Quote:
Originally Posted by macca
common sense is that a lively public realm is the measure of a quality city
Skywalks are the enemy of a lively public realm
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...I don't know what your dream for a perfect downtown is, but I can tell you that every company that has a head office in Calgary/Toronto/Vancouver has been eliminating an immense amount of positions in Saskatoon both high profile and low profile entry positions making their presence in the downtown smaller and smaller and the reasons are for people with head office jobs making those decisions see Saskatoon as a very cold place that they'd rather not visit for 8 months of the year. This is a straight up fact, so if something like skywalks can make them realize Saskatoon is liveable for more than half the year, that leads to a better chance that corporations like Potashcorp/Agrium will keep positions here over moving somewhere with lower overhead, easier access to Labour, cheaper transportation costs, etc... the restaurants downtown aren't going to close over a few skywalks for people to choose when it's -20. When I lived in Winnipeg I loved going for walks in their 5km of tunnels on winter days versus sitting inside, and in the summers I clearly avoided them on beautiful sunny days.