[PHOTO] Looking west, Bathurst and Dundas, April 2012

Taken in April 2012, looking west from the streetcar.

[URBAN NOTE] "Downtown Toronto condos: Signs of life"

The Toronto Star's Susan Pigg reports that the Toronto condo market still hasn't crashed. Pigg's argument doesn't bode well: instead of high demand for existing units, apparently high quality units are rare enough to encourage bidding wars for these.

Some Toronto realtors are seeing an unexpected surge in condo buyers scouring the market post Christmas and the return of a phenomenon not seen in months — bidding wars.

“I was shocked,” says ReMax realtor Peter Krpan who advised one couple, first-time buyers, that the softening condo market meant they could take their time and bid low on almost any downtown unit they wanted.

Instead, the couple found themselves outbid this month on their first choice, an 800-square foot condo listed for $324,000 on Queen’s Quay.

Their “backup” — an older, 660-square-foot condo on Victoria St. that had been on the market for 71 days — suddenly had three bidders and was gone before they could even put in an offer.

[. . .]

After a dramatic softening in sales and prices that started last spring and was exacerbated by tighter mortgage lending rules that left many first-time buyers on the sidelines, some Toronto realtors are seeing some signs of life in a market that, by December, was virtually dead.

Bidding wars have also broken out the last two weeks in some prime Toronto neighbourhoods where the inventory of houses for sale remains low, such as the west-end Junction Triangle and the east end Beach.

Even the well-supplied condo market is facing inventory issues, say veteran condo realtors. It’s not that there’s a shortage of units, per se, especially given the recent condo boom and the dramatic softening of demand just since spring.

It’s that too much of what’s for sale now are small, poorly laid-out units, aimed at investors, rather than the average buyer, realtors say.

[LINK] "Tories accidentally sell the EU to Britain"

A Fistful of Euros' Alex Harrowell writes about the problems facing the Conservative Party and UKIP in the United Kingdom, as the prospect of Britain's exiting the European Union rise. It turns out that growing support for the UKIP doesn't necessary reflect anti-European sentiment.

One of the most surprising discoveries of this latest go-round of the Tories’ conflicts on Europe is that UKIP has stopped being a party that is primarily about the EU, in the sense that its voters don’t care about it. In general, British electors rank Europe relatively low among their priorities. For normal people, it tends to be a strong opinion but weakly held. Astonishingly, it turns out that UKIP voters are no different – their polling profile is basically identical to that of Tories.

This is important and interesting. It shows up that both the Tories and UKIP have a problem. The Tories’ problems are as follows – they’re competing for votes on both flanks, to the centre and to the extreme right (the polling is clear that UKIP wins votes from Tories), and they’re forced by their internal politics to spend time and effort making speeches about Europe and the nature of Britishness, which isn’t a productive activity. UKIP’s problem is more subtle; its leaders are fascinated by the EU. It’s why they do it. But their voters aren’t – only 27% of them rate the EU among their top three issues.

Over time, UKIP has evolved in a libertarian direction. Its leadership basically believe two things: we should get out of the EU, in order to be more neoliberal. The problem here is that libertarianism is very much a minority opinion. Most British people don’t want it or anything like it. Polling of UKIP voters shows they are no different. Instead, they seem to be Tories, but more so. They vote UKIP to register protest against the Tory leadership for compromising with the electorate and the Lib Dems.

For their part, the Tory Eurosceptics are trying to compete with UKIP in Euroscepticism and libertarianism. Therefore, the “Fresh Start” group wants David Cameron to demand three policies: an opt-out from the working time directive, and another from financial services policy. This is apparently meant to be popular. The Fresh Starters say some remarkable things – apparently the EU wants to “shut down financial services” – but it seems unlikely that the British people are desperate to avoid regulating the banks, and it is actually the declared policy of the government that the economy should be rebalanced to rely less on the City. (And they want to stop sending the European Parliament to Strasbourg, but then everybody wants that bar the mayor of Strasbourg.)

But this speaks to an important point. It’s meant to be about sovereignty, no less, and this is all they can think of to do with it?

[URBAN NOTE] "Judge Punishes Man for Blocking Bike Lane Removal By Allowing Him to Volunteer"

Desmond Cole's Torontoist article is funny.

Dr. Tomislav Svoboda (he's the one in the black blazer) poses with family and friends at the College Park provinclal court yesterday.

When Dr. Tomislav Svoboda used his body to block the removal of the Jarvis bike lanes last November, he knew his act of civil disobedience would result in criminal charges. Yesterday afternoon, a judge agreed to drop those charges—namely, mischief and obstructing a peace officer—if Svoboda completes 50 hours of community service and writes a letter explaining his actions to the court within two months. Appropriately, Svoboda has chosen to do his community service hours with Cycle Toronto, a local bike advocacy group.

The agreement, formally known as “direct accountability,” means that for the next two years, the Toronto physician will be on record as having gone through a court diversion program. As long as he stays out of trouble during that time, he’ll walk away with no further record.

About two dozen of Svoboda’s supporters, including family, friends, and cycling advocates, showed up. They were too numerous to fit into the modest courtroom. To the astonishment of the crowd, the judge exchanged barely two sentences with Svoboda’s lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, before the deal was reached. His bewildered entourage shuffled loudly out of the courtroom, as court security officers scolded them.

[. . .]

Health care professionals and active transportation advocates have seized on Svoboda’s arrest to condemn the removal of the Jarvis lanes and call on city council to speed up the implementation of bike thoroughfares across the city.

[LINK] "What’s Wrong With Happiness"

Wonkman notes that the concept of Gross National Happiness pioneered by the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is, among other things, the sham put on by a totalitarian monarchy prone to committing crimes against its subjects that's happy to be the benefit of an Orientalist othering.

[W]hat makes it well and truly twisted is that the Bhutanese government pursues these policies and practices explicitly in order to promote the appearance of happiness. According to the government, happiness is a characteristic of the Bhutanese. Any form of dissent or apparent unhappiness is unpatriotic and intolerable. (Why do you think they’re deporting their own citizens by the thousands? They were endangering the national happiness, so they had to go.)

It’s fashionable in the west for us to talk about Bhutan as if it’s this nation of jolly savages: sure, they might not have an economy, but they’re happier than we are! And isn’t that swell? Isn’t it great how they’ve subverted western notions of commercial happiness? Hooray!

The actual picture is much, much bleaker. Bhutan is a nation without human rights, with a government who actively works to subvert human dignity. The Bhutanese people might be smiling, but it’s largely because their government has installed fish hooks in their cheeks.

This entire happiness obsession amounts to an especially successful gambit. By emphasizing happiness (defined on the government’s terms), the Bhutanese government distracts us from everything that’s wrong with their country: the non-existent economy, the absence of human rights, the flagrant violations of UN resolutions about the rights of citizens and refugees, and the despotic government in charge of it all.

[LINK] "The Swiss turn on the super-rich"

Emma Thomasson's extended Reuters article describing growing hostility in Switzerland towards the superwealthy, rooted in a long-standing egalitarianism along with a certain xenophobia, might mark the beginning of a trend. This is relevant not only for Switzerland itself or for other countries inspired by its rhetoric and experience, but for the world as a whole. What would wealthy Europeans do if Switzerland is no longer available to them as a tax haven?

In February 2008, Thomas Minder, a Swiss businessman whose family-owned company is best known for its old-fashioned herbal toothpaste, attacked his banker, UBS Chairman Marcel Ospel, as if he were a form of stubborn plaque. At a shareholders' meeting in Basel, he stormed the podium as Ospel addressed the crowd. Ospel's bodyguards grappled with Minder and wrestled him away before he could land his symbolic blow — he was trying to hand the embattled head of Switzerland's largest bank a bound copy of Swiss company law, which codifies corporate temperance.

"Gentlemen, you are responsible for the biggest write-downs in Swiss corporate history," Minder had railed just a few minutes before, referring to UBS's loss of $50 billion during the subprime meltdown that prompted it to seek a government bailout. "Put an end to the Americanization of UBS corporate philosophy!"

The bodyguards marched Minder out of the hall amid a chorus of boos and jeers. Two months later, Ospel was gone, taking the fall for UBS's recklessness, but Minder's campaign against big bonuses had only just begun; shortly after Ospel was ousted, Minder filed the 100,000 signatures needed to launch a referendum to impose some of the tightest controls on executive compensation in the world.

[. . .]

Despite strong opposition from the business elite, Minder's initiative is given a good chance of passing when it goes to a vote on March 2. Even if his referendum fails, the country will automatically adopt a counterproposal put forward by parliament that would compel companies to hold votes on executive pay, although the results would not be binding.

This is a stunning turn of events for the land of secret bank accounts and carefully calibrated neutrality. Even though most Swiss enjoy a very high standard of living, Minder's campaign has struck a chord in a proudly egalitarian country increasingly unhappy with a growing class of super-rich unafraid to flaunt their wealth. Combine that with an undercurrent of xenophobia — many of the top-paid executives in Switzerland are foreigners — and you have a volatile mix. In another sign of discontent, parts of the country are also considering scrapping the tax breaks that have lured wealthy foreigners such as Formula One driver Michael Schumacher, pop stars Phil Collins and Tina Turner, and Switzerland's richest man, Ingvar Kamprad, the Swedish founder of Ikea. "There is severe inequality that one really senses, even if there is no abject poverty in Switzerland," says economist Hans Kissling, former head of the Zurich statistics office, who has written a book warning that the growing influence of the super-rich carries the risk of turning Switzerland into a feudal state by undermining a tradition of direct democracy that dates back to the Middle Ages.

[. . .] The top 1 percent in Switzerland control more than a third of the nation's wealth, which is slightly larger than the share owned by the richest 1 percent in the United States. Switzerland also has the highest density of millionaires in the West, with 9.5 percent of all households having $1 million or more, and the greatest number of ultra-rich families — 366 households worth more than $100 million. Ten percent of all the world's billionaires live there.

This astounding concentration of wealth riles the Swiss, although their economy has held up relatively well through the financial crisis. For all its prosperity and success in international banking, Switzerland is a country still firmly rooted in its farming past, a nation with no history of monarchy or even aristocracy. "Even though Swiss people earn good money and have an average high salary, we also have a strong traditional feeling about what is good corporate governance," Minder says as he sucks one of his company's herbal throat lozenges. "You can have your second home, you can drive your Ferrari, you can eat your beef every day, but Swiss people are middle class, with no extreme highs or lows."

[LINK] "Did an 8th century gamma ray burst irradiate the Earth?"

A Royal Astronomical Society press release suggests that, in the 8th century, Earth was briefly irradiated by gamma rays. I'd mentioned the story in a links roundup back in June 2012, but the story got legs.

n 2012 scientist Fusa Miyake announced the detection of high levels of the isotope Carbon-14 and Beryllium-10 in tree rings formed in 775 CE, suggesting that a burst of radiation struck the Earth in the year 774 or 775. Carbon-14 and Beryllium-10 form when radiation from space collides with nitrogen atoms, which then decay to these heavier forms of carbon and beryllium. The earlier research ruled out the nearby explosion of a massive star (a supernova) as nothing was recorded in observations at the time and no remnant has been found.

Prof. Miyake also considered whether a solar flare could have been responsible, but these are not powerful enough to cause the observed excess of carbon-14. Large flares are likely to be accompanied by ejections of material from the Sun's corona, leading to vivid displays of the northern and southern lights (aurorae), but again no historical records suggest these took place.

Following this announcement, researchers pointed to an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that describes a 'red crucifix' seen after sunset and suggested this might be a supernova. But this dates from 776, too late to account for the carbon-14 data and still does not explain why no remnant has been detected.

Drs. Hambaryan and Neuhӓuser have another explanation, consistent with both the carbon-14 measurements and the absence of any recorded events in the sky. They suggest that two compact stellar remnants, i.e. black holes, neutron stars or white dwarfs, collided and merged together. When this happens, some energy is released in the form of gamma rays, the most energetic part of the electromagnetic spectrum that includes visible light.

In these mergers, the burst of gamma rays is intense but short, typically lasting less than two seconds. These events are seen in other galaxies many times each year but, in contrast to long duration bursts, without any corresponding visible light. If this is the explanation for the 774 / 775 radiation burst, then the merging stars could not be closer than about 3000 light years, or it would have led to the extinction of some terrestrial life. Based on the carbon-14 measurements, Hambaryan and Neuhӓuser believe the gamma ray burst originated in a system between 3000 and 12000 light years from the Sun.

Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait thinks the story possible. Critically, it can be tested: is there a stellar remnant in the correct place?

[URBAN NOTE] "'We don't have gay flags on the street anymore'"

The title of Andrea Houston's Xtra! article comes from Ted Genova, the owner of Flatiron's, a gay-themed gift shop on Church Street that's closing down in March.

Owner Ted Genova, who plans to maintain his St Lawrence Market location on Jarvis Street, says Church Street business has been terrible. He blames gentrification, high rents and an apathetic community that refuses to fight to keep the Village queer.

“The community doesn’t really support the stores on Church Street anymore, does it? Look at Loblaws. It’s full of gay people shopping. That’s why Pusateri’s is suffering, and other stores are going out of business . . . I can’t afford to stay there anymore.”

Twenty years ago, things were different, he says. Residents, activists and businesses worked together to fight for rights, define a sexual liberation movement, and carve out a space in Toronto to call their own.

Genova was president of the local business association at the time, years before it became the BIA. He remembers a time when putting up a rainbow flag on a business was an act of rebellion. He says the gay community fought hard to stake a claim on the Church Wellesley Village. Now it’s slipping away, he says.

[. . .]

Church Street has become a vastly different place from those early days of the gay rights movement. Today, gay and lesbian people are largely safe living out and proud and have spread into every corner of Toronto. Meanwhile, gentrification and the condo boom have also had a lasting effect on the Village.

Genova sees the problem as a loss of community. He has watched small and gay-owned businesses be forced out by increasingly high rents only to be replaced with corporate chains and franchises.

And the signals have been there for the past five years, he says. Reither's German deli closed abruptly in March after 23 years and became David’s Tea. Zelda’s restaurant, which was for a long time seen as an anchor of the Village, moved to Yonge Street in 2009; its former home then stayed vacant for almost two years, only to reopen as Second Cup and Acme Burger. The Barn, another 20-year Church Street mainstay, cleared its dancefloor for the last time in August 2012.

The theme of the commercial decline of Church and Wellesley has come up frequently, for instance in connection to Loblaws 60 Carlton, a giant grocery store several blocks south of Church and Wellesley that was subject of a December 2012 photo essay and that has been blamed for the decline of many smaller stores further north.

Houston's other interviewees suggest that what's happening in Church and Wellesley is that, as the GLBT community continues to diffuse beyond the neighbourhood, the neighbourhood's identity will become folkloric. (Spacing's Matthew Blackett suggests that Little Italy might be a good model.) Some new businesses with GLBT owners