[PHOTO] Niagara Falls on my screen in Toronto (2)

[PHOTO] Niagara Falls on my screen in Toronto

[URBAN NOTE] Fifteen Niagara Falls, Ontario links (#niagarafalls, #niagarafallscanada)

• A new storyboard in Niagara Falls displays the importance of railways to the city. The Niagara Falls Review reports.
• Niagara Falls city council is considering the idea of linking casinos by aerial car. The Niagara Falls Review reports.
• Global News reports on a drug bust that saw two people arrested in Niagara Falls.
• The Niagara Falls Review reports the number of reported homicides in Niagara Region tripled in 2019, to six.
• The immersive live nativity hosted by a Niagara Falls church sounds interesting. More is here.
• A recent discussion at Niagara Falls city council was dominated by discussion of housing issues and of homelessness. The Niagara Falls Review reports.
• Most revenues from the casinos of Niagara Falls have been directed to the infrastructure of the city. The Niagara Falls Review reports.
• City council in Niagara Falls has approved the construction of a 72-storey hotel. Construct Connect reports.
• In November, the mayor announced the old city hall and courthouse in the downtown of Niagara Falls was scheduled to be demolished. The Niagara Falls Review reports.
• The Bath House Hotel once was intended to be a centrepiece of local tourism. The Niagara Falls Review reports.
• Carrie Bosco writes about the experience of a customer service associate working at the Niagara Falls Public Library, over at the Niagara Falls Review.
• The Niagara Falls Public Library in winter is a happening place for locals. The Niagara Falls Review reports.
• A Chinese developer hopes that a proposed $C 1.5 billion dollar project in south Niagara Falls will still go forward. The Niagara Falls Review reports.
• Niagara Falls is going to have a hard time replacing city historian Sherman Zavitz. The Niagaa Falls Review reports.
• Niagara News reports on the Winter Festival of Lights in Niagara Falls.

[PHOTO] Niagara Falls map of the Niagara-Haldimand section of the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail

This map of the Niagara Peninsula, located outside of the Niagara Falls Transit Terminal on Erie Avenue, highlight this region’s component of Ontario’s Great Lakes Waterfront Trail. This section of the trail hugs the coasts of lakes Ontario and Erie and the Niagara River in between.

[PHOTO] Looking north at a ship on the Welland Canal near St. Catharines

[PHOTO] Three photos of Niagara Falls (#niagarafalls)

[NEWS] Five notes on French in Canada: Montréal, Ontario, Welland, Manitoba, New Brunswick

• La Presse notes that the bilingual greeting “Bonjour-Hi” is becoming more common in Montréal.
• This Ottawa Citizen opinion-writer was entirely right in noting that the Ontario government should not try to eliminate minority language rights and institutions for budgetary reasons.
• This TVO article about the forces facing the École secondaire Confédération in Welland is a fascinating study of minority dynamics.
• This brief article touches on efforts in the Franco-Manitoban community of Winnipeg to provide temporary shelter for new Francophone immigrants.
• Francophones in New Brunswick continue to face pressure, with their numbers despite overall population growth and with Francophones being much more likely to be bilingual than Anglophones. CBC reports.

[AH] Five alternate history maps from r/imaginarymaps (#alternatehistory)

• r/imaginarymaps has a map imagining that, in the 1520s, the Kalmar Union successfully established outposts on Newfoundland. What would have happened next?
• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines that establishment, by the late 17th century, of a collection of Japanese settler states on the Pacific coast of North America.
• This map, tying into a scenario elsewhere, imagines a southern Africa largely colonized by the mid-18th century by an Iberian empire.
• What would a Britain successfully conquered by Napoleon look like? This map offers one idea.
• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a fictional city of a half-million people, Ramsay, at the location of St. Catharines in Niagara.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Mississauga, St. Catharines, Montréal, Milwaukee, Boonsboro

• The City of Mississauga hopes to secede from Peel Region, becoming an independent city like Toronto. Global News reports.
• Urban Toronto notes the remarkable scope of a plan in St. Catharines to build a vast new mixed-use development on neglected lands.
• Plans to build a new beach for an east-end Montréal neighbourhood have been put into motion. CBC reports.
• CityLab reports on the success of self-described socialists in Milwaukee civic elections.
• This Jezebel article reveals the remarkably prominent role Nora Roberts has taken on in Boonsboro, Maryland, a small town substantially sustained by her investments and that bears her mark.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Niagara Falls, Montréal, Vancouver, Lisbon, Naples

• Gilbert Ngabo writes about how Niagara Falls, New York, would love the GO Train to cross the border into his city, his article featuring in the Niagara Falls Review.
• Michelle Da Silva writes at NOW Toronto about how the Montréal Igloofest is such a great idea.
• The tax on empty homes in Vancouver may yet be increased, to discourage speculation. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities notes how tensions between police and locals in the Bairro do Jamaico in Lisbon reveal problems of integration for African immigrants and their descendants.
• CityLab notes how the popular novels of Elena Ferrante may drive gentrification in the Naples neighbourhood of Rione Luzzatti.