[URBAN NOTE] Five links on cities: Star Trek, mass transit, California rail, Green New Deal, HQ2

• The Conversation considers what Star Trek has to say about sustainable urban development.
• This New York Times article looks at how, in the United States, it is the cities of the West that are leading the country in developing effective mass transit now.
• CityLab looks at the retreat of California from its full vision of a high-speed rail connection.
• CityLab considers what a Green new Deal could do to help suburbia.
• The Atlantic thinks that the rejection of Amazon HQ2 by New York City is good if it leads to an end in competitive subsidies by different jurisdictions to attract businesses.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Detroit, Québec City, Boston, Queens, Colonia del Sacramento

• CityLab shares newly unearthed photos of the destroyed Detroit neighbourhood of Black Bottom.
• The National Post reports that apparently the latest iteration of the Winter Carnival in Québec City has not met with popular approval.
• CityLab explored for Valentine’s Day the notable history of Boston as a centre for the manufacture of candy.
• CityLab notes how the nascent condo boom in Queens’ Long Island City, set to capitalize on the Amazon HQ2 there, has been undermined abruptly by Amazon’s withdrawal.
• Ozy looks at the historic Uruguay town of Colonia del Sacramento.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Centauri Dreams looks at the genesis of ocean worlds. Having a nearly massive star producing lots of radioactive aluminum when it supernovas might be surprisingly important.
• The Crux takes a look at languages newly forming in the world around us, starting with the Australian language of Light Warlpiri. What does this say about humans and language?
• D-Brief notes that researchers have managed to create cyborg rats whose motions are controlled directly by human thought.
• Gizmodo reports on the abandonment by Amazon of its plan for a HQ2 campus in Queens.
• JSTOR Daily shares the perfectly believable argument that people with autism should not be viewed as people incapable of love.
• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Simon Balto writes about how the Ryan Adams scandal demonstrates the male gatekeeper effect in popular music.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution comes up with a list of winners and losers of the Amazon decision not to set up HQ2 in Queens. (Myself, I am unconvinced New York City is a loser here.)
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how, despite not interacting directly with normal matter, dark matter can still be heated up by the matter and energy we see around us.
• Window on Eurasia notes how, in many post-Soviet countries including the Baltic States and Ukraine, ethnic Russians are assimilating into local majority ethnic groups.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Queens, Fort McMurray, Casablanca, Aleppo, Baghdad

• Guardian Cities looks at prosperous Long Island City and hard-pressed Blissville, two neighbourhoods of Queens that will be transformed by Amazon moving in.
• CBC notes how, for Fort McMurray five years after the oil boom’s end, the bust is the new normal.
• CityLab reports on how the Art Deco Les Abbattoirs complex in Casablanca, once an emerging artist hub, has been emptied by the city government.
• This Middle East Eye feature looks at the relief and loss felt by returning survivors in Aleppo.
• Guardian Cities looks at how Baghdad, fragmented and impoverished by war, is fumbling towards some sort of livability.

[URBAN NOTE} Six Toronto links: HQ2, social capital, ravines, Yonge/Bloor, Port Lands, Eastern Ave

• CBC notes that Toronto probably did well by not getting picked as the home of the potentially overwhelming Amazon HQ2.
• Happily, Toronto’s stockpile of social capital in different neighbourhoods does not seem to be diminishing. The Toronto Star reports.
• Francine Kopun reports on the problems facing the ecologies of the Toronto ravine system, and how these parks might be helped, over at the Toronto Star.
• blogTO shares a series of photos of Yonge and Bloor, running more than eight decades up to 2005. (I miss that intersection.)
• Urban Toronto notes how the development of the Port Lands is literally creating a new coastline for Toronto.
• blogTO suggests that Eastern Avenue, east of the Don, is set to become the next development hotspot in Toronto.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Socialist Modernism, capping highways, desert cities, Amazon, Google

• Guardian Cities introduces readers to the Socialist Moderism Instagram account, part of a project by Romania’s Bureau for Art and Urban Research to preserve records of Eastern Bloc architecture.
• Brian Martucci at Oxy writes about how many American communities are capping their highways, burying them underground, and in so doing restoring neighbourhoods split by mid-20th century construction.
• This beautiful long-form essay at Lithub by Saritha Ramakrishna, looking at her childhood in Phoenix, imagines what futures will be available to the United States’ desert cities in the foreseeable future.
• Matt Taylor at VICE notes that non-rich people face being driven out of major cities and that initiatives like wooing Amazon will only make things worse.
• Via the Map Room Blog, I found Jack Nicas’ New York Times article noting how Google Maps is not only renaming old neighbourhoods and creating new ones, but that these labels now stick.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: HQ2, Geary Avenue, Yonge and Eglinton, Port Lands, Pickering subway

• Ben Fox Rubin at CNET reports on the perhaps surprisingly successful bid of Toronto to host Amazon’s HQ2.
• blogTO reports on how Geary Avenue, just one street away from me, is becoming one of the most interesting streets in Toronto for nightclubbing and more.
• Many residents of Yonge and Eglinton are unhappy with the pace of condo construction in the neighbourhood. Local resources–like utilities, and local schools–are coming under pressure. blogTO reports.
• Part of Lake Ontario in the Port Lands, off Cherry Street, is being filled in for condo development. CityNews reports.
• John Lorinc at Spacing looks at the many ways in which Premier Doug Ford’s proposal of extending the subway to Pickering simply does not work.

[URBAN NOTE] Twelve Toronto links

• Edward Keenan is entirely right to praise the idea of exploring the cherry blossoms of Toronto by foot. The Toronto Star has it.
• Mark Cullen noted last week the struggle to keep what may be the oldest tree in Toronto, a red soak more than three centuries old, alive, over at the Toronto Star.
• John Tory is quite right to note that Toronto needs to prepare for possible surges of refugees. CBC reports.
• A Scarborough mansion that has been abandoned for years has just sold for $C 3.8 million. The Toronto Star reports.
• The infamous Giraffe building on the northwest corner of Dundas West and Bloor may be set to disappear, finally, under a wave of new construction there. Toronto Life reports.
• blogTO makes the case that west-end Rogers Road is becoming the new centre of the Portuguese-Canadian community, here.
• Orfus Road, off Dufferin Street near Yorkdale, is a place to go for outlet stores and discounted merchandise. blogTO notes.
• The TTC has cancelled its weekend closures of parts of different subway routes after disputes with the union. The Toronto Star reports.
• By one metric, Toronto falls behind only New York City in the race for the Amazon HQ2. The Toronto Star reports.
• NOW Toronto tells the story of someone who grew marijuana in their backyard, here.
• An AI Weiwei show will be coming to Toronto in 2019. NOW Toronto reports.
• Peter Knegt profiles Toronto drag queen Sofonda Cox, over at CBC.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Hodo Kwaja, King Street, HQ2, TDSB school trips, Ontario Place

• This CBC article highlighting Hodo Kwaja bakery in Koreatown and the delicious walnut cakes it makes is superb.
• VICE shares the story of a man who went nightclubbing on King Street to gauge the effects of the transit experiment. (His judgement? There’s change, but this change is natural.)
• Trudeau is going to play up Canadian diversity to Amazon as part of the Toronto bid for HQ2, reports The Globe and Mail.
• The TDSB has loosened restrictions on school trips to the United States, with some qualifications. (If any one student is blocked at the border, for instance, the entire trip is off.) The Toronto Star examines the issue.
• The further expansion of parkland at Ontario Place, as announced by the provincial government, is inspiring. The Toronto Star reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: TTC, Davenport Triangle homeless, Parkdale, HQ2, Kanopy

• Steve Munro takes a look at his blog at the long history of the TTC promising to tackle crowding.
• Shawn Micallef takes issue with the anti-homeless shelter NIMBYism in the Davenport Triangle, i.e. the northeastern Annex, over at the Toronto Star.
• Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto notes the rent strike of some tenants at Parkdale’s 1251 King Street West against Nuspor Investments.
• Toronto may be on the shortlist for Amazon’s HQ2, but there are good reasons why it is not likely to win it. The Globe and Mail reports.
• Toronto Life highlighted ten noteworthy films available via the new Toronto Public Library Kanopy service.