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Posted Oct 6, 2007, 5:15 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Regina
Posts: 950
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A Tale Of Two Cities
From the Saskatoon StarPheonix and Regina Leader-Post...
It will be updated in the coming weeks. Every Saturday, I would imagine...
http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpo...ies/index.html
Quote:
Sister cities should support each other
Les MacPherson, Saskatchewan News Network
Published: Friday, October 05, 2007
I am among the rarest of people residing in Saskatoon; I have nothing against Regina.
I don't sneer at Regina. I don't roll my eyes when someone mentions the place. When I mention Regina myself, I do not feel the need to cleanse my palette with a snort of derision.
In fact, I like Regina. I have to. It's my hometown. A man who won't stick up for his hometown is like a can of luncheon meat without the ingredients listed on the label. You can't trust it. What's sad is that, in Saskatoon at least, luncheon meat commands more respect than Regina. This becomes apparent when people here learn that I'm from Regina.
"Oh, you poor thing," they always say. But if I raise the subject of luncheon meat, the same people will ask if I prefer it cold or fried.
Saskatoon's disdain for Regina is beyond a healthy rivalry. It's more like a neurosis. Especially so when the negative feelings are not mutual. People in Regina like Saskatoon. When people from Regina learn that I live in Saskatoon, they always say what a lovely city it is. They might not be so kind of they knew what people in Saskatoon say about Regina.
I've asked people here why they don't like Regina. Often, they're not quite sure. It's as if they feel they're supposed to not like Regina, as if it's a tradition they've inherited but never really examined.
Dig a little deeper, and they'll say that Regina is ugly. This, of course, is nonsense. Sure, Regina has ugly bits, but so does Saskatoon. So does every city. People, too, have their ugly bits. The underside of the tongue, for example. It's hideous. Even a famous beauty like Angelina Jolie, say, has a hideous underside to her tongue. But no one calls her ugly.
In fact, Regina very much resembles Saskatoon. The various components are almost interchangeable. Each city has distinctive features, of course, but not distinctive enough to call one ugly and the other not. There must be more to it.
Take ugly off the table, and people in Saskatoon will complain about Regina's one-way streets. This, I don't get either. I've never had a problem with one-way streets. They're just like regular streets, except you can only go one way. What's the problem?
This is where growing up in Regina has worked to my advantage. Having learned to drive there, I can negotiate one-way streets with ease in any city in the world. That's more practical than anything I learned in my one year at university in Saskatoon, incidentally.
Traffic in Regina is actually better than in Saskatoon. Regina's Ring Road, for example, has no stoplights. You can zoom around the city from one end to the other at 100 kph., without ever stopping. Saskatoon for some reason didn't think of this on stoplight-festooned Circle Drive. But you don't hear people in Regina calling Saskatoon stupid.
Oddly enough, Regina's Ring Road does not make a complete ring around the city, just as Saskatoon's Circle Drive does not make a complete circle. It seems we share a common self-delusion. This is something we can build on.
The other big knock on Regina is that it's a government town. Why this is a bad thing, no one ever explains. The thinking seems to be that; a) government is bad; b) Regina is the seat of government; c) therefore Regina is bad. This is like criticizing a chair because you don't like the guy who's sitting in it.
If government is such a nuisance, we should thank Regina for putting up with it. Had it been up to me, I'd have put the capital somewhere north of Wollaston Lake. The further away, the better.
Of course, envy enters into it. There are some in Saskatoon who think Regina gets a disproportionate share of government attention. They see Saskatoon as the neglected sister and Regina as daddy's favourite. What's encouraging about this otherwise corrosive sentiment is the recognition that these are, after all, sister cities. We should support and encourage and appreciate each other, as sisters always do.
Well don't they?
lmacpherson@sp.canwest.com
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Quote:
Saskatoon-Regina rivalry healthy as ever
Ron Petrie, Leader-Post
Published: Friday, October 05, 2007
For more than a century one town lived in the long shadow of perception, seen at best as the little neighbour of the provincial capital, at worst a Prairie outpost of scant consequence -- only now to burst upon the national scene as a thriving, dynamic city of unique culture, surging economy and unlimited tourism potential.
But enough about Moose Jaw.
Rather, I have been asked to explore Regina's current relationship with another neighbour: Saskatoon, the Bridge City, "Paris of the Prairies," as it's known by the local chamber of commerce, "Saskatoon, Canada," as it's called by Parisians, or at least by Frenchmen with degrees in geography.
What you are reading is the first double instalment in "Tale of Two Cities," a serial re-examination of a classic Saskatchewan matchup, of a Saskatoon that with no small amount of spunky can-do attitude, pride and celebration has emerged as the province's largest urban centre, but also about a Regina that, in keeping with its traditional role in the rivalry, frankly couldn't give a rat's toot. As a Reginan, I today represent the provincial capital, a government town, which is to say it's a bloody shock I even made deadline. Across the page you will read the opinions of my good friend and up-province counterpart Len MacPherson from the StarPhoenix, our sister newspaper that (and this is exactly the type of little-known and surprising fact that makes a fellow suspect we've long underestimated Saskatoon) publishes daily. Over the next few Saturdays, real journalists from the two newspapers invite you along for look at how Regina and Saskatoon stack up in a variety of comparative categories, including:
-- Entertainment, as exemplified by the Saskatoon's Credit Union Centre arena, recent venue to such big-star acts as Celine Dion, Billy Joel, Sting, and others too numerous to mention that aren't exactly The Rolling Stones.
-- Sports, perhaps best illustrated by Saskatoon's recently expanded and renovated Griffiths Stadium, host to the 2006 Vanier Cup, football's collegiate version of professional football's Grey Cup, but not really.
-- Science and technology, which in Saskatoon can mean only the University of Saskatchewan's boolagazillion-dollar research synchrotron, where subatomic particles so small as to exist only in theory spin 'round and 'round with effects of barely perceptible consequence. Whereas Regina has the provincial legislature, and the brains therein.
In an effort to better appreciate the new vibrant, thriving, dynamic Saskatoon of the 21st century, my family and I spent a month there one weekend in September. We drove up, stopping midway in Davidson, as so many do, for gas and snacks, before continuing along nondescript Highway 11 with a growing sense of anxiety that we had turned the wrong way, that we were now returning to, not leaving, Regina, a disorientation that grips all northbound travellers until eventually they spot Mount Blackstrap on the right, where it ought to be.
After checking into our hotel, I set out to stroll the sidewalks and to drive the streets in journalistic search of plausible-looking receipts to back up expense claims. I discovered the new Saskatoon to be something of an enigma, both very much the way I left it after my three years as a University of Saskatchewan freshman and yet a Prairie city of a different sort indeed. For example, unlike Regina, Brandon or Medicine Hat in 2007, in the big-box retail outskirts of Saskatoon, the Staples outlet is on the northwest kitty-corner to the Boston Pizza, not the northeast, if you can imagine anything so weird.
Yet downtown Saskatoon hadn't much changed. Despite its explosive growth, the old core of the city still still seems to struggle for the urban confidence to be what it is, still borrows from elsewhere, such as its "Paris of the Prairies" self-description, for identity. Across from the Midtown Plaza, for instance, is a huge bust of Mahatma Ghandi. Don't get me wrong. Ghandi was great man. It's simply that the curious placement of his memorial, in the middle of Saskatoon, brought a chuckle from this worldly resident of Regina, where the statue outside city hall is of that rugged Prairie frontiersman Confucius.
Which is not to suggest that Saskatoon is void of any or all self-awareness. Hardly. Thoughout the city are landmarks that suggest a community cognizant of exactly what it is, such as: the historic bridge across the Saskatchewan River upon which travels the traffic of many cars, called "The Traffic Bridge"; the downtown government building constructed of durable mineral-based building material, called the "The Sturdy Stone Centre"; and a park dedicated to a hometown hockey legend whose hometown is Floral, Sask., the "Gordie Howe Management Area." In this Paris of the Prairies, poets thrive.
Then there's the jewel of Saskatoon: the University of Saskatchewan, this year celebrating 100 years as the province's single largest producer of lawyers and also some good things. My sentimental journey back to school included both several minutes in my car, lost in the sprawl of new buildings that circle the campus, and a misty-eyed stroll through The Bowl, the lush, green, gathering spot of student retreat, academic discourse and fellowship, the venerable heart of the old university, on this day ringed with porta-potties. I had been told that, early in the school year, the Saskatoon housing crunch had forced students to set up temporary tent villages. Talk about nostalgia! In the 1970s, we, too, camped out in The Bowl, albeit for a cause much greater than sleep. "Social justice," I believe we called it. Point is, when I sought out my old campus haunt, the Upper MUB, for a quick expense-related refreshment beverage, I found the top floor of the Memorial Union Building taken over by a specialty coffee shop. Sadly, U of S students come from all parts of the province and cannot be blamed strictly on Saskatoon. Still. Kids today.
Not that the innocence of small-town ambiance ought to give way entirely to cosmopolitan sophistication. Back at the hotel, my wife told me of how another guest held the front door for her and the kids, and how, when she looked up, the good man just so happened to be former premier and Saskatoon boy Roy Romanow. Surely such a gracious act wouldn't be possible in, say, the other Paris, with a former president Francois Mitterand of sufficient humility to yield the hotel entrance to common folk and their even more common offspring. And I'm not just saying that because Mitterand is French. I mean it.
In conclusion, I would have to sum up the current state of the Saskatoon-Regina rivalry as the same healthy competition it has ever been, perhaps best illustrated by the typical comments of Saskatonian when introduced to a Reginan, and vice-versa.
Typical Saskatoon reaction: "Regina?! You're from Regina?! Eeee-yew!"
Typical reaction of a Reginan meeting a Saskatonian: (shrug).
With that, I take my leave, and ask you to join with Leader-Post and StarPhoenix reporters in coming weeks as they explore the big question: Can this little city that could, this new Saskatoon, continue to build upon its successful ways, attracting even more people and investment to its thriving, dynamic metropolis so as to one day realize the dream that is its final and complete escape from the perception of subservience to Regina, to stand boldly as not "Paris of the Prairies," but simply as "Saskatoon of Saskatchewan," dynamic and thriving powerhouse of Western Canada.
Furthermore, and speaking strictly as a Reginan, who cares?
(And you just know it drives them nuts up there, right?)
(Cool.)
rpetrie@leaderpost.canwest.com
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