[Ottawa]

Here we go again....

If a racino needs to get built, I would rather see it at the EPR grounds than downtown. Putting a casino/racino downtown won't encourage any long term tenants to want to live close by. It would be a type of activity, but it is not the kind of activity you want to see in a quality neighbourhood and it wouldn't attract the higher income crowd that some developers are trying to encourage.

In the US, of the 20 largest cities in 1950, all but four have shrunk, some by a lot. Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Buffalo, have all lost more than half their population in the past half-century and Philadelphia has lost nearly a third of its residents. These were all industrial powerhouses in their day and now need to redefine or lose their place.

This shows the challenges facing cities; and size is not a guarantee of success. It is self defeating to hold Moncton out as the ultimate example of how everything should be done. Saint John has more potential than any other city in the maritimes right now and it will have to be unique in how it handles this potential. No successful city dictates to private developers specifically what gets built, where, and when. There has to be some give and take and ultimately, it has to be economically viable. Money is attracted to opportunity. If the oportunity is not downtown right now - so be it. Ultimately, a successful downtown is where people will want to be if it is safe, attractive, and whatever else successful people want when they have some level of economic comfort. There naturally will be a commercial element to any downtown which is dictated by the numbers and type of people who live there. But it doesn't have to be an entertainment mecca. I can only go by pictures recently as I haven't been in SJ in a couple of years, but I see a fair amount of redevelopment of historic properties and new construction going on downtown. This is excellent from what I've seen.

There is right now a lot of retail being built here in the east end of Ottawa where I currently live because this is where the customer base, and the unknown opportunity is. Some of these new retailers are having a hard time making ends meet I'm sure. And some are ultimately not making it financially. Retail does not precede it's customers. It is the other way around. The houses are built, the people move in, and then the stores eventually come to fulfill a need.

I see that there is new residential and office space going up in Saint John uptown. The attraction and uniqueness of Saint John is the history and the waterfront. Don't micromanage development. Make the history and the waterfront the focus and all the other things will look after themselves eventually if people decide they want to be downtown. A casino or racino or anything else like that is only going to detract from a potentially great quality of life downtown.