Hi friends,
Greetings from Mexico!
Here's a Few Personal Updates:
Sunrise App. Winter is coming. To maximize daylight, I’ve started waking up every day at sunrise. It’s been a tough habit to adjust to (most days I nap for 2-4 hours upon awakening). Since setting a daily (ever-changing) alarm is slightly tedious, I am considering building an iOS app. If I commit, I plan to follow Alex Hormozi's business model: (1) make it better (2) make it free (3) monetize another way that your competition can’t.
Real Estate in Europe. Housing markets in London and Berlin are saturated, but not in select neighborhoods of Madrid. Two friends recently invited me to join them in a real estate pursuit in Europe. I figured (1) it’s a great way to work with close friends (2) adds a practical bent to my urban design studies (3) stretches me out of my comfort zone. Three weeks will give me enough data to determine if my trip is worth extending. I leave on December 2nd.
Vision of the Future. Nobody teaches us how to set a vision of our future. That’s something that I’m grappling with, as I try to envision what I want my life to look like. My current vision is to design 22nd-century cities, whether on Mars, the Moon, or Earth (but 5°C warmer). To take action, I’ve started to draw daily architecture diagrams. My secondary area of focus is on using technology to improve existing cities. I’ll have more to say on this in my end-of-year postcard.
Here's What I Wanted to Share:
The Founding of Saint Petersburg. Here are some nicknames for Saint Petersburg: The Window to the West, The Venice of the North, Sankt Pieter Burkh (dutch pronunciation). Peter the Great founded the city to westernize Russia (specifically in the image of Amsterdam). Built on frozen marshes near the Arctic Ocean, where only wolves and bears resided, the 1703 construction was a miracle and a labor of love death. Rather than importing wheelbarrows, workers dug with their bare hands and carried swampy mud in their shirts. 40,000 serfs died. Internally, Peter faced harsh criticism, especially from those who wanted to preserve old Moscovian traditions. His son Alexis vowed to abandon St. Petersburg when he became ruler. One nobleman compared St. Petersburg to a “gangrene-infected limb” that must be amputated so the rest of Russia doesn’t become infected by European ideals. Nevertheless, the city was constructed rapidly. In 5 years, St. Petersburg became the capital of Russia. In 20 years, it grew to 40,000 people. Today, it’s one of two major cities in Russia. Read the incredible founding story in The History of Future Cities. For nitty-gritty details, refer to chapter one of Natasha’s Dance.
Improving Focus. What made Steve Jobs and Elon Musk great? Part of the answer is the ability to have a singular hardcore focus. At least that’s what Jony Ive (Chief Designer at Apple) says. And Walter Isaacson, who has been shadowing Elon for two years, provides this insight: After Twitter accepted his offer, Elon began fixating on a valve in the Raptor engine that had a methane leak issue. Engineers in the room were confused. “Shall we say something?” But Elon was indistractible. To improve my focus, I am following a 13-minute re/focus practice. Learn it here.
Simplified U.S. Constitution. Randall Munroe draws the popular web comic XKCD. In 2015, he wrote Thing Explainer, where he breaks down complex topics using the 1,000 most common English words. I particularly liked his copy of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Have a great week!
Leo
Looking forward to your journey into urban design and into the next century!
An engaging and diverse collection of thoughts as usual Leo. re the improving focus section, I recently ran across a curious reference from another author, which I haven't verified the source of, but it went like this. "Did you know that Warren Buffett advises against using a schedule? That way, he argues, you just do what’s most important at any given time." That intrigued me coming from that source, but also resonates a lot with what seems to be what I usually default to.