yes

Where's the architecture?

I miss it regularly too.

Agreed

Urbanism > architecture

One of my biggest takeaways from living in Tokyo was that the city is incredible in spite of the fact that 95% of the architecture is unremarkable.

It makes the years-long design review process for a single apartment building in the U.S. seem all the more frivolous.

Bottom-up urbanism

You're not wrong

Tokyo is a city that makes the argument that architecture is irrelevant.

What matters more is urbanism:

The street network

The density

The freedom of uses

The clustering around rail

The world has a new biggest city It's not always as straightforward as it may seem to measure the size of a city or urban region. There's the problem of which urban boundary to use. And then once you've landed on that, there's the ad...

The world has a new biggest city. The UN’s 2025 World Urbanization Prospects report has reshuffled the global rankings, placing Jakarta at the top.
brandondonnelly.com/the-world-ha...

Thanks Paul. Hopefully I can keep up with it.

100%

LOL. It's because my phone is in French so things default sometimes.

How 300,000 commuters built a retail destination Good morning, and welcome back to work and school. I remember a moment very early on in my development career when I was sitting in a boardroom with dozens of "gray hairs" and the topic of Toronto's U...

How 300,000 commuters built a retail destination — Why retail at Toronto's Union Station was inevitable
brandondonnelly.com/how-300000-c...

How Congestion Pricing Proved the Haters Wrong and Is Changing New York for the Better - Streetsblog New York City Happy birthday to the toll cameras! Congestion pricing is working as promised — defying haters and doubters, including President Trump. Here's why.

Congestion pricing is working as expected in New York City. Here's why. nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/01/05/h...

Thanks Mark. So many platforms. I’d love to find a web3 one to focus on.

Hi. Totally forgot about this platform.

Thanks for sharing!

Toronto is planning for a post-car future One of the fundamental principles that we espouse on this blog is that land use and transportation planning are integral to one another. This matters if you're trying to build a big, bad global city b...

Monday's Most Read # 3 - Toronto is planning for a post-car future link.theoverheadwire.com/7ayn8 @brandondonnelly.bsky.social

Join this Panel at Oct 17th 9am at the CanU Forum: CHA[lle]NGE!

Moderated by Mark Guslits & Eric Turcotte @urbstrat.bsky.social
Featuring @brandondonnelly.bsky.social , Mary W. Rowe
@canurb.bsky.social , Joe Berridge, Julie Di Lorenzo, Vic Gupta

🔗 www.canu.ca/registration...

Platform > sponsor I don't remember signing up for Thesis Driven's newsletter, but I'm on it, and it does sound like something I would do. Their latest post, the first of this year by Brad Hargreaves, is called "Seven R...

As a general rule, I am much more interested in longer-term thinking, an approach that compounds over time, the opportunity to continually refine a craft, and the growth of brand equity.

brandondonnelly.com/platform-gre...