[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Vaughan and Markham, Hamilton, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Bishkek

[rfmcdonald]

• Noor Javed notes that, if belatedly, people actually have signed up to run as mayor in Markham in Vaughan. The Toronto Star has it.


• Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger strongly disagrees with Doug Ford's reduction of the size of Toronto City Council, hoping this does not speak to a future deterioration of province-municipal relations generally. Global News reports.


• CityLab notes that a Los Angeles subsidy to urban farmers has gone almost entirely unused.


• Noise complaints, CityLab reports, have led to the closure of the pedestrian mall in Hong Kong's Mong Kok neighbourhood.


• Open Democracy reports on what sounds like an almost literally criminally planned program of chopping down much-needed urban tree coverage in the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek.