[CAT] Shakespeare, looking up

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomy notes a new census of galaxies finding that there are two trillion in the universe.


• blogTO reports on a new twin condo tower proposed for downtown Toronto.


• The Dragon's Tales reports on findings suggesting Earth barely escaped a third snowball period.


• Joe. My. God. notes that no one wants to stay in Trump's new Washington D.C. hotel.


• Language Hat notes the effort to revive the language of the Miami.


• Language Log notes pervasive censorship in China.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money dissects the idea of "locker room talk".


• Marginal Revolution looks at Thailand.


• The NYRB Daily considers the Bob Dylan Nobel prize.


• The Planetary Society Blog's Jason Davis interviews the makers of the revamped Antares cargo robot.


• Towleroad features a guest essay by Hillary Clinton's honorary gay nephew.


• The Volokh Conspiracy's Orin Kerr looks at the future directions of computer crime law in the United States.


• Whatever's John Scalzi notes that the GOP doomed itself.


• Window on Eurasia considers the problem of melting permafrost in the Russian North.


• Arnold Zwicky engages with an article on gay/straight friendships.

[URBAN NOTE] "Is the greenbelt squeezing Toronto’s housing market?"

The Globe and Mail's Jeff Gray reports on the latest on the debate as to whether or not the Greenbelt is causing land scarcity, hence higher prices.

One Friday afternoon last May, IT consultant Zvonimir Petric left work to meet his wife. She had been standing in line for five hours at a sales office offering new homes in north Burlington, a full day before it was to open. When he arrived, he found nearly 100 other people already waiting, all hoping for a shot at a yet-to-be-constructed detached house in one of the Toronto area’s most desirable suburbs – and willing to camp out overnight to get it.

Someone was taking down names and warning that a “roll call” would be held every hour to ensure prospective homebuyers were still in line. Nobody even knew for sure what the prices would be. The couple soon decided it just wasn’t worth it.

“There was just madness,” Mr. Petric said. “In front of everybody, I go: ‘Guys, you are all a bunch of dumbasses if you think you are going to pay this much money for a home and sleep here overnight.’”

Many others would walk away the next morning upon learning the lots ranged from $850,000 to more than $1-million. Still, the development sold out.

Across Toronto’s suburbs, people are trading similar real-estate war stories, as newly built detached homes become a scarce commodity. So it should be no surprise many are now hunting for someone to blame for the Greater Toronto Area’s increasingly unaffordable real estate prices. Pressure is mounting for a B.C.-style tax on foreign property buyers, even though it remains unclear just how much overseas cash is distorting Toronto’s market. The federal government has already tightened its mortgage rules.

But the development industry insists it knows the main culprit: Queen’s Park’s 10-year-old anti-sprawl policies – the Greenbelt and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe – both now under review.

In increasingly insistent lobbying, industry voices say these two pieces of legislation have cut off the supply of land for new houses, especially detached or semi-detached ones, and are responsible for driving up prices across the GTA.

But a chorus of urban planners and environmentalists call that idea absurd, and point to statistics that suggest there is enough land already earmarked for development to last decades. They counter by saying that developers are twisting the market by holding on to ready land.

[URBAN NOTE] The Globe and Mail on Montreal's Habitat at 50

In an article written by Kristina Ljubanovic with photos by Alexi Hobbs, The Globe and Mail looks at Montréal's innovative Habitat complex, built for Expo 67, has evolved in the past fifty years.

In 2017, as Canada’s confederacy turns 150 years old, Montreal will be celebrating its own milestone – the city’s 375 th anniversary. Plans are underway to mark its almost four-century-long history, including projects like the illumination of the Jacques Cartier Bridge. The party starts in December, affording Montrealers a full 375 days of arts, culture and entertainment.

But beyond the pomp of the three-digit celebrations, another big birthday is coming down the pike (or the St. Lawrence Seaway, as it were). Nearly fifty years ago, Montreal hosted the Universal and International Exposition, Expo ‘67. The six-month event was the crown jewel of Canada’s centennial and, some claim, the most successful World’s Fair of the 20 th century.

Habitat 67, the radical experiment in prefabricated, stacked city dwelling, is the city’s most iconic built legacy from that heady time. The idea for the housing complex, which developed out of architect Moshe Safdie’s thesis at McGill University, is as intriguing now as it was then: All the amenities of suburban life (openness, privacy, access to greenery) within a modular system of units set in an urban context. It was a prototype for a new way of living in cities, “but it did not proliferate,” admitted Safdie in a talk at the 2014 TED conference. Still, visiting the complex today and seeing how its mix of design-savvy residents have both adapted and maintained its spaces, it’s clear that Habitat continues to inspire new ways of living.

Perched on the edge of Parc de la Cité-du-Havre, with views to Montréal and the river, Habitat is a building that’s all exterior. “Each house was an entity in itself, recognizable in space,” said Safdie in his 1970 book Beyond Habitat. But deconstructing the housing block to reveal open-air pedestrian streets, communal plazas and private gardens proved an expensive enterprise that the dream of prefabrication could not offset. So the project was scaled back, from the originally planned 950 modules, or cubes, to 354, resulting in ten storeys and 158 apartments, some of which have since become conjoined, reducing the number to 148.

[URBAN NOTE] "Tech firms aim to reverse Hamilton’s brain drain"

The Globe and Mail's Diane Jermyn reports on how Hamilton is trying to join in urban Canada's high-tech boom.

When software developer Andrew Holden first moved to Hamilton a decade ago, software jobs and tech companies were scarce.

But that’s changed. “There are 50 software companies and lots of startups offering a chance to do things that are pretty cool,” says Mr. Holden, chief technology officer for Weever Apps Inc., a Hamilton-based mobile solutions company.

With startup incubators such as the Innovation Factory and The Forge, McMaster University’s startup accelerator, firing up the city’s rapidly growing technology industry, tech companies find they are facing a common problem – a shortage of talent.

For years, Hamilton has been losing skilled people to jobs in Toronto, nearby Waterloo and Calgary, often seeing the top computer science graduates from McMaster head straight to Silicon Valley in the United States.

For new tech companies and entrepreneurs, the challenge is reversing the brain drain, Mr. Holden says, who also recruits for his own firm, which has grown to 16 people today from four in 2013. The shortage is fuelling private and public pressure to bring skilled employees back to work in Hamilton.

[URBAN NOTE] "Hosting Toronto Expo 2025 would cost $1.9 billion: consultants"

The idea of a Toronto Expo 2025, as described by the Toronto Star's Jennifer Pagliaro, does have a certain appeal to me. There's also the obvious issue as to whether this would be money well spent.

Hosting Expo 2025 in Toronto will cost $1.9 billion, according to consultants paid for by the private sector interested in hosting the world fair.

“We’ve come together because we share a passionate belief that Toronto, Ontario and Canada should launch a bid to host Expo 2025, “Claire Hopkinson, CEO of the Toronto Arts Council and co-chair of Expo Canada’s steering committee, told a press conference at city hall on Friday.

She was joined by several business leaders, including Nicholas Thadaney, president and CEO of Global Equity Capital Markets, TMX Group.

Hopkinson called the report an “extraordinarily good news story,” claiming Expo would result in a $4.37 billion boost in the national GDP and $1.26 billion in tax revenues.

But the cost does not include the nearly $1 billion required to make the Port Lands in the city’s east end developable, including flood protecting the area, or needed investment in transit infrastructure like a waterfront LRT line or GO Station at the former Unilever site — both which have yet to be funded.

And with more than $30 billion in approved but unfunded capital projects already on the city’s books — including rebuilding the Gardiner Expressway and a subway relief line — it is unclear how the additional $1.9 billion needed to host the world fair would be found.

[URBAN NOTE] "Growth plan fuelling GTA housing prices, developers told"

The Toronto Star's Tess Kalinowski reports on an unsurprising argument.

A leading Canadian economist is adding his voice to those who argue that the Ontario government's growth plan is largely to blame for pricing homes beyond the reach of many buyers.

Land supply restrictions resulting from the plan called, Places to Grow, is "the number one reason GTA house prices are rising," said Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist for CIBC World Markets.

It is restricting the supply of land, "making things very difficult when it comes to housing," he told a meeting of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) in Vaughan.

"Affordability and Places to Grow cannot co-exist," Tal said on Thursday.

If the government increases its intensification targets —something that the province is considering in its update to the growth plan expected next year — it is going to present major difficulties to municipalities.

But the likelihood of Queen's Park changing the growth plan "is zero," Tal added.

[URBAN NOTE] "Young professionals struggle to rent in 'crazy' real estate markets"

Nicole Ireland's CBC News item is, frankly, terrifying. Existence here feels so tenuous--if anything goes wrong ...

For many young professionals chasing the dream of home ownership, "I'll be renting forever" is a common lament as real estate prices in hotspots like Toronto and Vancouver remain sky-high.

But even with good jobs and decent incomes, some 20- and 30-somethings are realizing that renting an apartment or condo is no easy task in these enormously competitive housing markets.

"It's impossible — and that's with two working professional people," said Alena Rebmann, 32, of Surrey, B.C., who is searching for an apartment or condo to rent in Vancouver with her husband, Nawab Singh.

With a maximum budget of $2,500 a month, the two technology professionals are willing to cram into a small space if it means they can live in a downtown neighbourhood they like.

"We'll even settle for a bachelor [apartment]," she said.

Vancouver's rental vacancy rate is less than one per cent — the second lowest recorded in the country after Victoria — according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

Toronto's vacancy rate of 1.6 per cent is also well below the rates in other large Canadian cities, including Montreal (four per cent), Calgary (5.3 per cent) and Halifax (3.4 per cent).

[URBAN NOTE] "Dreaming of Music City"

A multiply-authored article at NOW Toronto takes a look at what Toronto needs to do to become a pop music creative centre.

Ever since the formation of the Austin-Toronto Music City Alliance in 2013, there’s been lots of talk about making Toronto a “music city.” Loosely defined, a music city is a place like Austin or Montreal or New York City with a vibrant music economy. Where innovative and diverse shows and festivals happen regularly and are well attended. Where, more than anything, hard-working local musicians and music-related businesses – record labels, concert promoters, live music venues, recording studios, etc – can sustain a career for a long time.

Ask the average independent local musician or music businessperson – we’ve talked to 10 of them for this story – about what it’s like out there in the dark bars and basements of Toronto and you’ll quickly hear that the struggle is real. The issue of the exorbitant cost of living comes up over and over again, in addition to out-of-control residential and commercial rental rates, lack of venue spaces and safety, scene segregation related to race, gender, sexuality and mobility, and barriers to government funding and international opportunities.

The Toronto Music Advisory Council was formed three years ago to help keep music sector growth top of mind on city council, and on March 31 of this year, council unanimously adopted the TMAC’s official music strategy, which made recommendations in the areas of affordable housing, fair compensation for musicians, improved access to health and dental care, better dissemination of grant and funding information and the creation of a “music hub,” to name a few.

A few city-fuelled initiatives have come to fruition since then: the Toronto Music Directory (an interactive map and industry database); the Music In The Parks permit category as part of the Arts In The Parks program; Music 311 and Live From City Hall showcases, the Austin-Toronto Music Industry Summit in June. But the meat-and-potatoes stuff remains vague, and whether the strategy becomes a reality depends on the 2017 budget.

For example, when it comes to the affordable housing file, entertainment lawyer Andreas Kalogiannides, TMAC’s co-chair, told NOW he’s working with the city and “looking forward to a positive partnership to develop innovative housing solutions.” (Kalogiannides cites a lack of consistent, well-paid performance opportunities and affordable housing – and the resultant loss of musicians to places like Hamilton and other Canadian cities – as major barriers to success, which results in a “net loss to the city of the many benefits of a healthy creative class, [like] strong communities, arts education programs, a vibrant social scene and the huge economic contributions made by musicians and music businesses.”)

Multiple interviews with people who have relevant ideas feature. This is a must-read.

[URBAN NOTE] On Doug Ford and Donald Trump

Torontoist has linked to an extended Doug Ford interview at CityNews wherein Rob Ford's brother comes out as favouring Trump.

Cynthia Mulligan: So you’ve actually met Donald Trump.

Doug Ford: Yes, with Rob when he opened the Trump tower in Toronto.

CM: Are you still a supporter of Donald Trump?

DF: Absolutely. I wouldn’t waver. The GOP is wavering, I wouldn’t waver.

CM: Well Republicans are jumping off the ship in droves. Why is it you’re still staying on?

DF: Well they weren’t on the ship at the beginning. So the establishment that he’s run against – the 14 million people in the US are dead against these career politicians – they were never with him. So the Paul Ryans, and the McCains, they’re finding any excuse to jump ship. But they don’t realize it makes their campaigns a lot weaker. What he has said is inexcusable – some of the things.

CM: Then how can you still support him and all these revelations from women coming out saying he has sexually assaulted them? How can you still stand by him?

DF: First you have to make sure it’s true. That’s the first thing. Accusations are coming out.

CM: Sure, but it’s almost reminiscent of Bill Cosby. When they just start piling on and there’s a wing of common accusation here.

DF: It’s inexcusable. But I look at the alternative. The alternative is Crooked Hillary. That if you ever look into their background I have to wonder how they made all this money when she was in government. They didn’t own a business. There were tens of millions of dollars. And she was Secretary of State. So I think this WikiLeaks every day is coming out with new information that should shock the people. Let’s put this into perspective. Over 80% of the media can’t stand him in the US. I’ve never seen a more biased media in my entire life, except Rob Ford. But outside of that I have not seen a more biased media.

There is much more.

Torontoist's conclusion bears sharing.

It might be tempting to ignore Ford’s defence of the most reprehensible mainstream presidential candidate in modern history. But the former mayoral candidate, even out of office, speaks for a sizeable political constituency in Toronto. It also appears that he wants to run for political office in the future, so how he thinks and what his values are matters. The next time Doug tries to cast himself as the populist champion of the marginalized and downtrodden, let’s remember his defence of Donald Trump, and what that says about Ford.

[FORUM] What impact has Donald Trump had on your politics?

Inspired by my post earlier this evening about the fondness of Toronto's Doug Ford for Donald Trump and what he represents, my [FORUM] question is simple: How has Donald Trump influenced your local politics?

Here in Canada, one thing the Rob Ford years demonstrated is that there is an appetite for anti-intellectual right-leaning populism. This does not match up perfectly with Trump's right-wing nationalism, as Rob Ford's strong support in marginalized immigrant communities on the periphery of Toronto demonstrates, but it does match up enough.

How are things in your particular jurisdiction being shaken by this?