[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: TTC, Robarts, construction, subletting

• Steve Munro looks at the latest TTC quarterly report on crowding.
• Urban Toronto looks at the new expansion to Robarts Library.
• Urban Toronto looks at 2221 Yonge Street, latest tower to rise at Yonge and Eglinton.
• Urban Toronto looks at a new condo development taking advantage of the Line 1 extension into Vaughan.
• The subletting of apartments has become key for Toronto renters who want to keep their affordable housing while also being mobile. The Toronto Star reports.

[VIDEO] Falling sakura of Russell Street, University of Toronto

[PHOTO] Double cherry sakura of Russell Street, University of Toronto

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links: High Park, rent, Sri Lanka, vertical farm, Zizek vs Peterson

• The cherry blossoms of High Park are expected to start blooming earlier than expected, perhaps reaching peak bloom in a week’s time. blogTO reports.
• blogTO notes that someone was trying to rent out a bed in an occupied apartment for a rent of $C 600 a month.
• A Toronto Star investigation reveals the prominence of ghost hotels, enabled by Airbnb, in making the rental housing market that much more difficult.
• At NOW Toronto, Liam Barrington-Bush considers what renters in Toronto can learn from their activist counterparts in Berlin and Barcelona.
• Aparita Bhandari wrote at The Discourse about how Sri Lankans living in Scarborough responded to the recent terrible bombings.
• blogTO writes about the new vertical farm set to be built at University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus.
• The VICE account of the debate between Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson reveals much.

[PHOTO] Varsity Stadium during rain, CN Tower obscured by cloud

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: anti-racist protest, AI at U of T, naloxone, TTC, Airbnb

• National Observer notes how, in Toronto, hundreds of anti-racist protesters blocked a far-right group.
• A $C 100 million donation has recently been made to the University of Toronto, to fund artificial intelligence research. CBC reports.
• Harm reduction activists want TTC operators to be trained in the usage of naloxone kits, to aid overdose victims. CBC reports.
• Transit Toronto notes its new Family of Services concept, intended to help Wheel-Trans users access wider city transit.
• Samantha Edwards writes at NOW Toronto about how Airbnb is worsening the living experiences of permanent residents in condo developments, by encouraging a more transient crowd less invested in local communities.

[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] Seven Toronto links: poverty, real estate, architecture, neighbourhoods

• After a fire last night, the homeless encampments underneath the Gardiner Expressway have been cleared. Global News reports.
• blogTO reports on a terribly depressing unit offered for rent in East York at $C 1250.
• blogTO notes that a new pedestrian sky bridge is scheduled to be built in Exhibition Place.
• Urban Toronto notes that the steel skeleton has been put in place for the new extension to Robarts Library.
• blogTO reports on moves to place Ontario Place under heritage protection, sparing it redevelopment.
• George Popper writes at Spacing against new city development protocols for Toronto neighbourhoods.
• The state of 650 Parliament Street, now slated to be reopened in August of this year, is appalling. The Toronto Star reports.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Architectuul reports on its Forgotten Masterpieces campaign, aiming to promote overlooked and endangered works of 20th century architecture.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on how the mass of the Milky Way Galaxy has just now been calculated at 1.54 trillion solar masses.
• blogTO reports that three thousand students at the University of Toronto apparently fund their education through sugar daddies.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly writes about how she found a new tribe at a journalism conference.
• Centauri Dreams notes that black hole starship engines count as a detectable technosignature for SETI searches.
• John Holbo at Crooked Timber considers the emotionalism of Peterson and Shapiro versus facts in the light of Plato.
• The Crux notes how, before settling the Moon, we have to first develop the techniques necessary for mining the Moon.
• D-Brief notes the threats posed by humanity to the ecosystems of Antarctica.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a proposal before NASA to dispatch a smallsat probe to asteroid Pallas.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the first test flights, in the 1960s, of the reusable space plane the X-15.
• Far Outliers looks at the separation of Muslims from Hindus in Calcutta, and the subordination of the former to the latter.
• Gizmodo reports on an exciting new display of the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the American Museum of Natural History that features, finally, feathers.
• Keiran Healy crunches the numbers to notes how the hierarchy of academic institutions in the United States has scarcely changed over the previous century.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the 1971 marriage in Minnesota of Michael McConnell and Jack Baker has been officially recognized.
• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the overlooked radical politics of Frida Kahlo.
• Language Hat looks at the mysterious choice in names for the pre-Columbian Adena culture of North America. Why “Adena”?
• At Language Log, Victor Mair shares a post by a Chinese father who calls for a liberation of Chinese languages from their traditional script.
• Steve Attewell writes at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the history of the Marvel Universe’s Hellfire Club, memorably created by Chris Claremont.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper supporting the thesis of Jared Diamond about the importance of the axes of continents in explaining biological and cultural diffusion.
• The New APPS Blog reports on the complicated trajectory from Marx to Foucault.
• Rachel Aspden writes at the NYR Daily about the political economy of safari tours.
• Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society Blog notes a fiscal year 2020 proposal before NASA for a sample return mission to Mars.
• The Russian Demographics Blog notes that the Global Data Lab has just had a paper published in Nature on their database of subnational entities’ rankings on the Human Development Index.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel argues that the new Trump budget for FY2020 would cause terrible damage to NASA.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that the Putin government’s policies are driving more rural-to-urban migration in Russia.
• Frances Woolley writes at Worthwhile Canad8ian Initiative about the relationship, under the Ford government of Ontario, of age limits for professors with tenure.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the lovely clematis.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: green Designers Walk, Hearn, property taxes, U of T, renoviction

• Narcity reports that the 27-story Designers Walk condo tower in Yorkville is going to be a green vertical forest.
• The owners of the Hearn generating station are upset the building has received heritage protection from the City of Toronto. The Toronto Star reports.
• David Rider at the Toronto Star notes a new study suggesting there is substantial leeway for Toronto to increase property taxes.
• The Varsity notes that the University of Toronto now receives more funding from international students’ tuition than from the Ontario provincial government.
• The tenants of 394 Dovercourt Road fear they might face renoviction from their affordable homes. The Toronto Star reports.