[PHOTO] Three photos of a fresh winter morning, Dovercourt Village

Yesterday was a glorious day.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Architectuul celebrates the life and achievements of furniture designer Florence Basset Knoll.


• Bad Astronomy notes the remarkably detailed 3d simulation of a solar flare.


• At Crooked Timber, John Holbo engages with Corey Robin's article in The New Yorker on the question of why people moving politically from right to left are less prominent than counterparts moving from left to right.


• Far Outliers takes a look at the rise and the fall of the international silk trade of China, from Roman times to the 20th century.


• At The Frailest Thing, L.M. Sacasas writes about the importance of listening to observers at the "hinges", at the moments when things are changing.


• Internet geographer Mark Graham links to a new chapters making the argument that cyberspace is not a novel new territory.


• Language Log takes a look at a possible change in the representation of vocal fry as demonstrated in Doonesbury.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the background to the possible 2020 presidential bid of ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.


• Marginal Revolution's Alex Tabarrok looks at a history of Aleppo that emphasizes the ancient city's history of catastrophes.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw takes issue with an online map highlighting factory farmers created by pressure group Aussie Farms. How meaningful is it, for starters?


• The Russian Demographics Blog notes the timetable of the introduction of syphillis to Poland-Lithuania in the 1490s.


• Window on Eurasia looks at Russian population prospects, noting the low fertility among the small cohort of women born in the 1990s.


• Arnold Zwicky starts by sharing beautiful paintings and photos of tulips, and ends with a meditation on Crimean Gothic.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: rent, homelessness, TTC

• blogTO takes a look at a Dupont Street two-bedroom apartment with the astonishingly cheap monthly rent of just $902.


• CBC Toronto notes a new shelter for homeless women at Dupont and Davenport.


• Gilbert Ngabo at the Toronto Star looks at the desperate state of emergency housing for the homeless in Toronto.


• Transit Toronto looks at new TTC proposals for revised transit routes and schedules in The Junction.


• TTC parking lots, facing pressures for residential redevelopment, may become major political issues. CBC reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Niagara Falls, New York City, Winnipeg, Egyptian capital, Wuhan

• Guardian Cities notes the utopian plan of the founder of Gillette to make Niagara Falls into a clean, hydroelectricity-fueled North American metropolis.


• Bombardier is running into problems in supplying cars for the New York City subway, something too familiar to ex-TTC chair Andy Byford, now running the MTA. CBC reports.


• The relative affordability of housing in Winnipeg, along with relatively high incomes, makes that city a contender. Global News reports.
  
• The Economist notes the expensive and questionable plan to build a new capital for Egypt in the desert east of Cairo. Is this more about ensuring the stability of the dictatorship than creating a new metropolis?


• Guardian Cities looks at how the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan tries to manage the threat of water.