[PHOTO] Orange and white pumpkins

The two corner stores at Dovercourt and Hallam, 77 Food Market on the northeast corner and Sun Shine Variety on the northwest, have in warmer months lovely displays of plants and vegetables. The pumpkins each is showing now are no different.

[URBAN NOTE] Nine city links

• The new LRT that will unite Brampton and Mississauga looks very cool. blogTO reports.
• The small farming town of Belfountain is apparently facing a major influx of Toronto tourists seeking fall sights. Global News reports.
• Ridership on Kitchener-Waterloo transit generally has increased sharply since the opening of the Ion LRT. CBC reports.
• London, Ontario, is trying to regenerate its downtown. Global News reports.
• CTV Ottawa reports on O-Train Fans, a new fan community devoted to exploring the Confederation Line.
• La Presse looks at how people cross the street in Montréal in a way different from people in Québec City, here.
• A high-density apartment development in Fredericton is unpopular among some neighbours. Global News reports.
• Hillsborough, New Brunswick, is trying to keep its grocery store alive. Global News reports.
• Calgary hosts a new development of compact homes for military veterans. Global News reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Nine Montréal links

• The 9th floor restaurant at the Montréal Eaton’s looks like an architectural delight. CBC reports.
• This bike repair shop in Greenfield Park looks cool. CBC repors.
• I quite like the idea behind this rooftop garden in Saint-Henri. CBC reports.
• Is building a baseball stadium for Montréal after the Expos went going to be as much of an issue, and in the same ways, as building a hockey stadium after the Nordiques was for Québec City? CTV News reports.
• Renovictions are almost always a bad thing. CTV News reports.
• A cooperative of artisans has banded together to operate a storefront location in Saint-Denis that none could afford individually. CTV News reports.
• Amherst Street has been renamed Atateken, as part of reconciliation with indigenous peoples. CBC reports.
• The plight of homeless indigenous people around Cabot Square is desperate. CBC reports.
• La Presse notes a sharp fall in attendance at the Grande Bibliothèque over the past decade, a consequence of cutbacks.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto notes

• Matt Gurney wonders if the losses of votes for the Conservatives in the Greater Toronto Area will doom Andrew Scheer, over at the National Post.
• Jamie Bradburn took a look at the opening of the Ontario Science Centre, here.
• Spacing shares an argument for density transition zones in Toronto, here.
• The Village Idiot Pub in Toronto, across Dundas from the AGO, will rebrand itself the Village Genius. Global News reports.
• Queen and Coxwell will soon host some new affordable housing. Global News reports.
• The closure of a flea market on Old Weston road, a year after a tragic shooting, is a shame. The Toronto Star
• I am going to see at least some of the works in this year’s Toronto Biennial. NOW Toronto reports.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy looks at ALMA’s observations of the birth of binary star system, here.
• The Buzz, at the Toronto Public Library, announces the Governor-General’s Literary Awards from 2019, here.
• Centauri Dreams notes how we might be able to find a wormhole at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy.
• The Crux commemorates the enormously successful and long-lasting Voyager missions.
• D-Brief notes a self-tending swarm search and rescue drones.
• Bruce Dorminey notes how the first discoveries of exoplanets were a consequence of innovative technology and thinking.
• Steve Attewell at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that he is talking about the new idea in X-Men of a mutant nation-state over at Graphic Policy Radio.
• The LRB Blog notes Manif pour Tous mobilizing against new human reproduction laws in France.
• Marginal Revolution looks at how the drug war in Mexico has been getting worse.
• Neuroskeptic considers: What traits would a human population adapted to contemporary environmental pressures exhibit?
• The NYR Daily looks at a new exhibition of critical Internet-related art by Meriam Bennani.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at a remarkable double gravitational lens, and what it reveals about the universe.
• Window on Eurasia notes that although half of working-age people in Uzbekistan have been educated in the Latin script, many remain fluent in Cyrillic.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the many implications of fried pickles with ranch dressing.

[PHOTO] Six photos of Dovercourt Village on a fall morning

[AH] Six #alternatehistory maps from Reddit: Irish, Canada, Alaska, Russia, Prairies, South Africa

• This r/mapporn map shows the scale of the collapse of Irish as a spoken language across most of Ireland. Was this avoidable?
• This r/imaginarymaps map shows a Canada where the 1837 rebellions were successful, with an autonomous Upper Canada and a Lower Canada with a Patriote state. Doable?
• This r/imaginarymaps map depicts a common alternate history trope, that of an independent but culturally Russian Alaska. What would it take for this to happen?
• This r/imaginarymaps map depicts a world where Eurasia, from Germany to Korea, was dominated by a successfully industrializing Russian Empire. Was this common fear of the belle époque actually achievable?
• This r/mapporn map shows the different proposals for different territorial configurations of the Canadian Prairies. (I like the ones with north-south divisions.)
• Was a single South Africa covering most of British Southern Africa with relatively liberal racial policies, as Jan Smuts wanted, actually achievable? r/imaginarymaps hosts the map.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links

• I do hope Toronto does something with the abandoned foot court on Queen West and John. blogTO reports.
• blogTO looks at the new Villiers Island set to occupy the mouth of the Don River in the Port Lands.
• An Ossington laneway is going to be repainted after a botched improvement project destroyed its public art. The Toronto Star reports.
• Steve Munro fisks a defense by the Toronto Board of Trade of the proposed Ontario Line, here.
• Andrew Cash, sadly not elected in my riding of Davenport, writes in the Toronto Star about the importance of Toronto having active local MPs.
• National Observer looks at how the City of Toronto is encouraging residents grow gardens for pollinators.
• Samantha Edwards writes at NOW Toronto about how the long-closed Paradise on Bloor theatre is set to reopen in December.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomy notes a new detailed study suggesting that asteroid Hygeia is round. Does this mean it is a dwarf planet?
• The Buzz notes that the Toronto Public Library has a free booklet on the birds of Toronto available at its branches.
• Crooked Timber looks forward to a future, thanks to Trump, without the World Trade Organization.
• D-Brief notes how the kelp forests off California were hurt by unseasonal heat and disease.
• Bruce Dorminey notes an impending collision of supergalactic clusters.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at how judgement can complicate collective action.
• Language Hat looks at the different definitions of the word “mobile”.

Language Log looks at the deep influence of the Persian language upon Marathi.

Marathi and Persian

• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how, if anything, climate scientists make conservative claims about their predictions.
• Marginal Revolution wonders if planned power outages are a good way to deal with the threat of wildfires in California.
• The NYR Daily looks at the ethnic cleansing being enabled by Turkey in Kurdish Syria.
• Corey S. Powell at Out There interviews archeologist Arthur Lin about his use of space-based technologies to discovery traces of the past.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer looks at the staggering inequality in Chile, driver of the recent protests.
• At Roads and Kingdoms, Anthony Elghossain reports from the scene of the mass protests in Lebanon.
• Drew Rowsome tells how his balcony garden fared this year.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at stellar generations in the universe. (Our sun is a third-generation star.)
• Strange Company looks at the murder of a girl five years old in Indiana in 1898. Was the neighbor boy twelve years old accused of the crime the culprit?
• Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine takes a look at social mobility in France.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little considers economic historians and their study of capitalism.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the pro-Russian policies of the Moldova enclave of Gagauzia, and draws recommendations for Ukraine re: the Donbas.

[PHOTO] Twenty-five photos of the Humber River, from Old Mill up to Dundas Street West

Yesterday, I had a nice walk north up the Humber River, from Old Mill station up through Étienne Brûlé Park all the way upstream to Dundas Street. It was a beautiful early evening walk, in parklands turning yellow and other colours.