[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: politics, real estate, transit, rainbow tunnel

• John Lorinc at Spacing looks at how the idea of municipal autonomy for Toronto should not be seen as a final solution.
• blogTO notes the contracting number of neighbourhoods open for first-time buyers, here.
• Airbnb, blogTO notes, is definitely impacting the wider real estate network.
• King Street’s transit operations should be taken as a model for wider Toronto. Spacing has it.
• The story of the rainbow tunnel visible on the northbound DVP is a sad one worth knowing. Global News has it.

[ISL] Five #PEI links: Airbnb, Charlottetown Mall, Crapaud, Région Évangéline, seaweed pie

• CBC Prince Edward Island notes the proportionally extreme impact of Airbnb on the very tight housing market in Charlottetown.
• The Guardian notes the redevelopment of the Charlottetown Mall will see new stores and several hundred new housing units.
• Peter Rukavina reports on his successful electronic mapping of every building in the community of Crapaud.
• CBC Prince Edward Island notes that a move to amalgamate the predominantly Francophone and Acadian west-end Région Évangéline into a single municipality has halted.
• Atlas Obscura reports on the PEI dish of seaweed pie, made from Irish moss, once in the community of Miminegash and now available at the Canadian Potato Museum in O’Leary.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Montréal links: Québec, real estate, Berri, Dorchester Square, Airbnb

• La Presse writes about the lack of rapport between the government of Québec and the metropolis of Montréal, and the looks at the consequences of said.
• A new CMHC study suggests that, between rising prices for housing on the island of Montréal and improved transit off-Island, it might be cheaper for many to live on the mainland. The Montreal Gazette reports.
• Turning the abandoned Berri bus station into a distribution depot sounds like a good idea to me. CTV News reports.
• The newly renovated Dorchester Square looks lovely. Global News reports.
• The Montreal Gazette looks at new strict rules on Airbnb that will hopefully limit the impact on the rental housing sector.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links: Galleria, Gerrard Square, real estate, Don, Scarborough, #onpoli

• CBC Toronto notes the latest stage in the documentation, by Toronto artist Shari Kasman, of the now-disappearing Galleria Mall.
• The Gerrard Square Mall, blogTO suggests, is actually doing quite nicely these days.
• Airbnb listings in Toronto, taking up 1% of the rental market of Toronto, are causing significant harm to renters despite this seemingly small percentage. CBC reports.
• John Lorinc is quite right to note at Spacing that the City of Toronto is not helping the housing crisis by selling off vacant land.
• The Don River can now be celebrated, noting its rather improved status from its mid-20th century nadir. CBC Toronto reports.
• The Scarborough RT line faced near-critical shortages of usable vehicles recently. The Toronto Star reports.
• Steve Munro takes</a. a look at the details of the law uploading new Toronto transit services to the province of Ontario.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: anti-racist protest, AI at U of T, naloxone, TTC, Airbnb

• National Observer notes how, in Toronto, hundreds of anti-racist protesters blocked a far-right group.
• A $C 100 million donation has recently been made to the University of Toronto, to fund artificial intelligence research. CBC reports.
• Harm reduction activists want TTC operators to be trained in the usage of naloxone kits, to aid overdose victims. CBC reports.
• Transit Toronto notes its new Family of Services concept, intended to help Wheel-Trans users access wider city transit.
• Samantha Edwards writes at NOW Toronto about how Airbnb is worsening the living experiences of permanent residents in condo developments, by encouraging a more transient crowd less invested in local communities.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: PATH, Airbnb, houseboat, apartment towers, neighbourhoods

• Jamie Bradburn considers the history of the construction of the Toronto PATH network, and the surprising controversy. Many, it seems, did not want to live like moles.
• VICE takes a look at how Airbnb is directly driving people out of their neighbourhoods.
• The Toronto Star looks at a houseboat in the Scarborough Bluffs area that looks very homey.
• The aging apartment buildings of Toronto need care, perhaps a lot of care, if they are to continue to house safely their many hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. CBC Toronto reports.
• Postcity considers what, exactly, the slowing of development applications in Yonge and Eglinton means. Will the same hypertrophy spread to other neighbourhoods, soon to be overburdened?

[URBAN NOTE] Five notes about cities: Airbnb, NIMBYism, sinking, soil, anti-tours and Jane’s Walk

• This article at The Conversation examines the adverse effect of Airbnb on urban housing markets worldwide.
• CityLab looks at how NIMBYism advanced to the point of blocking progress in cities generally.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how many vulnerable cities, especially on shorelines, are at risk of sinking.
• Oliver Milman at Guardian Cities looks at how New York City, and other metropolises, are starting to study the soil they lie over. (I compost; at least I try to.)
• Oliver Balch at Guardian Cities takes a look at anti-tours, tours of cities which self-consciously consider elements and areas of urban life often overlooked by regular tourists. (I love the mention of Jane’s Walk–I went to the very walk by Union Station mentioned in the article!)