[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Markham, Seattle, Tijuana, New York City, Hong Kong and Shenzhen

• A new neighbourhood in Markham is going to make use of geothermal energy to heat hundreds of homes. CBC reports.
• CityLab reports on how a census of the giant Pacific octopus in the waters of Seattle is going to be conducted.
• Some residents of Tijuana are protesting against the thousands of Central American refugees now sheltering in their city. Global News reports.
• A new exhibit at the 9/11 Museum in New York City tells of the contribution of Mohawk steelworkers to the construction of the megalopolis’ skyline. CBC Indigenous reports.
• Officials in Hong Kong and Shenzhen are having problems drawing a boundary through a garden plot on their mutual border. The SCMP reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Brampton, Milton and Markham, New York City, Atlanta, London, Lisbon

• The Ontario government’s cancellation of new post-secondary campuses years in the planning for booming Brampton, Milton, and Markham hurts these centres needlessly. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities notes how the scale of voter repression in Georgia may not be enough to prevent the election of Stacey Abrams, given the scale of black migration to Atlanta.
• Feargus O’Sullivan at CityLab takes a look at a new report noting both the importance of venues for experimental music in New York City (and other cities) and these venues’ vulnerability to gentrification.
• A long-abandoned street of Victorian London has been remade, CityLab reports, into a component of London Bridge Station.
• CityLab reports on the beautiful, but dangerous, tiled sidewalks of Lisbon. Is it worth keeping them?

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Markham, Gimli, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Sydney

• York Region reports on an anti-refugee protest in Markham that, reportedly, was dominated by Chinese-Canadian protesters.
• Gimli’s 18th annual film festival has been a roaring success. Global News reports.
• What has become of downtown Winnipeg after the city’s hockey team, the beloved Jets, finished their playoff run? Global News reports.
• The voice of Seth Rogan will be the voice of Vancouver’s mass transit service, announcing stops and the like. CBC reports.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw reports on how problems of growth surround–literally–Astrolabe Park, in Sydney.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Vaughan and Markham, Hamilton, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Bishkek

• Noor Javed notes that, if belatedly, people actually have signed up to run as mayor in Markham in Vaughan. The Toronto Star has it.
• Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger strongly disagrees with Doug Ford’s reduction of the size of Toronto City Council, hoping this does not speak to a future deterioration of province-municipal relations generally. Global News reports.
• CityLab notes that a Los Angeles subsidy to urban farmers has gone almost entirely unused.
• Noise complaints, CityLab reports, have led to the closure of the pedestrian mall in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok neighbourhood.
• Open Democracy reports on what sounds like an almost literally criminally planned program of chopping down much-needed urban tree coverage in the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Markham, Hamilton, Rotterdam, Hambantota, Warsaw

• In response to a desire to remove an almost bizarre controversial statue of a cow from its location in a neighbourhood in Markham, the owner has sued the city for $C 4 million. The Toronto Star reports.
• The mayor of Hamilton, Ontario, would like housing incorporated into shopping malls, to deal with issues of housing and retail in one go. Global News reports.
• Brexit threatens to decidedly destabilize the picture for the Dutch port city of Rotterdam. The Independent reports.
• Bloomberg notes that the controversial Chinese-owned port of Hambantota, in Sri Lanka, is doing terrible business.
• Newly-discovered documents provide confirmation of the belief that the Nazis planned to utterly destroy Warsaw. The National Post reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Vaughan, Markham, Hamilton, Vancouver and Seattle, Melbourne

• The cancellation of some condos being built at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre has left their buyers unhappy, and justifiably so. The Toronto Star reports.
• The rapid growth of Vaughan and Markham, to the north of Toronto, is of international note. The Conversation has it.
• Kathleen Wynne is promising to protect (what’s left of) the Hamilton steel industry. CBC reports.
• A direct air shuttle between Vancouver and Seattle is a good thing, but I think that cross-border area would be even better served by some sort of mass transit link. Global News has it.
• Melbourne, that city of Australia, is facing familiar issue of growth and livability. The Guardian has it.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Ottawa, Markham, Moncton, Antwerp, San Francisco

• The story of how the murder of Alain Brosseau by gay-bashers in Ottawa nearly thirty years ago led to lasting change is important to remember. The Ottawa Citizen reports.
• This rather unique statue of a cow in Markham is still standing, despite neighbourhood discontent. The Toronto Star reports.
• The closure of Saint-Louis-de-France Roman Catholic Church in Moncton surprises me somewhat, since Moncton is one of the few growing centres of the Maritimes. Global News reports.
• The Belgian port city of Antwerp is looking to find some advantage from Brexit. Bloomberg reports.
• The impact of sea level rise on San Francisco and the wider Bay area may be devastating. Wired reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Markham, Hamilton, London, Detroit and Windsor, Vancouver

• Toronto Life takes a look at the new Aaniin community centre in Markham.
• The Tower, an anarchist centre in Hamilton, got vandalized in turn after a spate of pointless anarchist vandalism on Locke Street. CBC reports.
• Will the city of London get plugged into a high-speed rail route? One only hopes, and in the interim, one plans. Global News reports.
• Making the border crossing between Detroit and Windsor a model for Ireland post-Brexit is a terrible idea. CBC reports.
• Can Vancouver help solve the problem of housing for the young, including students, by having them rent rooms from compatible older folks? Global News examines the proposal.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links, from the $15 wage to parking lots, cow statues, and Jamaican patois

• Torontoist takes on Galen Weston and the $15 minimum wage and poverty in Toronto (and Loblaw’s contribution to said).
• At the Toronto Star, Shawn Micallef describes how high property values in Toronto discourage open-air parking lots.
• Noor Javed looks, in Toronto Star, at the question of who authorized the cathedral elevated cow statue in Cathedraltown, in Markham.
• The Star‘s Fatima Syed shares some old memories of Torontonians of the Centreville carousel, soon to be sold off.
• At The Globe and Mail, Dakshana Bascaramurty takes a look at Jamaican patois, Toronto black English, and the many complex ways in which this language is received.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links, from strange disappearances to the Toronto Islands to odd suburbs

• James Dubro highlights at Torontoist the disappearing queer men of Toronto. Is a serial killer at work?
• At the Toronto Star, Paul Hunter reports on how the Toronto Islands have been reopened starting today.
• John Lorinc’s investigation of high-rise safety in Toronto is alarming, and ends here and here.
• Scott Wheeler looks at the controversial mounted cow sculpture of Cathedraltown, in Markham.
• Victoria Gibson reports on the $150 million a year spent by the federal government at Pickering on property never used to build an airport.