[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto’s population overtakes Chicago"

The news that the population of the city of Toronto now exceeds that of Chicago--reported by the Toronto Star's Paul Moloney/u>, for instance--now making Toronto North America's fourth-largest city by population has been widely publicized.

It's also somewhat overblown, in that while municipal boundaries are often drawn so as to provide agglomerations with natural borders, municipal boundaries do not serve only that function. The Greater Toronto Area is home to 5.5 million people living on 7100 square kilometres, while Chicagoland's 9.7 million live on just over 28 thousand square kilometres. The GTA is denser, and the strong population growth is noteworthy.

Since Toronto was amalgamated in 1998, it has billed itself as North America’s fifth largest city after Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

But according to the latest census data from Statistics Canada, as of last July 1, Toronto’s population was 2,791,140, about 84,000 more than Chicago’s 2,707,120.

While both numbers are estimates, the gap was enough to spur Toronto economic development staffers to declare the city is “now the fourth largest municipality in North America.”

Toronto (the city proper, not the GTA) grew by 38,000 in the previous 12 months. In Chicago’s case, 12-month growth was about 11,000.

[. . .]

More people are, in fact, choosing to stay in Toronto, said the report to Tuesday’s meeting of council’s economic development committee.

Ten years ago, 75,000 more people moved out of Toronto to elsewhere in the province than moved in. By 2012, the net loss had narrowed to only 23,000 people, with fewer people moving from the city to the surrounding regions.

The city has changed its statement accompanying official announcements to note that Toronto is “home to a diverse population of about 2.8 million people.” Previously, the paragraph said 2.7 million.

[URBAN NOTE] "The deadly mixture of guns and class in Toronto"

The Toronto Star recently published a guest editorial by urban student Richard Florida making the point that although Toronto may be less violent than many cities its size, it's violent enough. More, the violence is concentrated in certain neighbourhoods in a very North American pattern.

Just two months into the New Year, four people under the age of 16 have been shot and killed in Greater Toronto. This comes on the heels of a 22-per-cent rise in gun murders last year, when gun deaths surged from 27 in 2011 to 33 in 2012. The rising rate of gun violence is especially disturbing given that gun murders had been declining steadily since 2007.

Torontonians like to think of their city as being safe and relatively free of the violent crime that plagues its American counterparts. It is certainly true that even with the recent uptick, gun murders here pale in comparison to Chicago — a city of similar size to Toronto — where a record 500 people were killed in 2012, 435 in total by gun. Chicago’s rate of 15 gun murders per 100,000 people is 10 times Toronto’s 2012 rate of 1.3 gun murders per 100,000 people. And Toronto’s peak rate of 1.5 gun murders per 100,000 Torontonians back in 2007 seems minuscule in comparison to the rate of roughly 62 gun murders per 100,000 in New Orleans, 35 in Detroit, 25ish in Baltimore and Oakland; and 20ish in Miami, St. Louis and Philadelphia during the same period.

But before we pat ourselves too hard on the back, we need to recognize that Toronto’s gun murder rate is about on par with large U.S. cities like Austin (1.5) and just a little better than San Jose (1.9) or Portland (2.2). And it is not all than much better than New York City’s record low of 3.8 murders per 100,000 recorded last year.

More worrisome, the recent uptick in gun violence in Toronto mirrors the same fault-lines of economic and social disadvantage that exist in U.S. cities.

A detailed New York Times report on gun violence in Chicago showed the stark concentration of murder in the disadvantaged neighbourhoods of the city’s south and west sides, noting that: “Residents living near homicides in the last 12 years were much more likely to be black, earn less money and lack a college degree.” The murder rate was much lower in more affluent, professional and college-educated neighbourhoods such as Lincoln Park and Hyde Park near the University of Chicago, which saw less than one murder per year.

[. . .]

The vast majority of gun murders from 2000 to the present have occurred in the city’s service class areas, and that figure rises to nearly 400 gun murders, almost 90 per cent, when we include the red working class clusters.

The article includes a detailed map showing the location of murders against different Toronto neighbourhoods by socioeconomic class.

[PHOTO] The curve of Pottery Road

Looking west across the Don valley from the altitude of Broadview Avenue where Pottery Road begins, this is what you see.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Crooked Timber's Tedra Osell gives a very positive review of a monograph by Ari Kelman describing the long, complicated process of memorializing the United States' Sand Creek Massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho in 1864.


• Daniel Drezner thinks that arguments the liberal world order hasn't been working well post-2008 are wrong, not least because they rest on the assumption that things were going well before then.


• Eastern Approaches notes that political cohabitation in Georgia between President Mikheil Saakashvili and new Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian Dream opposition isn't working because the two sides are so divided on, well, everything.


• GNXP's Razib Khan argues that lifting China's one-child policy wouldn't change fertility rates, which a) were declining before the policy's imposition and b) are now as low as elsewhere in East Asia.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer writes about the Chavez-era changes to the Venezuelan military. His take? In general, these reforms, which include the entrenchment of a popular militia with links to Chavez's revolutionary institutions and efforts at conscription, are confused.


• Torontoist's Chris Riddell notes the multiple failed plans before the final, successful, 2006 plan to transform the Don Valley Brick Works into something.


• The Volokh Conspiracy's Orin Kerr, who on the Aaron Swartz case has generally been critical of the arguments made by his supporters, recommends to his readers the long articles he thinks provide the best overviews on the case. Controversy ensues in the comments and on Twitter.


• Window on Eurasia reports on the resurgence of Buddhism in Russia, especially in the traditionally Buddhist republics of Kalmykia and Buryatia, and its implications on links with Mongolia.

[LINK] "Voyage of the Sunjammer: Sailing on Solar Winds"

I picked up Discovery's article on the latest solar sail news from Supernova Condensate's associated Tumblr.

The sun, like all other stars, emits an immense amount of photons, as well as a steady stream of charged particles. This “solar wind” actually exerts a not insignificant amount of pressure on everything which orbits the sun. It’s enough to blow out the glorious tails of comets, like the ones that should be visible in the skies later this year, and to be gradually eroding Venus’ atmosphere. Also, just like the wind here on Earth, space weather can be used to power sails.

Despite being a mainstay in some science fiction works, solar sails are a very real and attainable technology. The latest development being the Sunjammer, a joint project between NASA and California-based aerospace company L’Garde.

At over 1,200 square meters (13,000 sq. ft.) in area, Sunjammer will be the largest solar sail ever constructed. It’s currently scheduled for launch in 2014, and will travel approximately 3 million kilometers (1.9 million miles).

[. . .]

The sail, with an area just under a third of an acre, will be deployed after the craft is launched into space — unfurling from a vehicle the size of a dishwasher, weighing just over 30 kilograms in total. This is probably one of the most ambitious spacecraft propulsion concepts ever tested. However, at the same time, the deployment mechanisms for solar sails have been well tested previously.

The sail itself will be made from a high tech material called Kapton — also used in space suits, where it serves the threefold purpose of thermal insulation, shielding from solar radiation, and protection from micrometeoroids. Made from this surprisingly tough material, the sail will be buffeted by photons from the sun, together with the charged particles which make up the solar wind; solar charged particles, mostly protons and electrons, also get caught up in the Earth’s magnetic field and cause the stunning displays of aurorae in polar regions.

The effective thrust which a solar sail can achieve is roughly 0.1 Newton — around the same force exerted by Earth’s gravity on a packet of sugar which you might stir into your morning coffee. This may seem tiny to us here on the surface of our planet, but it’s comparable with certain existing space propulsion technologies. For example, that’s actually more power than the ion thrusters that are currently propelling NASA’s Dawn spacecraft from Vesta to Ceres in the asteroid belt.

[LINK] "Evidence for a Deep Ocean on Europa Might be Found on its Surface"

Universe Today's Nancy Atkinson reported on the latest findings from Europa. In a paper available online, a pair of astronomers report on evidence not only about Europa's ocean, but about the possible contents of the ocean and the ocean's indirect interactions with the local neighbourhood. Sulfur ejected from Io's volcanoes might be present. The impact of this on the ocean's potential habitability is open to question.

Astronomer Mike Brown and his colleague Kevin Hand might be suffering from “Pump Handle Phobia,” as radio personality Garrison Keillor calls it, where those afflicted just can’t resist putting their tongues on something frozen to see if it will stick. But Brown and Hand are doing it all in the name of science, and they may have found the best evidence yet that Europa has a liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface. Better yet, that vast subsurface ocean may actually shoot up to Europa’s surface, on occasion.

[. . .]

“We now have evidence that Europa’s ocean is not isolated—that the ocean and the surface talk to each other and exchange chemicals,” said Brown, who is an astronomer and professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech. “That means that energy might be going into the ocean, which is important in terms of the possibilities for life there. It also means that if you’d like to know what’s in the ocean, you can just go to the surface and scrape some off.”

“The surface ice is providing us a window into that potentially habitable ocean below,” said Hand, deputy chief scientist for solar system exploration at JPL.

[. . .]

Salts were detected in the Galileo data – “Not ‘salt’ as in the sodium chloride of your table salt,” Brown wrote in his blog, “Mike Brown’s Planets,” “but more generically ‘salts’ as in ‘things that dissolve in water and stick around when the water evaporates.’”

[. . . N]ow, with data from the Keck Observatory, Brown and Hand have identified a spectroscopic feature on Europa’s surface that indicates the presence of a magnesium sulfate salt, a mineral called epsomite, that could have formed by oxidation of a mineral likely originating from the ocean below.

[. . .]

The magnesium sulfate appears to be generated by the irradiation of sulfur ejected from the Jovian moon Io and, the authors deduce, magnesium chloride salt originating from Europa’s ocean. Chlorides such as sodium and potassium chlorides, which are expected to be on the Europa surface, are in general not detectable because they have no clear infrared spectral features. But magnesium sulfate is detectable. The authors believe the composition of Europa’s ocean may closely resemble the salty ocean of Earth.

[ISL] "NDP now ahead of Tories: CRA poll"

Teresa Wright's article in the Guardian of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, surprised me. Historically, the NDP has been quite weak in Canada's oldest island province, where support for a political party has been derived from family and ethnoreligious patterns of loyalty rather more than from any direct ideological conflict. That the NDP is polling ahead of the Progressive Conservatives is amazing. The NDP really has broken through.

For the first time in P.E.I. history, the NDP is number two in the polls in the wake of a plunge in support for the PC party, according to the latest Corporate Research Associates poll.

The CRA’s winter 2013 data shows the NDP is now polling at 26 per cent, an increase of four points since the last quarterly poll conducted in November 2012.

This places them well ahead of the Progressive Conservative Party, which has the support of just 16 per cent of Islanders — a drop of 12 points since the last poll.

This steep decline now places the PC party behind the provincial NDP in an historic shift of voter support.

“This is maybe the start of a real, true three-party jurisdiction,” CRA chairman and CEO Don Mills said in an interview Wednesday.

“(The NDP) certainly seem to be a credible force now in P.E.I. They’re certainly poised to elect someone with these numbers.”

The story is similar in support for the NDP and PC leadership. NDP Leader Mike Redmond is stable at 18 per cent, compared with 15 per cent last quarter, while support for Interim PC Leader Steven Myers has dropped to single digits at seven per cent since November when former leader Olive Crane garnered 19 per cent.

[LINK] "Stompin' Tom Connors dies at 77"

Stompin' Tom Connors--a Canadian folk-rock icon raised on Prince Edward Island--has died at 77. From CTV.

Canadian country-folk legend Stompin' Tom Connors, whose toe-tapping musical spirit and fierce patriotism established him as one of Canada's strongest cultural icons, has died. He was 77.

Connors passed away Wednesday from what a spokesman described as "natural causes."

Brian Edwards said the musician, rarely seen without his signature black cowboy hat and stomping cowboy boots, knew his health was declining and had penned a message for his fans a few days before his death.

In the message posted on his website, Connors says Canada kept him "inspired with it's beauty, character, and spirit, driving me to keep marching on and devoted to sing about its people and places that make Canada the greatest country in the world."

Connors is survived by his wife Lena, two sons, two daughters and several grandchildren.

Dubbed Stompin' Tom for his propensity to pound the floor with his left foot during performances, Connors garnered a devoted following through straight-ahead country-folk tunes that drew inspiration from his extensive travels and focused on the everyman.

[DM] "Notes on Venezuela"

I've a post up at Demography Matters taking a look at Venezuela. A country with a bit of a unique population history in Latin America, Venezuela for all of its issues is still a country that some people move to (while others move away).