The New Slums

From The Atlantic, an interesting article on the role reversal underway between suburbs and cities. Where suburbs were once seen as the model of the future, abandoning the rundown, crime ridden cities of the time, now it is the cities and urban-esque walkable areas that are seen as having a bright future, while the suburbs may be headed towards crime and squalor. It's an article about the U.S. and cities never turned into slums as badly in Canada as they did in the U.S., but much of what is said seems likely to apply in Canada as well.

Waterloo's transformation of Waterloo Town Square, its downtown mall built like a suburban mall, back into something which looks more urban (with less of a sea of parking, and more through streets and shops facing the street rather than facing inward toward the mall.) is one example. Toronto has also seen a migration of some of the worst areas from downtown into the fringes of the city, and Vancouver is seeing gentrification of the downtown east side which may lead to the same thing one day.

And I'm no expert on Europe, but from what I hear, this pattern (prosperous cities, surrounded by slummy suburbs) is already somewhat the case there.

Heavy Snow

No that's not a description of the weather here in Vancouver where the cherry trees are in full blossom and I haven't needed a jacket (never mind a toque) for weeks now. What I'm referring to is the feeling I get sometimes trying to write a blog while watching hundreds of interesting stories and any number of bad arguments in need of correction, as well an uncountable list of topics that could benefit from further investigation pass by every single day while I'm lucky if I can find the time/energy/insight/wit/etc. to comment on more than a couple a week. It puts me in the mind of someone trying to catch all the flakes in a heavy snowfall by running around with their tongue sticking out.

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Jonathan over at No More Shall I Roam, has managed to catch a couple of good sized flakes recently, one being this post which provides the best summary/context surrounding the recent Mercer Consulting Report which ranked Canadian cities highly for their 'livability' that I've yet seen, whether in the papers or in blogs, and the other being this post from a week back (yeah, I'm slow) which provides a great look at some of the science behind global warming concerns and also explains why the earth is warmer than the moon (in case you were wondering).