[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Toronto Queer Theatre Festival, Junction, Shevchenko, 1926, suicide

• Drew Rowsome reviews the offerings at the Toronto Queer Theatre Festival, here.
• blogTO notes the displeasure of the Junction at the removal of a wooden train platform, become a community hub, for condo construction.
• Bloor West Village, blogTO notes, hosts a museum–newly reopened in a new location–devoted to the poetry of Taras Shevchenko.
• Jamie Bradburn looks at vintage Toronto ads, these from the parties contending 1926 federal election.
• In this long-form CBC feature, Ioanna Roumeliotis writes about the new things the TTC is doing to try to prevent suicides on the subway tracks.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Sainte-Marie, Saint John, Phoenix, Paris, Singapore

• The flood-damaged community of Sainte-Marie, in the Beauce south of Québec City, may not recover from necessary demolitions of damaged and dangerous structures. CBC reports.
• Erecting a barrier at an apparently suicide-attracting bridge like the Reversing Falls Bridge in Saint John makes perfect sense to me. Global News has it.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that, happily, voters in Phoenix have voted again in support of a light rail mass transit project.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution notes that the department of Paris has continued to lose population, contrary to the experience of growth elsewhere in other similar world cities.
• CityLab makes the case for Changi Airport, in Singapore, as a world-class attraction in its own right.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: HMV dispensary, U of T suicide, GoT, real estate, Scarborough

• r/toronto notes, via blogTO, that the old HMV at Yonge and Dundas is set to become a cannabis dispensary.
• The University of Toronto is being criticized by students for its handling of recent suicides and its mental health policies generally. CBC reports.
• blogTO notes that the Ralph Thornton Community Centre in Riverside will be throwing a Game of Thrones-themed festival in May.
• New changes to the regulation of secondary suites may make things easier in the Toronto rental market. CBC reports.
• Urban Toronto reports on two ambitious plans to densify Scarborough Centre.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links: Toronto Coach Terminal, Metrolinx, TTC and subways, tech

• Christopher Hume at the Toronto Star writes movingly about the neglect of the beautiful Toronto Coach Terminal. This building deserves better.
• Ben Spurr at the Toronto Star notes the willingness of Metrolinx to turn customers’ Presto data over to the police, even without warrants.
• Transit Toronto notes that surveying for the extension of the Yonge subway line north from Finch has begun.
• Metrolinx has gone on the record as saying that the Downtown Relief Line, relieving pressure on the Yonge line, must open before a northwards extension of Yonge into Richmond Hill. The Toronto Star has it.
• The Globe and Mail reports that, after rising numbers of suicide attempts, the TTC is going to redouble anti-suicide measures.
• Toronto is becoming a growing centre of the tech industry, the Toronto Star reports, tech sector growth driving the wider provincial economy.

[NEWS] Five culture links: conspiracies, Greater New England, Caribbean Hakka, Banksy, Aokigahara

• This feature in The Guardian examines the sufferings of the people who have been made victims of conspiracy theories.
• Global News takes a look at the strong support of New Brunswickers for the New England Patriots, rooted in a historical community that surely extends to the rest of Atlantic Canada.
• Atlas Obscura examines the communities being knitted together across the world by North American immigrants from the Caribbean of at least partial Hakka descent.
• The Guardian notes how, for many property-owners and residents, having Banksy graffiti on one of their walls might not be a blessing at all.
• The Japan Times looks at how a gatekeeper in the infamous Aokigahara forest in Japan, a favoured destination of people planning suicide, is trying to inspire them to live.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Cody Delistraty considers the new field of dystopian realism–of dystopia as a real thing in contemporary lives–in popular culture.
• D-Brief notes how direct experiments in laboratories have helped geologists better understand the mantle of the Earth.
• Far Outliers shares a terribly sad anecdote of a young woman in China who killed herself, victim of social pressures which claim many more victims.
• Imageo notes how recent headlines about ocean temperature increases are misleading in that they did not represent the steady incremental improvements of science generally.
• Joe. My. God. notes the unexpectedly rapid shift of the location of the northern magnetic pole.
• JSTOR Daily links to a paper that links to the quietly subversive aesthetics and politics of the 1950s and 1960s surf movie.
• Language Hat links to an intriguing paper looking at the relationship between the size of an individual’s Broca’s area, in their brain, and the ways in which they can learn language.
• Language Log shares a poster from Taiwan trying to promote use of the Hakka language, currently a threatened language among traditional speakers.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the extreme secrecy of Trump regarding his Helsinki discussions with Putin, going so far as to confiscate his translator’s notes.
• Justin Petrone at north! writes about the exhilarating and liberating joys of hope, of fantasy.
• The NYR Daily examines the new Alfonso Cuarón film, the autobiographical Roma.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the interesting show by Damien Atkins at Crow’s Nest Theatre, We Are Not Alone.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on what a report of the discovery of of the brightest quasar actually means.
• Window on Eurasia notes the historical cooperation, before Operation Barbarossa, between the Nazis’ Gestapo and Stalin’s NKVD.
• Arnold Zwicky shares a video examining Chavacano, the Spanish-based creole still spoken in the Philippines.

[URBAN NOTE] Twelve Toronto links (#toronto, #topoli)

• Because of a lack of support from the University of Toronto, Ten Editions Bookstore on Spadina Avenue between College and Bloor has closed down permanently. blogTO reports.
• Statler’s on Church Street, a popular Village bar known for its performance spaces, closed down suddenly on account of massive rent increases. blogTO reports.
• The famed Coffee Time restaurant at Coxwell and Gerrard, subject of a documentary that looks at this affordable coffee place’s connections to locals, has closed down permanently. blogTO reports.
• Gilbert Ngabo at the Toronto Star reports on how Torontonians now have now choice but to use the Presto card. My experiences reflect others’ in that things have been working out for me, so far.
• GO Transit’s connections directly to York University have ceased in the wake of the subway extension, as promised. Many who depended on the direct link are unhappy that it is no longer being sustained. Global News reports.
• This Toronto Sun article shares the call of a brother of a victim who died by suicide at a TTC station for more action to prevent such unfortunate events.
• Steve Munro reports on the different challenges facing the TTC board in 2019.
• Enzo DiMatteo at NOW Toronto makes the case that Toronto needs to continue to address gun violence as a public health issue if it is to control this plague.
• A tall and skinny home in Riverdale that has gone on sale for $C 3 million has as many detractors as supporters. Global News reports.
• CBC Toronto notes that the new nickname of the Economist for Toronto and its tech sector, “Maple Valley”, is not catching on with locals.
• Marco Chown Oved at the Toronto Star shares the story of Don Sampson, a long-time resident of the Toronto Islands who faces losing the family home there because he cannot inherit the property from his brother.
• The cast of the venerable Global Television drama Train 48, filmed on a GO Transit Lakeshore West train in 2003-2005, recently reunited. Global News reports.

[NEWS] Five Indigenous links: Okichitaw, Nunavik, Cree, architecture, Tŝilhqot’in

• This CBC feature on the Indigenous martial art of Okichitaw, and of leading teacher George Lepine, is fascinating.
• Facing an intensified suicide crisis among its young, Nunavik is looking for a way forward. CBC reports.
• Chelsea Vowel at CBC writes about how giving her children Cree names is a profound act of reclamation.
• NOW Toronto takes a look at the emergent field of indigenous architecture.
• National Observer reports on what Justin Trudeau learned from a recent meeting of apology and reconciliation with the Tŝilhqot’in of British Columbia.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Niagara Falls, Brantford, Regina, Tofino, Port Moody

• Why are the falls at Niagara Falls so famously compelling, even lethally seductive for some? Some human brains might be confused by the immensity. The National Post reports.
• The extent of the flooding in Brantford, inland from Hamilton on the Grand River, is shocking. The Toronto Star reports.
• The Saskatchewan capital city of Regina turns out to be the McDonald’s breakfast capital of Canada. Global News reports.
• This essay in The Globe and Mail by Greg Blanchette looking at the rental housing crunch in the small Vancouver Island town of Tofino describes what’s frankly a terrifying situation.
• If not for the fact that the CP Railway owned no property locally, the Vancouver suburb of Port Moody could well have become Canada’s biggest west coast metropolis. Global News reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links: crowding and suicide on the TTC, Scarborough RT, defensive design

• Steve Munro at Torontoist dissects John Tory’s ten-point plan to deal with TTC crowding. This is, at best, a repackaging of previously planned initiatives.
• Torontoist takes a look at some elements of defensive urban design, intended to deter people from loitering too much or being otherwise inconvenient.
• The Scarborough rapid transit route may be down for at least a year while subway construction is ongoing, forcing buses to be used. The Toronto Star reports.
• The growing number of suicides in Toronto involving TTC vehicles is apparently responsible for rising rates of absenteeism among TTC staff. The Globe and Mail reports.
• Frequent TTC riders are dissatisfied with overcrowding and the quality of service. Global News reports.
• Robert Mackenzie at Transit Toronto looked at the factors going into the big, system-threatening, overcrowding on the morning of the 30th of January.