Western Expresso

[EdwardTH]

Originally Posted by esquire

Laugh if you must but things like that chip away at the area's reputation.

Sure it does but that's still a completely over-the-top reaction to a petty theft. I'm only salty because I just don't get the point of coming here to bitch and complain every day. If the crime bothers you then get off your ass and do something. If you're gonna organize SSP volunteer night where we all put in a shift with Bear Clan or MSP, great. But if you're just going to whine about it on the internet then you're not adding anything productive and you're distracting me from construction news, gtfo already. Like, we already read the news man.

[esquire]

^ Ha, fair enough.

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by EdwardTH

Ha some pearl-clutching old lady got her car broken into, good Lord the humanity no one is safe!!! Hide yo wife hide yo kids we got minor property crimes up in here!!!

Honestly, you guys writing off this individual's concerns about their safety downtown after their car got broke in to as them just being a whiny, sheltered suburbanite is not doing the "pro-downtown" advocates any favors. Both personal safety and respect for private property is a legitimate concern and to brush off the issue of broken car windows as just the cost of being downtown reinforces the "downtown is a shithole" sentiment that so many of you hate.

I sympathize with the woman. Like many north american cities, our downtown struggles with the perception of being unsafe and unwelcoming place at times, despite all the great amenities it has. Laughing at peoples negative experiences and disregarding them as illegitimate isn't going to do anything useful to move our inner city area forward.

Like many, I work downtown and commute via bus. In the past year, I have experienced:

• Someone (probably inebriated) forcibly hugging me while I waited for the bus despite me telling them not to touch me - I am a male so it was "fine", but I can't imagine how a female would have felt in a similar situation
• An individual on a bus aggressively yelling, swearing, and threatening to harm an innocent passenger simply because the innocent passenger was visibly an international immigrant from an east-Asian country
• An individual (again, likely inebriated) on the bus staring at me and aggressively asking me why I wasn't smiling

These incidents (in combination with a few other transit-related factors) are pushing me towards purchasing my own vehicle, despite the significantly higher cost and violating my own pro-transit attitude. Luckily I have the financial means to do this if needed, but many others aren't so fortunate in which case they can choose to seek alternative employment elsewhere or continue experiencing negative events and become even more pessimistic about our city.

You can diminish my negative experiences all you want (or anyone else's for that matter), but failure to recognize the problem isn't going to make it go away. And while ya'll are too busy ignoring negative factors that are a reality downtown (from car break ins to thefts to public drunkenness to harassment) and failing to brainstorm ideas to address inner-city issues and poverty, the rest of the public will react negatively or positively to whatever circumstances are occurring downtown.

Now I understand that every city everywhere is going to have some odd fellows that occupy the inner parts of a city - this isn't exclusive to Winnipeg. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing more to address the root causes of poverty, addictions, and mental health issues that lead to smashed car windows, verbal assaults, and other "petty" crimes downtown.

And let's be honest with ourselves: we all want Winnipeg to have a great downtown. But the fact is that Winnipeg has a lot of other great areas for restaurants, entertainment, parks, and other amenities as well. So if you think it's smart to disregard people's concerns about safety and property downtown, those people will simply spend their time and money in one of the many other great parts of our city - downtown doesn't have a monopoly on the best amenities our city has to offer, so tread carefully.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by headhorse

someone should tell her that her car won’t get broken into if she takes the bus

Fucking brilliant, it's her fault for having the audacity to drive her own vehicle to downtown.

Honestly there is no point even arguing with such left wing dribble!

[headhorse]

If I didn’t want my car to be broken into I simply would not have a car (I don’t)

[esquire]

Does the same logic extend to homes?

[headhorse]

my house is in the ground, how the heck would I move it downtown esquire!!!

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by headhorse

If I didn’t want my car to be broken into I simply would not have a car (I don’t)

What kind of logic is this? "I don't want my body to be killed so I simply gave it up by killing myself."

What a joke.

[headhorse]

honestly it depends who owns the car and house

[EdwardTH]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

Honestly, you guys writing off this individual's concerns about their safety downtown after their car got broke in to as them just being a whiny, sheltered suburbanite is not doing the "pro-downtown" advocates any favors. Both personal safety and respect for private property is a legitimate concern and to brush off the issue of broken car windows as just the cost of being downtown reinforces the "downtown is a shithole" sentiment that so many of you hate.

I sympathize with the woman. Like many north american cities, our downtown struggles with the perception of being unsafe and unwelcoming place at times, despite all the great amenities it has. Laughing at peoples negative experiences and disregarding them as illegitimate isn't going to do anything useful to move our inner city area forward.

Like many, I work downtown and commute via bus. In the past year, I have experienced:

• Someone (probably inebriated) forcibly hugging me while I waited for the bus despite me telling them not to touch me - I am a male so it was "fine", but I can't imagine how a female would have felt in a similar situation
• An individual on a bus aggressively yelling, swearing, and threatening to harm an innocent passenger simply because the innocent passenger was visibly an international immigrant from an east-Asian country
• An individual (again, likely inebriated) on the bus staring at me and aggressively asking me why I wasn't smiling

These incidents (in combination with a few other transit-related factors) are pushing me towards purchasing my own vehicle, despite the significantly higher cost and violating my own pro-transit attitude. Luckily I have the financial means to do this if needed, but many others aren't so fortunate in which case they can choose to seek alternative employment elsewhere or continue experiencing negative events and become even more pessimistic about our city.

You can diminish my negative experiences all you want (or anyone else's for that matter), but failure to recognize the problem isn't going to make it go away. And while ya'll are too busy ignoring negative factors that are a reality downtown (from car break ins to thefts to public drunkenness to harassment) and failing to brainstorm ideas to address inner-city issues and poverty, the rest of the public will react negatively or positively to whatever circumstances are occurring downtown.

Now I understand that every city everywhere is going to have some odd fellows that occupy the inner parts of a city - this isn't exclusive to Winnipeg. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing more to address the root causes of poverty, addictions, and mental health issues that lead to smashed car windows, verbal assaults, and other "petty" crimes downtown.

And let's be honest with ourselves: we all want Winnipeg to have a great downtown. But the fact is that Winnipeg has a lot of other great areas for restaurants, entertainment, parks, and other amenities as well. So if you think it's smart to disregard people's concerns about safety and property downtown, those people will simply spend their time and money in one of the many other great parts of our city - downtown doesn't have a monopoly on the best amenities our city has to offer, so tread carefully.

I shouldn't have gone after that lady so hard because my real issue is everybody posting negative crap without offering any solutions. What's your suggestion? More foot patrols? Better lighting?

Being well-read urbanists I think most of us know those are partial solutions at best. The way you improve safety is by getting more people there, so we have a bit of chicken-and-egg. For better safety you need more people, but the people are leaving due to safety issues. People like this lady say "well somebody better fix this or I'm not coming back." Places don't just fix themselves and there's no practical way to just police our way out of this. People need to care about their city and downtown enough to go there on principle and help things improve. Anyone who truly cares about having a better downtown, the fact that this stuff is so bad is all the more reason you should commit to going downtown more, not less. Communities improve when their members take ownership of them. Frankly Winnipeggers seem pretty individualistic and not very community-minded, in lots of places people see issues develop and ask what they can do to help. Winnipeggers seem to respond with "Not my problem, I'm out of here and not coming back."

[vid]

I just leave nothing in my car and it seems to work. Anything you leave on the car, ask yourself, "Would I feel OK leaving this sitting on the front lawn?" If the answer is "no", don't leave it in the car.

[NotToScale]

Originally Posted by EdwardTH

You can't just go be racist AF and then cry about people playing the "race card". That's what they're going to do if you're being racist lol. There are reasons for high crime rates among Indigenous people. It's not like it's a Winnipeg-only situation where you have a very poor visible minority that struggles with these issues - it's the same root causes that are behind high crime rates among blacks in the southern US, or Hispanics in California, or Turks in Germany, etc.... do you think maybe socio-economic status has something to do with it, or do you think it just so happens that all those groups are inherently inferior and violent? Because news flash, if you think the latter, you're racist.

Crime is almost always related to poverty and social marginalization so you've really just proven headhorse's point. There are many indigenous gangs because by and large indigenous people in this country have a 3rd-world standard of living, which is why they're protesting.

What part of his statement was racist? He said nothing about any groups being inferior. Don't get too woke now, that's a hole that is hard to crawl out of.

Poverty is an issue no doubt, and more should be done to facilitate and allow people to bring themselves out of it. Change needs to happen on all sides and at all levels. Fed, Prov, Municipal, First Nations, etc.

[Pinus]

How many more threads are going to be hijacked into discussions about crime? So far I count three with a borderline fourth. Where is the moderators when you need them? FFS

[Pinus]

How many more threads are going to be hijacked into discussions about crime? So far I count three with a borderline fourth. Where is the moderators when you need them? FFS

[Pinus]

How many more threads are going to be hijacked into discussions about crime? So far I count three with a borderline fourth. Where is the moderators when you need them? FFS

[vid]

I don't know if it is still in effect, but there used to be a forum rule that you could only make the same post in up to two different threads, and you've made the same post in four.

[Pinus]

Nice deflection, but it doesn't change the fact that we have multiple threads being hijacked by the same one or two people, you being one of them. I'd rather post the same statement in each of those threads to bring this to the attention of the moderators as it's now out of control.

[headhorse]

I bet you all wouldn’t be questioning breaking into cars if someone was breaking into whoever murdered Epstein’s car

[headhorse]

Yeah this is a thread to be mad about trees being torn down and I’m the only one posting anything.. can I get some tree appreciation? fav Manitoba teee? anyone see that oak in Souris?

[vid]

Originally Posted by headhorse

I bet you all wouldn’t be questioning breaking into cars if someone was breaking into whoever murdered Epstein’s car

It was Hillary Clinton.