[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, New York City, Vancouver, Fukushima, Palermo

[rfmcdonald]

• CBC reports on the new book of unofficial Montréal mascot Ponto.


• This CityLab article looks at Co-op City, an affordable housing complex in the Bronx, and what it has to offer.


• This proposal from Vancouver to give kids free transit and subsidies to low-income adults makes perfect sense to me.


• Scientific American notes how many refugees from Fukushima, facing economic pressures, have been forced to return to communities they feel unsafe in.


• This SCMP feature looks at how Asian immigrant shopkeepers in Palermo have been successfully resisting the mafia.