A Bit More Detail

• A new storyboard in Niagara Falls displays the importance of railways to the city. The Niagara Falls Review reports.


• Niagara Falls city council is considering the idea of linking casinos by aerial car. The Niagara Falls Review reports.


• Global News reports on a drug bust that saw two people arrested in Niagara Falls.


• The Niagara Falls Review reports the number of reported homicides in Niagara Region tripled in 2019, to six.


• The immersive live nativity hosted by a Niagara Falls church sounds interesting. More is here.


• A recent discussion at Niagara Falls city council was dominated by discussion of housing issues and of homelessness. The Niagara Falls Review reports.


• Most revenues from the casinos of Niagara Falls have been directed to the infrastructure of the city. The Niagara Falls Review reports.


• City council in Niagara Falls has approved the construction of a 72-storey hotel. Construct Connect reports.


• In November, the mayor announced the old city hall and courthouse in the downtown of Niagara Falls was scheduled to be demolished. The Niagara Falls Review reports.


• The Bath House Hotel once was intended to be a centrepiece of local tourism. The Niagara Falls Review reports.


• Carrie Bosco writes about the experience of a customer service associate working at the Niagara Falls Public Library, over at the Niagara Falls Review.


• The Niagara Falls Public Library in winter is a happening place for locals. The Niagara Falls Review reports.


• A Chinese developer hopes that a proposed $C 1.5 billion dollar project in south Niagara Falls will still go forward. The Niagara Falls Review reports.


• Niagara Falls is going to have a hard time replacing city historian Sherman Zavitz. The Niagaa Falls Review reports.


• Niagara News reports on the Winter Festival of Lights in Niagara Falls.

• The City of Mississauga hopes to secede from Peel Region, becoming an independent city like Toronto. Global News reports.


• Urban Toronto notes the remarkable scope of a plan in St. Catharines to build a vast new mixed-use development on neglected lands.


• Plans to build a new beach for an east-end Montréal neighbourhood have been put into motion. CBC reports.


• CityLab reports on the success of self-described socialists in Milwaukee civic elections.


• This Jezebel article reveals the remarkably prominent role Nora Roberts has taken on in Boonsboro, Maryland, a small town substantially sustained by her investments and that bears her mark.

• Transit Toronto notes that GO Transit has introduced regular weekday train service to Niagara Falls.


• Average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto has hit #C 2260. blogTO reports.


• Revenue from the much-needed land transfer tax that supplies City of Toronto budgets is below expectations, the Toronto Star reported.


• NOW Toronto shares a list of the most-borrowed books from the Toronto Public Library system in 2018.


• Spacing celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Prince Edward Viaduct, also known as the Bloor Street Viaduct, arcing across the Don River.

• The Nova Scotia community of Beechwood has been recognized as being of historical significant for its African-Canadian links. Global News reports.


• This Sunday saw the final Masses delivered at three churches in Saint John, new Brunswick, closed down due to rising costs and falling attendance. CBC reports.


• The leaders of New Brunswick's major political parties appeared in Moncton for that city's bilingual Pride festivities. Ici Radio-Canada reports.


• An Ontario NDP MPP has been the latest to complain about the sewage being injected by Niagara Falls, NY, into the Niagara River. CBC reports.


• Guardian Cities reports on how what can only be interpreted as paranoid, even racist, hysteria against outsiders in greater Baltimore's Anne Arundel county is driving a push to reduce service on its light rail system.

Torontoist's feature on how Stepgate went viral internationally is a mustread.

• The National Post covers a disturbing report about claiming a police officer maimed a teenager. If the Toronto police have been actively trying to cover up criminal assault by one of their members ...


• Global News notes that Metrolinx has opted to remove Bombardier for consideration in operating GO Transit.


• A high-speed ferry link between Toronto and Niagara--St. Catherine's--is imaginable. Economically viable? The Globe and Mail reports.


• Simon Lewsen describes in The Globe and Mail how the 1977 murder of Emanuel Jaques led, eventually, to the transformation of Yonge Street.

• Steve Munro shares some vintage photos of TTC streetcars from Canada's centennial in 1967.


• Spacing Toronto's Chris Bateman describes how the Toronto Islands became a test-bed for architectural modernism.


• Global News notes the proposal for a hovercraft service across Lake Ontario, connecting Toronto with Niagara.


• The Toronto Star's Emily Mathieu notes that a Kensington Market apartment complex made into a ghost hotel has been temporarily shut down by Airbnb.


• NOW Toronto's Paul Salvatori has a touching photo essay on the Palace Arms, a soon-to-be-gone rooming house at King and Strachan.

• blogTO reported that York University plans on opening a satellite campus in York Region's Markham. This is a first.


• Dangerous Minds notes a new, posthumous release from Suidide's Alan Vega.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper considering the detectability of Niven ringworlds around pulsars. (Maybe.)


• The Everyday Sociology Blog considers burnout among sociology students, and suggests that engagement with issues is key to overcoming it.


• The Great Grey Bridge's Philip Turner photoblogs his recent Rhode Island vacation.


• Joe. My. God. reports on the arrest of a Christian activist protesting outside of the Pulse memorial in Orlando.


• The LRB Blog shares considerable concern that the Democratic Unionists of Northern Ireland are now national powermakers.


• Spacing Toronto shares the ambitious plan of Buenos Aires to make the city better for cyclists, pedestrians, and mass transit
  
• Transit Toronto notes that starting Friday, Metrolinx will co-sponsor $C25 return tickets to Niagara from Toronto.

Canada’s largest city just keeps getting bigger — at least in terms of what constitutes “Toronto” real estate.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Tuesday it is seeing a so-called spillover effect as far away as the St. Catharines-Niagara region after already witnessing the impact in places like Guelph, Hamilton and Barrie.

“Our evidence indicates that increasing single-family home prices in the GTA are motivating buyers to purchase more affordable homes in nearby centres. In turn, this purchasing behaviour is driving up house prices in these markets,” said Jean Sébastien Michel, principal, market analysis with CMHC.

The Canadian Real Estate Association said in January the average price of a home sold in Niagara reached $317,861, up 16.1 per cent from a year ago.

The Crown corporation maintains the impact on price has been greatest in Hamilton, where it says there is strong evidence of overvaluation. “The growth in house prices persistently outpaced economic and demographic fundamentals,” according to the report.

• blogTO notes Niagara Falls' new light show.


• Body Horrors reports on a 1980 epidemic of MRSA among Detroit drug users.


• Centauri Dreams describes the final orbits of Cassini around Saturn.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper suggesting Tabby's Star is being star-mined.


• Language Log looks at an element of Chinese slang regarding telecommunications.


• The LRB Blog argues against blaming migrants for problems on the left.


• The Planetary Society Blog discusses the continued Dawn mission around Ceres.


• Savage Minds talks about the need to slow down in a time of crisis.


• Seriously Science notes research suggesting whales jump out of the water for purposes of communication.


• The Volokh Conspiracy notes that, in the United States, flag burners cannot be stripped of their citizenship.


• Window on Eurasia suggests Russians would like the West to make up on Russia's terms and looks at the embassies and delegations of Russia's component regions.

[T]he falls have moved, a remarkable recession chartered by scientists to have shifted 11 km upstream in the past 12,000 years. Every year, more breaks away, sometimes rock chunks the size of a sixteen-wheeler.

“The shape of the falls is always changing,” says Environment Canada’s Aaron Thompson, who also serves as chair of the International Niagara Board of Control. “The rate has slowed down because so much of the flow goes to the power plants.”

And this, it turns out, is what separates the falls the tourists photograph today from the falls that First Nations knew, which so impressed the likes of Hennepin and Lincoln.

The power of Niagara was such that it created the first great industrial centre of North America. By diverting the water into tunnels leading to turbines, industrialists were able to create electricity, first of all direct-current. Once Nikola Tesla invented alternating-current – a discovery Thomas Edison campaigned against as being too dangerous – it allowed for electricity to travel distances and the great industrialization of the Niagara region spread.

Increasingly, more and more water was diverted into such tunnels. Lord Kelvin, the famous Irish inventor and engineer, said he looked forward to the day when every single drop in the river would be used to create electricity.

Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed. One early suggestion had the power companies ransacking the Niagara as much as they wished six days a week but doing nothing on Sundays so that the tourists could enjoy the falls. That idea, luckily, went nowhere. In 1950, the Niagara Diversion Treaty signed by Canada and the United States specified how much each country could draw for power – roughly half the flow that Hennepin and Lincoln had witnessed.

“They could see that one day there would be no water going over the falls,” Mr. Thompson. says