@Dragofix@veganism.socialFloodwaters begin receding in a major Pakistani city but nearby towns face evacuations https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/09/floodwaters-begin-receding-in-a-major-pakistani-city-but-nearby-towns-face-…
@annsev@troet.cafeThe #Atlantic hat eine Folge von Fotos zusammengestellt, die die Proteste der letzten Tage gegen Darth #Trump und seine Administration zeigen. Das macht Mut, auch wenn im Verhältnis zu den Rechtsradikalen Repulbikanern und MAGA Anhängern wohl einer eine kleine Schar war. Aber jede Graswurzelbewegung hat einma…
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systemsI'm thinking that I need to start categorizing my photos from the last 10 years by towns. Bad news is, not all of them have GPS coordinates. Good news is, I have good memory for totally random stuff.
@arXiv_eessSP_bot@mastoxiv.pageOperational machine learning for park-scale irrigation to support urban cooling
Mesut Ko\c{c}yi\u{g}it, Bahman Javadi, Russell Thomson, Sebastian Pfautsch, Oliver Obst
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11700 …
@Techmeme@techhub.social @annsev@troet.cafe#TheAtlantic has compiled a series of photos showing #protests against Darth Donald #Trump and his administration that have taken place over the last few days. While the crowd was small compared to those supporting…
@newsie@darktundra.xyzPodcast: Inside a Small Town's Fight Against a $1.2 Billion AI Datacenter https://www.404media.co/podcast-inside-a-small-towns-fight-against-a-1-2-billion-ai-datacenter/
@rae@bne.socialGreat analysis and story telling
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-12/yarriambiack-warracknabeal-victoria-town-population-shrink/105774946
@sauer_lauwarm@mastodon.socialThe Architecture and Planning of Fascist New Towns in Sardinia
https://sah.org/2013/03/14/the-architecture-and-planning-of-fascist-new-towns-in-sardinia/
@UP8@mastodon.social🛠️ Colombia Against the Fossil Fuel Age
#energy
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
As #Halloween creeps up on us, we continue to highlight haunted abandoned towns. Today, we are in Rowley Alberta, a failed railway town near the gates of Hell. Maybe near Drumheller.... I wasn't paying attention. Settled around 1910, it once had about 500 residents but declined after the closure of its train station in 1965, and the construction of new highways bypassing the town. Today, it's a mix of private homes and preserved historical buildings, and the remaining 9 evil residents have worked to maintain its historic charm. They have added new features and even host monthly pizza nights to lure in unsuspecting tourists. Don't go in the old shed with all the sharp farm tools....
#CanadaIsAwesome #CanadianGhostTowns
https://youtu.be/6huskbX8Hh8?si=oowVXFI_s2RwVipM
@markhburton@mstdn.socialFrom 8 years ago.
The limits of the best of the reformist approaches, exhausted capitalism and ecosystem crisis, societal collapse and a localist, ecosocialist resurgence. England's northern postindustrial towns as the backdrop.
After peak capitalism: the livelihood challenge – revised version | Uncommontater
@servelan@newsie.social"“They openly confessed to killing 11 people,” Venezuela’s interior minister said on state television. “We have done our investigations here in our country and there are the families of the disappeared people who want their relatives, and when we asked in the towns, none were from Tren de Aragua, none were drug traffickers."
**Venezuela says 11 killed in US boat strike were not gang members amid reports vessel was returning to shore** | Venezuela | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/11/venezuela-boat-strike-tren-de-aragua-trump
@ErikJonker@mastodon.socialElon Musk actually said this in an interview:
"These lovely small towns in England, Scotland and Ireland, they've been living their lives quietly. They're like hobbits"
"And so one day, 1,000 people show up in your village of 500 and start raping the kids"
"This has now happened, God knows how many times in Britain"
All governments in europe should leave X
@burger_jaap@mastodon.socialRE: https://social.heise.de/@heiseonlineenglish/115532900620184084
Why Jänschwalde, Brandenburg? Well, the satellite image reveals the answer. This is the site of a lignite power plant and an open-cast mine (the latter of which closed two years …
@seav@en.osm.town#30DayMapChallenge 🗺️ Day 1️⃣: Points
Third year participating! 🎉
I guess I’m starting the tradition of using the same map style for Day 1 that I did for 2023¹ and 2024². So here’s a map of all the cities and towns in the #Philippines that have Spanish names of saints because Novem…
@primonatura@mstdn.social
@gedankenstuecke@scholar.social«It is not just the jobs that have disappeared. The towns also bear the scars of mining and related activities. Heavy truck traffic has damaged roads, while drilling operations have pierced the salt flats, leaving visible marks on landscapes that once drew tourists.»
A lithium bust leaves Latin American towns in the dust
https://restofworld.org/2025/lithium-price-crash-latin-america-mining/
@andres4ny@social.ridetrans.itIf voting didn't matter they wouldn't try so hard to stop us from doing it. Go vote.
And after you've done your civic duty, don't forget to also sabotage the gears of capitalism/fascism.
https://mastodon.social/@jeffjarvis/115491654406302339
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
There are over 100 ghost towns in Saskatchewan, including Saskatoon in early February. One was Bonne Madone, a community founded in 1902 in the scary Rural Municipality of Woooo Boooo. (Editor - it's actually Hoodoo). The area was granted by the federal government to French settlers, the main contingent of which arrived in 1902 from Dauphiné and Franche-Comté, led by fathers Laurent Voisin and Jean Garnier. A convent run by the Sisters of Providence was established there in 1905. Nuns with rulers are very scary. A school was built there in 1908, and the town's chapel was first built in 1910, and the town also had a Royal North-West Mounted Police station and a Post office. It was an active community in the 1920s and the 1930s, but its population dwindled over the next few decades, and by the end of the 1960s, it was abandoned..... and haunted.
BTW - Some provinces have a Ghost Town Trail, like this one.
#CanadaIsAwesome #CanadianGhostTowns
https://www.prairiepast.com/blog/explore-3
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk
@tydalforce@mastodon.world
@andycarolan@social.lolImagine what our towns and cities would look like now if we had Kei Cars instead of SUVs 🤔
#KeiCars
@servelan@newsie.socialFrench towns fly Palestinian flag despite gov’t ban before recognition | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/22/french-towns-fly-palestinian-flag-despite-govt-ban-before-recognition?traffic_source=rss
@bobmueller@mastodon.worldI've heard of towns and cities offering incentives for people to move there. I never knew there was a website gathering them all in one place. #relocation #jobhunt
https:/…
@hex@kolektiva.socialIt's also easy to imagine that Trump is sending his military to Portland. People forget that the military is actually really big and pretty complex.
Most people join the military because they want to get out of poverty. Some people join because they believe in it. A lot of people are just too young to have any kind of politics, but some of them do develop politics in the military... and some of those folks become anarchists.
There are Nazis in the military. It's a big problem. But there are also anarchists who signed up before they developed a critique of the state, and now they're kind of stuck for a few years until they can get out.
It's also worth recognizing that a lot of people join after they graduate. Basic training is like 22 weeks. So, assuming a random selection, there really aren't a lot of folks who would be deploying to PDX who would have joined under Trump. That's just assuming a random selection, and there may be other things at play that I'm not aware of, but the majority of the types of folks who would get deployed now would have joined under Biden.
The troops who will deploy (if they do deploy) may very much not want to be there. These are also not monsters wanting to kill (like Trump wishes them to be). They're kids from nearby towns. That's not awesome, most of Oregon has absolute shit politics. But joining the National Guard doesn't necessarily mean that a person has any politics at all. All of this is worth remembering.
@david@boles.xyzHere's my latest free to read article from Prairie Voice about digital ghost towns:
#tech
@Dragofix@veganism.socialViral YouTube Film Investigates How Milk Is Farmed In India #AnimalRights
@markhburton@mstdn.socialStarmer: "It's un-British to have so little respect for others."
He conveniently ignores that more than 60,000 people murdered. 40,000 with life-changing injuries. Their homes and towns, the whole landscape flattened.
Murder is murder, wherever and whoever.
The #Genocide doesn't pause.
Keir Starmer asks students not to join protests on 7 October - BBC News…
@paulbusch@mstdn.caThe real villain in the story of ghost towns in Newfoundland is the government resettlement program. In 1965, a five-year federal-provincial partnership was established, and the Centralization Program was launched. It was later renamed the Fisheries Household Resettlement Program. Here's some very scary history.... oooooo.
https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/resettlement-program.php
@primonatura@mstdn.social"Massachusetts considers expanding effort to ban gas in new buildings"
#US #USA #America #Massachusetts…
@doktrock@toad.socialCommemorative map of the Jefferson Highway routes in 1916 and 1929, as seen at the Hubbard County Historical Society in Park Rapids, #Minnesota. Park Rapids is one of the towns along the route.
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #MorningShow
White Town:
🎵 Your Woman
#WhiteTown
https://jamesdalgliesh.bandcamp.com/track/tribute-to-white-towns-your-woman-2
https://open.spotify.com/track/3UBItNVbFQiVC5hBQlBvnr
Please 🔁 BOOST to share what you like
- your followers don't see if you ⭐ favourite a post
@blackknight95857669@social.linux.pizzaEasy Delivery Co (PC)
Get in your Kei truck and chill out, literally, making deliveries to mountain towns in the middle of winter. Can you figure out what's going on around here?
This game performed extremely well on my Garuda Linux PC, without having to use any compatibility tools. In fact the only "complaint" I might have is the achievements never popped. I don't care about those, so it's not a big deal, but something to note perhaps.
I li…
@h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com @Dragofix@veganism.socialTowns may have to be abandoned due to floods with millions more homes in Great Britain at risk https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/14/millions-more-homes-in-great-britain-at-risk-of-flooding-investigation…
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
Like many provinces, Nova Scotia has hundreds of abandoned towns because of depleted minerals, harsh living conditions, or forced relocation. But the ghost town of Broughton in Cape Breton must surely be haunted because of a suicide by one of its most important residents. Founded by the promise of coal mining, no amount of money was spared on the design of its buildings and streets. But poor management and family tragedy doomed the town, and today, only ruins remain. Oooooooo.....
Here's a delightful video on Broughton with narration that is suitable for #Halloween. Don't watch it alone...
#CanadaIsAwesome #CanadianGhostTowns
@hex@kolektiva.socialThe fracturing of the Dutch far-right, after Wilder's reminded everyone that bigots are bad at compromise, is definitely a relief. Dutch folks I've talked to definitely see D66 as progressive, <strike>so there's no question this is a hard turn to the left (even if it's not a total flip to the far-left)</strike> a lot of folks don't agree. I'm going to let the comments speak rather than editorialize myself..
While this is a useful example of how a democracy can be far more resilient to fascism than the US, that is, perhaps, not the most interesting thing about Dutch politics. The most interesting thing is something Dutch folks take for granted and never think of as such: there are two "governments."
The election was for the Tweede Kamer. This is a house of representatives. The Dutch use proportional representation, so people can (more or less) vote for the parties they actually want. Parties <strike>rarely</strike> never actually get a ruling majority, so they have to form coalition governments. This forces compromise, which is something Wilders was extremely bad at. He was actually responsible for collapsing the coalition his party put together, which triggered this election... and a massive loss of seats for his party.
Dutch folks do still vote strategically, since a larger party has an easier time building the governing coalition and the PM tends to come from the largest party. This will likely be D66, which is really good for the EU. D66 has a pretty radical plan to solve the housing crisis, and it will be really interesting to see if they can pull it off. But that's not the government I want to talk about right now.
In the Netherlands, failure to control water can destroy entire towns. A good chunk of the country is below sea level. Both floods and land reclamation have been critical parts of Dutch history. So in the 1200's or so, the Dutch realized that some things are too important to mix with normal politics.
You see, if there's an incompetent government that isn't able to actually *do* anything (see Dick Schoof and the PVV/VVD/NSC/BBB coalition) you don't want your dikes to collapse and poulders to flood. So the Dutch created a parallel "government" that exists only to manage water: waterschap or heemraadschap (roughly "Water Board" in English). These are regional bureaucracies that exist only to manage water. They exist completely outside the thing we usually talk about as a "government" but they have some of the same properties as a government. They can, for example, levy taxes. The central government contributes funds to them, but lacks authority over them. Water boards are democratically elected and can operate more-or-less independent of the central government.
Controlling water is a common problem, so water boards were created to fulfill the role of commons management. Meanwhile, so many other things in politics run into the very same "Tragedy of the Commons" problems. The right wing solution to commons management is to let corporations ruin everything. The left-state solution is to move everything into the government so it can be undermined and destroyed by the right. The Dutch solution to this specific problem has been to move commons management out of the domain of the central government into something else.
And when I say "government" here, I'm speaking more to the liberal definition of the term than to an anarchist definition. A democratically controlled authority that facilitates resource management lacks the capacity for coercive violence that anarchists define as "government." (Though I assume they might leverage police or something if folks refuse to pay their taxes, but I can't imagine anyone choosing not to.)
As the US federal government destroys the social fabric of the US, as Trump guts programs critical to people's survival, it might be worth thinking about this model. These authorities weren't created by any central authority, they evolved from the people. Nothing stops Americans from building similar institutions that are both democratic and outside of the authority of a government that could choose to defund and abolish them... nothing but the realization that yes, you actually can.
#USPol #NLPol
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
English speaking Canadians feel that Quebec ghosts are not very scary because they have funny accents. But there is a ghost town near Montreal that could send shivers down your spine, especially in early February. Out of the hundreds of abandoned towns in LA Belle Province, the town of Goose Village has the most chilling history, and ultimately, it was wiped off the face of the earth. This municipality of Montreal was officially called Victoria Town, but Goose Village was the common name. It was the infamous site of 22 quarantine sheds where thousands of immigrants, mostly Irish, died in 1847 and 1848. It continued as an impoverished neighbourhood until the entire community was bulldozed to make way for Expo 67 parking. There is ZERO chance that the area is not haunted given its history.
#CanadaIsAwesome ##CanadianGhostTowns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_Village
@radioeinsmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 Auf radioeins läuft...
White Town:
🎵 Your Woman
#NowPlaying #WhiteTown
#radioeins gespielten Titel als #Spotify Playliste: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3hdH98B6uyXilhcWxCA6nv
@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.caHere is CUPW's fact sheet on Postal Banking “A Bank for Everyone”
Fun fact!
"our post office used to have a national savings bank – up until 1969 – and there is no reason we shouldn't have one today”
Some other reasons:
"Banks are failing to meet the needs of a growing number of Canadians. Thousands of towns and villages across our country do not have a bank. But many of them have a post office that could provide access to financial and banking services.”
"Postal banking is lucrative!
New Zealand: Kiwibank generated 81% of New Zealand Post's after tax profits.”
"France: Banque Postale has an obligation to provide products and services to as many people as possible. It provides a Livret A or passbook savings account, at no charge, to anyone who requests it. It also provides banking services to the financially vulnerable and financing for social housing, voluntary organizations and microentrepreneurs lacking bank credit.”
"Canada Post's secret postal banking study
Canada Post conducted a secret four-year study on postal banking that indicates that adding this service "would be a win-win strategy" for the corporation. This study was obtained though an Access to Information (ATI) request. Unfortunately, 701 of the study's 811 pages were redacted. CUPW has asked Canada Post's President to release the full report, but he has refused.”
#CanadaPost #UPW #Strike #Union #Solidarity
https://www.cupw.ca/en/campaign/resources/postal-banking-–-bank-everyone-fact-sheet
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
After recently moving to Belle Ewart (Bell You-wart), I find myself making strange pronunciations of my town to see people's reactions. Life is short... take pleasure where you can. But if you're a Canadian living in one of the towns mentioned in this CBC article, do you proudly tell people where you live, or do you mumble the answer and hope no one responds. I think you embrace the fun and show pride in your community by investing in t-shirts and hats emblazoned with your town name. But that's just me - some old retired guy with no reputation worth saving.
BTW, if you're looking for a conversation starter, here's a Geographic Fact - the distance between Dildo Newfoundland and Climax Saskatchewan is 5,551 km, about 2 days and 16 hours by car.
#CanadaIsAwesome #CivicPride
https://www.cbc.ca/television/stillstanding/the-most-hilarious-town-names-in-canada-1.5440187
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
Finally, arriving at our our 10th province, Manitoba, and putting this series to rest means no more nightmares. Friendly Manitoba, it says so right on their license plates, also has hundreds of abandoned towns, but today we'll focus on Scarf. Named for William Scarf, not for winter clothing or the more recent term for eating quickly, the settlement began in the 1880s, started to flourish after train service arrived in 1907, and died slowly after train service stopped, with the last residents leaving in the 1980s. But in 2013, the regional mayor decided to sell parcels of land in the ghost town for $10. I wasn't able to find out if this plan to bring Scarf back from the dead was successful, but perhaps the area is cursed. In 2020, a tornado touched down near Scarf, killing two teenagers when their vehicle was swept off the road.
#CanadaIsAwesome #CanadianGhostTowns
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-rm-looks-to-sell-ghost-town-lots-for-10-1.2086700
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
The list of abandoned towns in PEI is apparently so short that no one has produced any really scary histories. It makes sense being a small island that there isn't enough distance to truly "abandon" a settlement. Maybe a house here or there, perhaps a short street. But that means you are more likely to be living next door to a haunted location. So today, we have a list of ghostly tales from around the island that may, or may not, be myth. Remember, don't go into the old shed with all the sharp farm tools....
#CanadaIsAwesome #CanadianGhostTowns
https://pointseastcoastaldrive.com/scary-stories-of-points-east-coastal-drive/
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
To all you CFAs out there, you would find Newfoundland right scary. Large white ghostly shapes looming out of the fog and winds screaming through hundreds of abandoned settlements. OK... maybe icebergs aren't frightening, unless you sail into one, and all those abandoned towns were the result of government resettlement programs in the 60s. But.... boo. One of the largest communities to be resettled was Merasheen, whose name supposedly means "Ocean of Seadogs." How scary is that. The town of almost 400 was incorporated in 1963, but by the end of that decade, all the residents were gone. Merasheen today continues to haunt us through a website: merasheen.org
#CanadaIsAwesome #Halloween #CanadianGhostTowns
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/merasheen-resettlement-fiftieth-1.4762565
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
We are firmly launched into October, and it's safe to start thinking about #Halloween. So, a new semi regular series on Canada’s abandoned and spooky towns seems appropriate. Today's town is Barkerville in British Columbia, where wolves howl night and day. OK, maybe not, but there's definitely some stalking of tourists in the once bustling gold rush town. After the Caribou Gold Rush ended and town residents drifted away, Barkerville was designated a historic site, and most of the buildings were preserved. Today, it's one of the largest heritage parks and museums in North America. There are hundreds of people in old timey clothes walking about, but they're not ghosts, just park staff. But the prices are scary.
A good ghost town runner-up would be Ocean Falls, abandoned after the pulp mill closed, but a sinister and mysterious Bitcoin operation still utilizes the old hydroelectric dam.
#CanadaIsAwesome #CanadianGhostTowns
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/barkerville
@paulbusch@mstdn.caGood Morning #Canada
Like a Count Floyd movie night on #SCTV, the ghosts in this series are thinning out as we get to our 2nd to last province. Apparently, New Brunswick is not particularly scary unless you make an enemy of the J.D. Irving clan. (They won't find your body.) Wikipedia has no list of abandoned towns, which is definite proof they don't exist. A century old cotton mill in Fredericton, certainly ripe for ghoulish activities, is currently haunted by government employees. Ooooo....
So we'll have to rely on two of New Brunswick's most famous ghostly locations to spooky your interest, starting with the headless nun.
#CanadaIsAwesome #Halloween #CanadianGhostTowns
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/headless-nun-miramichi-1.7011713
