Quote:
Originally Posted by zoomer
Yah, there seems to an over enthusiastic piling on re: Edmonton's downtown and where it's at currently. Yet, Pavlov just pointed out criticism's have been made of Calgary over the decades and if you follow the news and dip your toe into any local threads you'll see there is all sorts of complaints or angst about the current states of downtowns across the country. Sure, some are more vibrant than others but a lot of the angst is because we're a group of people who are passionate about downtowns and urbanism and are never satisfied with the status quo. It's ironic as the banned guy who started this all of is from Winnipeg - yet when I read their threads and come across their local news is seems as if the inner city crime and violence is the highest in the country, heritage buildings are abandoned and crumbling, parking lots dominate, there is hardly and retail downtown and no full size grocery stores and there are dozens of fires a year in abandoned buildings. And despite all that, fully true or not, I do feel as if both cities have potential to bounce back based on affordability as a start and they are very proud determined cities with a lot of smart people who are committed to finding solutions. These cities are just at different cycles and you can point to nearly all across the country and find a time when they were down and out and people were picking over their downtown bones.
|
Winnipeg as a city seems to be struggling. It's been a couple years since I was there, but the last time I was it seemed like all their infrastructure was crumbling, there was very little vibrancy and it just felt depressing. I think the problem in Winnipeg is the economy, just doesn't seem to be a lot of high paying jobs that give people disposable income, or the city resources to keep up with infrastructure and beautify the city. Not intending to rag on Winnipeg, just an observation I made travelling there every couple months for about 5 years.