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From the Winnipeg Free Press – March 19 1984

Christopher Dafoe
Columnist

A million dollars for Main Street. At first glance it sounds as if Main Street might be the happy winner of a big Lotto. A million dollars! Pennies from heaven!

When you think about it, however, it soon becomes clear that Main Street has been fobbed off with a crumb from the table. A million dollars is not going to go very far. A few licks of paint, a plastering over of cracks, a general scraping off of moss, a few new panes of glass, a dozen or so trees along the pavement will see most of that niggardly sum eaten up. A million dollars spent on public improvement is like a shovel full of gravel in a pothole.

The notion that a million dollars will save the ratty end of Main Street is typical of the attitude of the current dismal crop of city fathers and mothers. It is an attitude, antideluvian and grotesque; that had led to the continued expansion of suburbia while the inner city rots and festers.

There is a lot of talk about saving the centre of town. At the same time, millions are spent laying new sewer lines out on the prairie. If current trends continue, the outer suburbs of Winnipeg could be within hailing distance of Regina and the U.S. border by the end of the century. For the past 30 years, land that should be producing food has been wantonly buried under subdivisions and roads.

Winnipeg is about 30 years behind many other North American cities in its attitude towards urban sprawl. The real estate lobby continues to have a loud voice at city hall. It is still possible, for example, to hear civic officials talk about the importance of traffic flow as if the speedy flow back and forth from the suburbs was the major concerns of civic government.

The fact of the matter is that traffic flow is something that should be discouraged in the modern city. Steps should be taken to make it harder, not easier to drive into the centre of town. Parking, the the street and in lots, should be a big problem, encouraging commuters to make use of public transit or, more important, to consider the possibility of relocating closer to work.

The salvation of the inner city depends on the settlement there of large numbers of people representing every section of society. Planting trees and improving traffic flow will not do it. Turning the corner of Portage and Main into a freeway without human traffic is not the answer. It is a form of urban suicide.

Winnipeg is blessed with large tracts of more or less sound housing close to the downtown area. After a period of lunacy when streets of houses were demolished to make room for high-rise apartment blocks in the River and Osborne area, a degree of sanity appears to have returned and most of the old neighborhoods are still more or less intact. They must be preserved and more must be done to attract people willing to restore the old houses, either as single-family units or, in the case of large houses, as co-operative housing. Much has been done in some areas already, but more inducements such as tax incentives, are needed.

Old housing must be upgraded, but there are also opportunities for large tracts of new housing in the central area. A freeze on suburban expansion, long overdue, would foster the creation of new development. Townhouse developments, with a good mix of expensive and low-cost units, should be encouraged in the downtown area. A district such as Point Douglas or the former industrial area near the forks could, by the end of the century, provide attractive living space for thousands of Winnipeggers.

At present, a visit to downtown Winnipeg after dark is a depresssing and discouraging experience. The old joke about rolling up the sidewalks after dark is painfully illustrated here. Many of those who now live in the area are simply afraid to go out after nightfall because of the chance of being mugged on those lonely, empty streets.

The inner city, quite simply, needs more people it, once again, into a community.

One of the reasons that Winnipeg has been slow to understand the folly of urban sprawl lies in the fact that the wide open space that surround the city have always appeared to be limitless. It was easy to push out into South River Heights, East St. Paul, Assiniboia and Transcona. It was easy, so we did it, allowing the inner city to decay.

A city like Vancouver, hemmed in by mountains, saw much sooner that the future well-being of the city required the revival of inner city neighborhoods, but even there large tracts of arable land were paved over before reason prevailed.

In the years ahead, if the right steps are taken now, more and more Winnipeggers will have the pleasure of walking to work in the morning, or visiting a restaurant or theatre on foot in the evening. They could discover the pleasures available to those who live in busy, vital cities. It is not too late to make this city work.