Downtown Winnipeg: Too Late To Save?

28 February 2006 - 8:00am

With its numerous abandoned buildings, stark divisions between wealth and poverty, and high (for Canada) crime rate, should Winnipeg re-evaluate its emphasis on downtown revitalization?

"Vague plans to beautify, upgrade and gentrify Winnipeg's downtown have been around almost as long as anyone can remember. Now, however, a vigorous new effort is under way to turn the city centre's fortunes around. City authorities and local companies and businessmen are pulling together to try to reverse the decay."

"[But] with endemic social problems in the city and the population spread out across hundreds of square kilometres, some believe that the whole project to beautify the downtown should be dropped, or at least scaled back.

They argue that resources are scant enough as it is and pouring prestige projects into the core does not reflect the needs of most residents."

Source: The Globe and Mail, February 24, 2006
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At a much larger economic scale, however, one mustn’t avoid calculating the tremendous and exceptional externalities of automobile dependency.