Winston Churchill once said, “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”
Go one step further: “We shape our cities and afterwards our cities shape us.” Our vision and our daily realities – how we act, interact and perceive things – is influenced by our surroundings.
From what I recall, Churchill would have been somewhat contemporary with the development of a city like WPG. And in a European context – putting aside the thousands of years of indigenous settlement – WPG was more or less built out of nothing on a windswept prairie. Yet still it ASPIRED at the time to become a great capital and for a while was on the way to becoming one of the leading cities of North America.
Part of that was a manifestation of the City Beautiful philosophy. Why would such a place construct such an impressive legislature, for example? Why would it plant such beautiful trees for the future, which are now being decimated in part (from what I understand) due to neglect and a lack of proper care over the years?
You lament a lack of vision, missed opportunities and so on – and I agree with you. But there was vision there when the city was being created, and there was vision in Elizabeth Lord’s analysis 60 YEARS AGO. Her attitude was visionary AND doable. It would have made a world of difference.
To be fair, it seems from a few of your comments that you view this forum as some sort of elitist conversation. Like it’s an ivory tower, detached from the real ‘meat-and-potatoes’ world out there. You make comments like, “Obviously malls are polarizing in this forum,” “I know the majority of people here love to look at the incremental gains,” etc. And that would be your right, of course.
My father was a professor of transportation engineering and a highways expert. I grew up partly in that milieu and interacted regularly with his colleagues and students. One of them was for several years high up in the transportation administration in WPG. I talked to him once about the Esplanade Riel bridge. He said that if he’d had his way, the bridge would probably have been built bare bones, no-frills, get-from-point-a-to-point-b in the cheapest way possible.
Subsequently, he felt that he had been wrong about that. He recognized that it had become a local landmark. When you say, “sometimes I feel that you guys get wrapped up and focus on the details such as wall cladding materials and interacting with sidewalks,” would that have been a detail for you – the architectural design of the bridge? I would argue that sometimes the devil is in fact in the details.
Vision is aiming for something better despite the inevitable critics, who always have their own agendas. And to infer that WPG has been excessive on insisting on wall cladding materials and the like would be factually mistaken, in my view. In fact, one could argue that it has been the opposite in recent decades. But cities get what they expect, and consequently get what they deserve.
You wrote: “I know freeways truly go against the principles of many on this forum and you guys are welcome to that view. For me, it is a visually simple example of which direction the city is trending (at least in North America) whether or not you guys wanna hear that.” I respect that you feel that way. But is it not a sweeping generalization to say that the construction of freeways represents progress because they are a ‘visually simple example’ of how a city should evolve? You say that like it is some incontrovertible 100% fact that ‘we’ (I personally only speak for myself) don’t want to hear.
If I am not mistaken, one of the most famous books in that field is ‘Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life.’ And the author chose that title precisely because it reflects the nuanced legacy of such massive road development – that it and the culture it has encouraged is not all black-and-white, despite the obvious benefits of the interstate system.
You also mentioned how you are in the roadwork industry, which leads you to focus on freeways and transit infrastructure when checking out other places. That is understandable. But do you agree or not with the following viewpoint, that the size and nature of road infrastructure there, not to mention the other municipal infrastructure extended out to support sprawl, is becoming or has already become unsustainable?
https://twitter.com/brent_bellamy/st...84687835488257
Do you agree with that or not? I understand that there may be debate about the numbers, and do not claim to be an expert. And I am not even talking about the insane alleged scandals of stolen money I have heard about there with the police building and so on. How much of that could have gone into transit infrastructure? It is embarrassing and I hope that there will be justice and restitution if there was wrongdoing.
I have to admit having lived in both Europe and North America that I am baffled by some North American tourists who come to Europe and say how charming things are (and spend their money on them, by the way, just so you don’t think I am going off on some pie-in-the-sky tangent) – but then go back home and say those things can never be implemented there, like Europe is some sort of Disneyland which exists in a parallel universe.
So what is your own big vision? Okay, if it is a freely-flowing inner ring road, fine. But please be ‘concrete’: how much might it cost, is it possible to do now or in the near-future and how exactly will it bring the downtown/central area back to health? Indeed, maybe what you say is true and I certainly respect your expertise, experience and perspective on that issue. And if it is true, then it should be pursued – or some form of it that is possible in the current context.
At the same time, why write “the idealistic pedestrian-friendly setting you all want” like that is some sort of alien concept. Words matter. Do YOU not also want an ‘idealistic’ pedestrian-friendly setting for your daughter to grow up in? This is not some us vs. them issue. It makes me think of China stopping climate talks with the U.S. because of Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, as if climate does not affect China. As if the pandemic which came out of China stopped at its borders.
If I proposed some ‘incremental’ things it is simply because I am trying to be realistic and recognize that there are some steps now that could be taken on the path to turning things around. And some of those same things are actually being prioritized by 'world-class' cities like Paris and Washington, DC. Another concrete example I admire there along those lines is the WPG Wildflowers project, bringing back native ecosystems to replace grass and concrete. And again, I understand that you or others might find those things airy-fairy and insignificant, but in my opinion they are not. If possible, expand it on a massive, city-wide scale, in my view. You wanted unique 'somethings' for the city: why not start by being a pioneering place in the restoration of a unique, endangered local habitat/landscape? That, and all the benefits that go along with it, is going to get way more attention on an international scale than a big new waterpark.
https://www.instagram.com/wpgwildflowerproject/?hl=en
Of course, there is nothing stopping anyone from adding in big or even super-sized (as you put it) projects as well, if they have something in mind. And if you think it’s not too late given your understandable despondency about the city’s history, development and current state. But I think we can agree that whether or not it's a good idea, WPG has missed the boat in terms of building a bigger shopping centre than West Edmonton Mall, not to mention the Mall of America. And in terms of an airport hub, Toronto, Chicago, and Atlanta are probably not too worried about being surpassed. Or maybe a leading transit or freight hub as they have been trying to do for years if I am not mistaken – but there must be about 10 other cities trying to do the same. If that succeeds and it is a good thing in every sense (including air quality/environmental impacts – those things do matter), good.
So a city trying to move forward has to start from where it is, not where it should be. And putting aside some of the great and ongoing developments there like the Forks, it is where it is due to the stupid mistakes, small-minded thinking and lack of vision that you and I both agree have been in great supply over the decades. And maybe even going back to where the city was originally situated, as noted before. The question is then, in which direction does the city go from here?
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