[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, New Orleans, Berlin, Hasankeyf, Hong Kong

• Why not build a public beach in the Montréal neighbourhood of Lachine? Global News considers.
• The Vietnamese cuisine of New Orleans does look good. VICE reports.
• CityLab describes an effort to build a smart city in Berlin, in Siemensstadt. I wish Berliners better outcomes than what Toronto seems to be getting in the Port Lands.
• Guardian Cities reports on what seems to me to be a terrible plan to flood the ancient settlement of Hasankeyf in Turkey for dams.
• Saša Petricic at CBC looks at how the political consensus in Hong Kong has broken down, perhaps irretrievably.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul profiles the construction of the Modern Berlin Temple built to a design by Mies van der Rohe in 1968.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the beauty of galaxy M61.
• D-Brief notes new evidence that Mars sustained rivers on its surface at a surprising late date.
• Gizmodo notes a theory that the oddly shaped ring moons of Saturn might be product of a collision.
• Hornet Stories suggests/u> that recent raids on gay bars in New Orleans might be driven by internecine politics within the LGBTQ community.
• Joe. My. God. notes that a court in the Cayman Islands has recently legalized same-sex marriage there.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the origins of the Chipko activists of 1960s and 1970s India, whose tree-hugging helped save forests there.
• Language Log notes the story of Beau Jessep, who got rich off of a business creating English names for Chinese children.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money, looking at the introduction of public healthcare in Saskatchewan and wider Canada, notes the great institutional differences that do not make that a close model for public healthcare in the US now.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining the close relationship over time between population growth and economic and technological change.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews documentary filmmaker Nadir Bouhmouch about a Amazigh community’s resistance to an intrusive mine on their territory.
• The Russian Demographics Blog notes, correctly, that one reason why Ukrainians are more prone to emigration to Europe and points beyond than Russians is that Ukraine has long been included, in whole or in part, in European states.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that we still do not know why antimatter does not dominate in our universe.
• Understanding Society features a guest post from Indian sociologist V.K. Ramachandran talking about two visits four decades apart to one of his subjects.
• Vintage Space makes a compelling case for people not to be afraid of nuclear rockets in space, like the vintage never-deployed NERVA.
• Window on Eurasia takes issue with the bilingual radio programs aired in Russian republics, which subtly undermine local non-Russian languages.
• Arnold Zwicky starts with lilacs, which include hybrids tolerant of the California climate, and goes on to explore lavender in all of its glories, queer and otherwise.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Hyder, Buenos Aires, New Orleans, Hong Kong

• HuffPostQuebec imagines what an Expo held in Montréal for 2030 would look like, and what effect it would have on the metropolis.
• The Alaska Life notes the near-ghost town of Hyder, a community most easily accessible from Canada.
• Guardian Cities reports on a recent expulsion of street traders from a district in Buenos Aires.
• CityLab notes the growing unacceptability of a group parading in blackface in Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
• Guardian Cities explains how through, among other things, canny property investments, mass transit in Hong Kong is self-supporting financially.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• At Antipope, Charlie Stross announces (among other things) that his series The Laundry Files has been options for television development.
• D-Brief notes more evidence for the idea that regular exercise can help psychologically, this study suggesting help to long-term memory.
• At the Everyday Sociology Blog, Karen Sternheimer writes about sociologists who study subjects that matter to them, subjects that might personally involve them, even.
• Gizmodo notes that astronomers have detected the formation of dark spots on Neptune, akin to those seen by Voyager 2 in its flyby in 1989, for the first time.
• JSTOR Daily considers how humans can live alongside crocodiles in peace.
• Language Log considers gāngjīng 杠精, a new Chinese word that may well denote “troll”.
• Erik Loomis writes at Lawyers, Guns and Money about beers that can serve industrial purposes like film development.
• The Map Room Blog notes new maps of a modern Westeros created by designer Jamie Shadrach.
• Marginal Revolution notes regulatory controversy in Alexandria, Virginia, regarding a potential halal butchery facility for chickens.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews writer L. Kasimu Harris about the inequalities of New Orleans.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel shows readers what the galaxy would look like in electromagnetic frequencies other than those of visible light.
• Arnold Zwicky writes about progress in education.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Kingston, Montréal, Chicago, New Orleans, Buenos Aires

• Plans for a residential development in Kingston’s west-end Graceland district have raised environmental concerns. Global News reports.
• HuffPostQuebec shares the exciting plans for expanding and modernizing the complex around the Oratoire Saint-Joseph.
• CityLab notes how, despite having a declining black population, Chicago is set to elect a black mayor.
• VICE looks at the bars and nightclubs in uptown New Orleans that, in the 1970s, hosted the city’s jazz and funk scenes.
• Guardian Cities reports on the murga, the latest dance/pop culture craze in Buenos Aires.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Ottawa, Manhattan, Vancouver, New Orleans, Derry

• CBC Ottawa reports on the impressive scope of the new light rail mass transit planned for the wider city of Ottawa.
• Richard Florida, writing at CityLab, notes a study tracing the second of two clusters of skyscrapers in Manhattan, in Midtown, to a late 19th century specialty in shopping.
• The Tyee notes how activist Yuly Chan helped mobilize people to protect Chinatown in Vancouver from gentrification.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the history of the free people of colour of New Orleans, a group established under the French period but who faced increasing pressures following Americanization.
• At Open Democracy, Christophe Solioz considers what is to be done to help protect the peace in Derry, second city of Northern Ireland, in the era of Brexit.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Sherbrooke, New York City, New Orleans, Nottingham, Cape Town

• The 2023 Jeux de la Francophonie, originally planned for New Brunswick, have been taken up–provisionally–by the Québec city of Sherbrooke. HuffPostQuebec reports.
• Carmen Arroyo at Inter Press Service writes about Pedro, a migrant from Oaxaca in Mexico who has lived in new York City for a dozen years without papers.
• CityLab notes evidence that natural disasters can indeed advance gentrification, looking at the example of New Orleans.
• Guardian Cities shares some cartoons by Carol Adlam about the English city of Nottingham, neither northern nor southern.
• Civil servant magazine Apolitical takes a look at how Cape Town managed to escape its threatened water crisis.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven city links: smart cities, coffee, accessible transport, regionalism, boomtowns,

• The Conversation notes the concerns of Canadians about the potential privacy concerns regarding smart cities.
• This CityMetric article examines the particular role of the chain coffeeshop in the contemporary city.
• Will the tragic death of young mother Malaysia Goodson, killed trying to access public transit, lead to the spread of accessible infrastructure? Guardian Cities considers.
• A forced amalgamation of the different regional municipalities of Toronto could easily come into conflict with locals’ identities, the Toronto Star noted.
• National Geographic considers Silicon Valley-type boomtowns around the world. (Toronto is on that list.)
• This Bloomberg article makes the point that, in same cases, merging cities with prosperous suburbs might be a godsends for the wider conurbations.
• This Curbed article by novelist Jami Attenberg looks at what has changed for her–what she has gained–since moving from large metropolis New York City to the smaller centre of New Orleans.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Architectuul looks at some examples of endangered architecture in the world, in London and Pristina and elsewhere.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait examines a bizarre feature on the Moon’s Lacus Felicitatus.
• The Big Picture shares photos exploring the experience of one American, Marie Cajuste, navigating the health care system as she sought cancer treatment.
• Centauri Dreams looks at a new proposal for an interstellar craft making use of neutral particle beam-driven sails.
• Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber writes about the question of what individual responsibility people today should take for carbon emissions.
• The Crux takes a look at what the earliest (surviving) texts say about the invention of writing.
• D-Brief notes an interesting proposal to re-use Christmas trees after they are tossed out.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that India has approved funding for crewed spaceflight in 2022, in the Gaganyaan program.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the Apollo 8 mission.
• Far Outliers looks at the experiences of British consuls in isolated Kashgar, in what is now Xinjiang.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing argues that it can take time to properly see things, that speed can undermine understanding.
• JSTOR Daily notes how people with depression use language, opting to use absolute words more often than the norm.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how the Bolsonario government in Brazil has set to attacking indigenous people.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper arguing that Greek life in the colleges of the United States, the fraternity system, has a negative impact on the grades of participants.
• George Hutchinson writes at the NYR Daily about how race, of subjects and of the other, complicates readings of Louisiana-born author Jean Toomey and his novel Cane, about life on sugar cane plantations in that state.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw reflects on his Christmas reading, including a new history of Scandinavia in the Viking age told from their perspective.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the Milky Way Galaxy in its formative years. What did it look like?
• Strange Company highlights its top 10 posts over the past year.
• Window on Eurasia wonders at reports the Uniate Catholics of Ukraine are seeking a closer alliance with the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on the nearly iconic and ubiquitous phalluses of Bhutan, as revealed by a trip by Anthony Bourdain.

[NEWS] Five language links: English, French, Gaelic, Cantonese, Russian

• Despite Brexit, the English language is continuing to make inroads against French in the halls of the European Union. Politico Europe reports.
• The State of Louisiana has made a formal application to join the Organisation international de la francophonie.
• This article in The Scotsman noting how some African slaves taken to plantations in the Carolinas came to use Gaelic, not English, as their common language is fascinating. What other influences came unexpectedly from Gaelic Scotland to African America?
• Can Hong Kong use the Cantonese language to extend its influence deeper into China and elsewhere? The SCMP considers.
• This article/a> in New Eastern Europe makes interesting arguments about how, in the post-Soviet world, the Russian language now has multiple centres and multiple standards. I’m unconvinced about the political arguments, though.