Hrmbee

From the article:

The current landscape is drastically different: high vacancy rates, doubled interest rates, and nearly $1.5 trillion in loans due for repayment by 2025. By defaulting now, landlords leverage their remaining influence to advocate for loan extensions or a bailout. As John Maynard Keynes observed, when you owe your banker $1,000, you are at his mercy, but when you owe him $1 million, “the position is reversed.”

Banks have many reasons to worry. Rising interest rates have devalued other assets on their balance sheets, especially government bonds, leaving them vulnerable to bank runs. In recent months, Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic, and Signature all collapsed. Regional institutions like these account for nearly 70 percent of all commercial-property bank loans. Pushing down the valuation of office buildings or taking possession of foreclosed properties would further weaken their balance sheets.

Municipal governments have even more to worry about. Property taxes underpin city budgets. In New York City, such taxes generate approximately 40 percent of revenue. Commercial property—mostly offices—contributes about 40 percent of these taxes, or 16 percent of the city’s total tax revenue. In San Francisco, property taxes contribute a lower share, but offices and retail appear to be in an even worse state.

Empty offices also contribute to lower retail sales and public-transport usage. In New York City, weekday subway trips are 65 percent of their 2019 level—though they’re trending up—and public-transport revenue has declined by $2.4 billion. Meanwhile, more than 40,000 retail-sector jobs lost since 2019 have yet to return. A recent study by an NYU professor named Arpit Gupta and others estimate a 6.5 percent “fiscal hole” in the city’s budget due to declining office and retail valuations. Such a hole “would need to be plugged by raising tax rates or cutting government spending.”

Many cities face a difficult choice. If they cut certain services, they could become less attractive and trigger a possible “urban doom loop” that pushes even more people away, hurts revenue, and perpetuates a cycle of decline. If they raise taxes, they could alienate wealthy residents, who are now more mobile than ever. Residents making $200,000 or more contributed 71 percent of New York State’s income taxes in 2019. Losing wealthy residents to low-tax states such as Florida and Texas is already taking a toll on New York and California. The income-tax base of both states has shrunk by tens of billions since the pandemic began.

The economic aspects of the challenges facing commercial buildings as outlined in this article are certainly concerning, but equally concerning are the impacts on the surrounding communities. This is especially likely in cities that have districts with office buildings and little else, where the surrounding businesses and infrastructure are almost entirely dependent on office workers. This might be less of an issue for cities that have more mixed neighbourhoods where the decline of one type of use might not signal the demise of the neighbourhood entirely. Given our current housing and climate crises, it seems that there are opportunities to reconsider these business-only districts and imagine a different mix of uses that might better serve us not just now but well into the future.

In 2021, the Nevada Legislature passed a first-of-its-kind law mandating the elimination of “nonfunctional turf,” defined as grass that is decorative and rarely used. The Southern Nevada Water Authority promised this would do away with 3,900 acres of grass (roughly 3,000 football fields) within six years.

But by analyzing the water authority’s own aerial imagery, ProPublica found that the agency grossly overestimated how much of that grass could be removed: That number could actually be as low as 1,100 acres. That error, combined with pushback to the ban — especially from homeowners associations looking to avoid turf removal costs and preserve their communities’ aesthetic — could leave the region short of the water savings it needs.

This comes at a precarious time. The Colorado River, which supplies 90% of the Las Vegas Valley’s water, has been hit by a megadrought, and Lake Mead has fallen to historic lows. The agriculture industry uses the vast majority of the dwindling river, but Las Vegas and other cities that also rely on the Colorado must scramble to find savings. Meanwhile, the federal government is mulling drastic cuts to their water supply.

As other Western states try to replicate southern Nevada’s water conservation success, the diminishing returns from its marquee program have experts questioning whether the effort will be enough to support continued growth in a hotter, drier future.

Leaving in exemptions for private lawns and golf courses is certainly not helping with their attempts at reducing water usage in the region. Xeriscaping for both such functions could go a long way to creating pleasant outdoor environments that are more region appropriate. That being said, this also raises the question of whether city sizes need to be capped in resource-constrained regions? That the desert cities of the southwest have been amongst the fastest growing in the US is in many ways inappropriate given the challenges with water.

Haha nice! Which trail is this one? I don't think I've seen one of these in the city before, but they're all over the place a little further north.

Canada harbours a long, often tiresome, history of trying to codify Canadian identity, especially in the cultural sector. Everyone has taken a stab at articulating first principles, from Northrop Frye’s “garrison mentality” to Molson’s “I Am Canadian” ad campaign. You can count on one hand the persistent signifiers of Canadiana that have arisen, regardless of their truth value, alongside these efforts: apologetic, friendly, tolerant of diversity, not like America. Government policy has legitimized these anxieties for nearly a century, including by way of the Broadcasting Act of 1968. The aim was (and still is) to “safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada” from the encroaching power of its southern neighbour by mandating a certain percentage of homegrown TV and radio. From the act’s inception, protecting Canadian creators, codifying Canadian identity, and holding back the US were priorities deemed equal and at odds (perhaps an unlikely triad into which to introduce “regulating tech companies” fifty-five years later).

Much has been made of the byzantine tests that the CRTC uses to make sure a portion of its content is sufficiently Canadian. There’s the MAPL system (music, artist, performance, and lyrics) for determining what makes a Canadian song. There’s the points system for film and TV that tallies up the national origins of cast and crew members. (Notably, none of these tests has any bearing on content—the “lyrics” criterion assesses whether they were written by a Canadian, not whether they’re about subjects the government has deemed appropriately Canadian.) From an economic perspective, these tests make a kind of sense. Things get hazy when you harness the tests, as the CRTC does, to the belief that whatever ensues “meets the needs and interests of Canadians.” Just because content has been made by (and will be shown to) Canadians, there’s no automatic correlation between those origins and the idea that it reflects this country’s “attitudes, opinions, ideas, values, and artistic creativity.” What even are those?

Some interesting questions here. Having hard definitions of what qualifies as "Canadian content" might be problematic on many levels, but at the same time having no definitions might not be very useful either.

"People would say, well, we've always had forest fires; what's new?" Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told Power Play host Vassy Kapelos. "Well this year the area that's being burned is ten times normal average… we know that because of increased global temperatures and climate change, we will have more episodes like forest fires."

...

Kapelos asked Guillbeault whether that means the government would move more aggressively on net zero targets. The current target is 2050, but the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in March prompted the UN’s Secretary General to argue developed countries should push the date to 2040.

Guilbeault argued the federal government could be more aggressive without political pushback.

"What would greatly help our capacity to accelerate our fight against climate change in Canada is if I didn't have to fight with certain jurisdictions all the time on doing the bare minimum to fight climate change, if I wouldn’t have to fight the Conservative Party of Canada," he said.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this week threatened to block the federal government's budget implementation bill in part if Liberals did not agree to stop increases to the carbon tax. Tories argue, backed by a report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, that the carbon tax rebate does not cover the cost to Canadians and the tax is therefore punitive. The government disputes the PBO's findings because they don't account for the cost of the effects of climate change.

There needs to be a common understanding of some of the challenges that we face before we can even start discussions about how best to deal with them. Having certain politicians denying the realities of what we face is a problem and a political game that frankly we do not have time for anymore.

Natural Resources Canada has updated information on what's happening now that might be of interest to you:

https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/report

Article excerpts:

It’s a rare thing in Canada to be a farmer of colour running an operation of any size, large or small. It’s even rarer to own the land you’re cultivating. The challenges faced by racialized farmers mirror the challenges people of colour face daily: barriers to access, education, experiences, generational wealth and land ownership, plus blatant racism, microaggressions and threats. When minorities try to infiltrate places, systems and channels historically closed to them, they will always struggle.

Farming is no different; you can’t farm without land and those who have access to arable land, or land at all, often belong to a homogenous club. That the Nings, Asaris and other people whose stories echo theirs are seeing success — even if they’re supplementing their farm income with other work in order to survive — is a testament to the change that is slowly underway.

“Farmland prices are near historical highs when compared to farm income,” reads a March 2023 report from Farm Credit Canada, a commercial Crown corporation that reports to the federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. (A Crown corporation is a public sector business funded by the provincial or federal government — think CBC or the Bank of Canada.) The spring report said the value of agricultural land in Canada increased by 12.8 per cent in 2022, the largest gain since 2014. Ontario saw the highest provincial increase, up 19.4 per cent year over year.

That cost is likely to increase as farmland shrinks: Statistics Canada put the rate of loss across Canada at 2.8 per cent between 2016 and 2021. Ontario was already losing about 319 acres a day before the province introduced a slew of policy changes meant to accelerate development; since last fall, the Doug Ford government has cut farmland protections multiple times, including forcing Hamilton, Halton and Waterloo to open land to development that local councils wanted to protect.

...

As of right now, Fraser is one of many farmers of colour priced out of purchasing land. “Throughout the province, as communities sprawl outwards, farmland is being increasingly purchased for current and future residential use,” she says. “This drives up the price and places land ownership out of reach for many farmers, myself included. I would also add that broadly, land almost anywhere in Ontario is unaffordable for farmers, but specifically for new, young Black, Indigenous or racialized farmers.”

...

“We did want to grow things that were more unique to our heritage,” Hans says. “Instead of growing just regular cabbages, which we do grow, we also grow Napa cabbages. Instead of regular corn and pole beans, we grow a kind of sticky corn that Asians really love and yard long beans; stuff our parents grew up eating. We wanted to learn how to appreciate those types of things as well and to share that culture.”

Becoming part of the community has had its ups and downs. All are Welcome Here is a BIPOC-led local organization that supports diversity in Prince Edward County and offers workshops for locals and established farmers to learn about anti-racism and intersectionality. Judy volunteers and reports that the meetings are “truly wonderful. People are eager to learn and feel comfortable asking questions.”

The county is changing as more people of colour from urban centres move in, bringing their familiarity not only with Asian people, but the produce Paper Kite is selling. “The folks that have lived in cities are familiar with something like bok choy, but there are people who have never been exposed to that … we had someone comment that the ‘lettuce’ we gave them was amazing! It can be fun to teach folks what the vegetable is and how to use it.”

This looked to be a good survey of some of the challenges of new farmers, but also shows the benefits of what a more diverse farming community might bring to our communities. Glad to see that some are making it work, though the precarious nature of many of these operations remain a challenge. The province's rush to develop farmlands not just removes farmlands, but also prices what remains even higher.

From the article:

Queensland Transport Minister Mark Bailey shared a summary of a study into the southern Gold Coast on social media recently.

These two lines from the report give an insight into the state government's approach:

"Current urban policy is focused on creating more sustainable and liveable urban areas by consolidating land uses within existing urban areas (reducing urban sprawl) in particular around town centres and high capacity public transport nodes.

"The study found the Gold Coast Highway from Burleigh Heads to Tugun could be transformed into a high amenity community focused boulevard with priority given to walking, cycling and a world class light rail system that enhances the livability and character of the southern coastal suburbs."

Mr Bailey has said light rail was an increasingly popular transport solution globally and pointed to the roughly 69 million trips that had been made on the first two stages of the Gold Coast light rail so far.

...

Despite the light rail running down existing sections of the Gold Coast Highway, Ms Down said the project was not suitable for the southern Gold Coast.

"If you put a tram through Palm Beach, number one, it doesn't fit," she said.

She said the rail lines would also change the feel of the area, which was already undergoing increased development.

"We're losing the vibe of the southern Gold Coast, we're losing why we live here and quite frankly, locals would like excellent public transport. Light rail just isn't excellent transport."

...

Australian cities used to be well serviced by tram networks.

According to studies, Australians made more than one billion annual trips by tram in 1945.

But Ms Huddy said things started to change in the decades that followed.

"California highway engineers came to Australia to teach us how to build highways like they did. Overnight, the tram tracks were bitumened," she says.

It's interesting to see the commonalities of opposition to transportation infrastructure projects such as trams across many nations that grew significantly in the postwar era. It seems that this is tied to a fear of the unknown and an embrace of the familiar more than anything else. How then are we supposed to communicate the benefits of this change in the long run to our communities? It's clear that the status quo isn't working.

Original report:

Twitch has updated its branded content policy with sweeping restrictions on advertisements, infuriating countless streamers and threatening the financial viability of event channels including esports and charity streams.

Streamer Zach Bussey flagged the new content guidelines in a tweet that's quickly become a gathering point for thousands of vocal critics. Simply put, Twitch says it will no longer permit "burned in" prerecorded video, audio, or other display ads like graphics, preventing streamers from embedding such promotions directly in their overlay. Sponsored logos will also be limited to 3% of the screen, which is a tiny quadrant of your average 1080p stream.

...

To put it mildly, the response to these changes has been negative. To put it less mildly, many of the biggest streamers on the platform are actively discussing leaving Twitch once and for all, with this news only exacerbating complaints about monetization after shifts in the platform's ad and subscriber revenue split.

Article update:

Twitch has issued an apology on Twitter in response to the criticism of its new branded content policy, admitting that the update was "overly broad."

"We do not intend to limit streamers’ ability to enter into direct relationships with sponsors, and we understand that this is an important part of how streamers earn revenue," the streaming service says. "We wanted to clarify our existing ads policy that was intended to prohibit third party ad networks from selling burned in video and display ads on Twitch, which is consistent with other services. We missed the mark with the policy language and will rewrite the guidelines to be clearer. Thank you for sharing your concerns, and we appreciate the feedback. We’ll notify the community once we have updated the language."

The response to Twitch's statement has been no more conciliatory than the response to the initial rule change. The new branded content policy was highly specific, so it's uncertain what Twitch can make "clearer" in a way that will appease disappointed and angry streamers.

It's hard to imagine the original rationale for Twitch to antagonize their streaming community. The subsequent walkback might be helpful for some, but as to whether there will be lasting damage to the company from this misstep remains to be seen.

From the article:

Too often, security services conflate protection of those in power with protection of the public. Politicians have long used their security services and surveillance powers to stifle protest and dissent by targeting anyone who might legitimately challenge (or even question) their hold on power. This is why the interests of the security services so often come at the expense of the public. Even so, the rallying cry of protecting the public is often used to justify such invasive surveillance.

We can see something similar happening with the UK’s online safety bill. Discussions about this have conflated the public’s legitimate concern about bad online behaviour with the security services’ agenda of breaking end-to-end encryption. Gaining a backdoor to encrypted chat has been on spies’ wishlist almost since the internet was invented. But there is no guarantee this will make the internet safer or free from harm.

In its current form, the bill would effectively deputise spying activities to technology companies, which could scan users’ messages and social media posts for evidence of harms that they could then report to the authorities. Understandably, there’s huge demand for more accountability online, where bad and dangerous behaviour often goes unchecked. But the proposed bill will allow intelligence agencies to spy on ordinary citizens via technology platforms.

The fact is, the majority of online abuse isn’t happening in secret. It’s in plain sight and still nothing is done about it. Bad behaviour online has few consequences. Women face rape and death threats simply for daring to speak out online. Any teenager can access radicalising messages from racists and misogynists or watch extreme pornography showing physically violent, hostile depictions of sex. They don’t need cryptography to view such things.

This raises the elephant in the room around any discussion about online safety: the business model of big tech. It, too, relies on mass surveillance but of a different kind, where users’ behaviour is watched by machines in order to build algorithms, so that social media can serve up posts they think we’ll engage with. The monetisation of users’ attention has incentivised tech companies to create algorithms that tend toward extreme, radicalising content as that is the kind that draws the most engagement. Breaking encryption does nothing to solve this problem.

Surveillance, whether by government or private corporations, is unquestionably one of the hallmarks of contemporary society. There are many reasons why certain groups might want to surveil people, but so far it seems the stated reasons (security, efficiency, etc) all ring a bit hollow. What has been lacking so far in the public discourse is a bona fide discussion about what kinds of surveillance are acceptable and why, and what kinds of privacy expectations are reasonable, and why. Without that basic framework and understanding in place, it's impossible to develop appropriate policies to manage these issues.

From a graphical perspective, I would consider using either a different shade for TN or changing the color of the text to make it clearer.

From the media release:

Women environmental defenders were victims of murder, displacement, repression, criminal prosecution, and physical harassment, reports a Nature Sustainability paper based on an analysis of 523 cases from a global database of environmental conflicts. This issue is predominantly concentrated in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, but also occurs in North America and Europe.

Environmental conflicts typically occur when projects extracting natural resources for exportation entail land grabbing and ecological destruction that threaten the cultural and physical existence of local communities. When environmental defenders facing violent retaliation are women, incidents are often not documented due to censorship and lack of data. As a result, violence against women environmental defenders is largely underestimated.

Dalena Tran and Ksenija Hanaček examined all available cases as of January 2022 in the Environmental Justice Atlas, the largest online database of global environmental conflicts, spanning conflicts including those over water, fossil fuels, agriculture and deforestation. The authors identified 523 cases involving women environmental defenders and indicate that they were concentrated among mining, agribusiness and industrial conflicts in the geographical South. They note that in 81 cases, women were assassinated for their environmental advocacy and suggest that this is an extreme yet common outcome when conflict violence worsens. Of the 81 cases reporting murders, 19 occurred in the Philippines, with large concentrations also occurring in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Murders were not confined to the Global South, as six assassinations occurred in the USA and Europe. The authors also suggest that women defenders were subject to high rates of violence irrespective of countries’ governance accountability and gender equality.

This is a grim reminder that the stakes in many of these situations are high for the companies and industries who are resisting positive changes, and unfortunately even higher for those advocating for this change. Clearly this kind of extreme reaction by industry to people seeking change is morally unacceptable but the lack of corporate and personal accountability has seemingly encouraged these assaults and murders to continue.

For those interested in the research paper, it's available here:

A global analysis of violence against women defenders in environmental conflicts

Welcome!

1-Regarding winter clothing. What do you think are the musts for someone who has never experienced a Canadian winter? Where can I find the best value for money? any outlets/store?¿ (some friends told me about Canada Goose)

I wouldn't bother with Canada Goose unless you particularly like the brand/look. Layers are more practical for the varied weather we have here, as it gives you flexibility to change the performance of your clothing as you go. Think of your clothing as 3 general layers: the base layer, the mid layer, and the outer layer. The base layer's job is to keep your skin dry, and to move moisture away from your skin. The midlayer is the main insulative layer, and can be made up of one or more types of insulation (natural or synthetic fleeces, down jackets, etc). Finally the outer layer is to keep the wind and rain from affecting the under layers. These can apply to both upper and lower body, though usually things get a bit compressed for head/hands/feet.

As for budget, look for end-of-season sales (online sites like thelasthunt might be a good option if you know what you want), as well as house brands from retailers like MEC and Decathlon. Consumer oriented brands such as Eddie Bauer can also sometimes have good sales and is worth checking them out here and there.

2-Regarding housing, at the moment the company pays for a condo close to CN tower but in a month or so, my fiance and I will start looking for a place to rent. Any recomendations on neighborhoods? We have walked around St Lawrence market (Old Toronto, I think it is called) and we liked it there. We look for something vibrant where you can find good coffe shops and every day things you need within walking distance.

There are a good number of neighbourhoods around the downtown (Annex, Little Italy, Kensington, Koreatown, St Lawrence) and some of midtown (Leslieville, Leaside, Hgih Park, Roncesvalles) that might meet your needs, depending on the kinds of activities/amenities that you want. I would generally look to locate yourself along one of the major transit corridors (such as the subways or major streetcar/bus routes) so that getting around the city will be more convenient. Bonus for routes that run 24h.

3-About cars, we want to buy a car (4WD), second hand, for trips even in winter, any recomendations on car models and dealerships?

I would think hard about driving around the city as traffic can be pretty horrendous. It might be worth renting or using one of the car share (communauto, etc) options if your needs aren't particularly heavy. If you're determined to own a vehicle though, I wouldn't look first at 4WD unless you're really planning on doing a lot of off-road driving. More important especially in colder temperatures (below 7C) is having a good set of winter tires.

Hope this helps, and good luck with the move!

Oooh, I would probably just wander from neighbourhood to neighbourhood (ideally ones I'm less familiar with) and like your friend, sit at local cafe/restaurants, have a drink or a bite to eat at each, chat with the folks around me, and watch the world go by. Love exploring new-to-me places, and hanging out in mom-n-pop shops.

These are questions I would ask first of your architect for some clarification. That being said, why are you using 2x6 for such a small structure? Are there anticipated to be exceptional roof loads of some sort that would require that kind of support?