[esquire]

^ Thanks roc, it's interesting to step back from the day to day and consider the longer term trends.

Now for the bad news... I concede that most of these aren't changes as such as bad habits that we have failed to change.

Negative Changes

* Failure to foster downtown residential growth. The last decade and change has been an absolute boom time for downtown living in most Canadian cities. Places like Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax and others have seen a huge surge in downtown residential development. For a while it looked like Winnipeg might get in on that as Waterfront Drive in the East Exchange was transformed into a nice residential area, but we never really got out of first gear. It is still regarded as too threatening an environment, and I have heard a surprising number of stories from women in particular who have been harrassed or outright assaulted and don't feel comfortable downtown as a result. It's a shame because the lack of downtown residential has hindered the improvement of downtown in other ways.

* Failure to improve blighted inner-city neighbourhoods. Apart from West Broadway which has seen an impressive resurgence over the last decade-plus, we haven't really seen our rougher inner city neighbourhoods turn the corner to any great extent. About a decade ago the West End looked like it was on the cusp of becoming a neighbourhood people gravitated to (as opposed to a place that people end up when they have no other choice), but it never really took off. The North End is still in rough shape with gangs and organized crime even more entrenched now than they were before. Having large high crime neighbourhoods on the edge of downtown has not helped downtown any. Some might criticize improvements as gentrification, but the reality is that improving neighbourhoods help those who are in the area by providing economic opportunities and social stability.

* Failure to establish meaningful rapid transit. As we know, rapid transit is not just a means of getting from point A to point B... it's also a city building tool. People make choices about where to live based on transportation, and rapid transit is an important amenity for those who choose not to drive. Our inability to get even one rapid transit line finished means that Winnipeg will continue to be a difficult place to live without a car.

* Failure to mitigate urban sprawl. Since the days of Glen Murray there has been a growing consciousness of the real costs of urban sprawl and the resulting infrastructure debt that has come as a result of spreading tax dollars too thinly over too large an area. But the city (and province, for that matter) have done little to contain continued sprawl within the city and in the exurbs. The last 15 years saw huge new retail developments on the edge of town, along with large new residential areas that are as auto-dependent as anything that went up in the 1970s. This ultimately hurts the city and costs an increasing amount of money to service with infrastrucutre.