[AH] Seven #alternatehistory r/imaginarymaps maps: Vinland, Mali, Korea, Poland, Balkans …

• This r/imaginarymaps map traces a slow diffusion of Christianity westwards from a Vinland colony.
• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a transatlantic empire based in Africa, with the late 15th century Mali Empire extending its rule to Brazil and elsewhere.
• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a Joseon Korea that becomes the seat of a transpacific empire.
• What if, this r/imaginarymaps map imagines, instead of turning east to Lithuania Poland turned west towards Czechia?
• What if, this r/imaginarymaps map imagines, the Balkans retained a substantially larger Muslim population?
• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a Greater Denmark, expanding east and south.
• Could Scotland ever have become, as this r/imaginarymaps map imagines, a maritime mercantile power?

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Hobart, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Wroclaw

• La Presse considers some different strategies to keep rue Saint-Denis in Montréal a healthy thoroughfare and neighbourhood.
• Atlas Obscura explains how the upstate New York town of Hobart made itself as a home for a used book store cluster.
• Guardian Cities explains why anti-gentrirfication activists in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin are fighting to keep their local Aldi, to continue to have low-cost food locally.
• Window on Eurasia notes a poll of immigrant workers in St. Petersburg that finds most quite like their new home.
• CityLab looks at Polish architect Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak, whose brutalism played a key role in the reconstruction of the Poland city of Wroclaw from the ruins of old German Breslau.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Saint John, Sydney, New York City, Katowice

• La Presse notes that reconstruction work planned for Montréal’s Saint-Sulpice library has been delayed by a shortage of workers, given the wider city’s construction boom.
• CBC notes how the Halifax Explosion led to the Oland family building the Moosehead Brewery in Saint John.
• The closure of Sydney-based call centre Servicom has left six hundred people unemployed just before Christmas. CBC reports.
• Gothamist warns people in New York City which bars to avoid during this weekend’s Santacon.
• Politico Europe notes how, in the Polish city of Katowice at the heart of Upper Silesia, even there coal is falling out of the mix as a major employer.