[Spocket]

Originally Posted by WolselyMan

I am so sick of hearing that "downtown has enough green space already". If I'm going to honest, I don't really think there is such a thing as enough green space.

Move to the country. Seriously, it's not like there's any sort of lack of green space there. What exactly is it that you want? You want trees? Country. Streams? Country. Lakes and fields? Country.

Originally Posted by WolselyMan

Do you mean enough so that the parks are usually empty, meaning you can have the space all for yourself whenever you want? If so then the downtown's current amount of green space is enough to satisfy that criteria. That is while the area currently only has the population of a small town.

Well, that seems to be what you're aiming for. Name the park in downtown Winnipeg that's ever packed. At most Bonnycastle seems somewhat popular from time to time. Central Park is...well, if you're familiar with it then you already know. The Forks has some park components and they're nice. Until Winnipeg increases its downtown population by an order of magnitude, you're not going to get the need to create more parks in the area. Hell, look at the parks in every established neighborhood. They're never full and they're always quiet and peaceful. Occasionally you get the odd concert or some such thing but otherwise, nada.

Originally Posted by WolselyMan

But I'm not thinking about the downtown of today. I'm thinking about the downtown OF THE FUTURE. It's not like there's a shortage of developable land downtown, so reserving this area for green space isn't going to come at the expense of loosing the opportunity to increase DTwpg's population. The more greenspace per downtown resident you have, the more livable the area becomes. And that's just a scientific fact, let alone an obvious bit of common sense. Do you think an area can ever be "livable enough"? (The only reasonable purpose of life is to make life more livable for all life in the first place!)

Well I want a downtown, not a park where downtown should be. Furthermore, if there's going to be anything leisure-oriented situated at the Forks then it should most definitely be some sort of destination or attraction. You can get parks anywhere.

Originally Posted by WolselyMan

Building an entirely new neighborhood from scratch is an incredibly irresistible opportunity to pass off, but let's not kid ourselves why we like the idea. It's because it's easier than improving an area that already exists. People have been known to regret development projects when they look back at it decades later. But I can guarantee you that no one has ever regretted the creation of a new green space when they look back through the time span of decades. I'm thinking in the long-term, and I'll bet you the future of the province that a park will have a long-term impact that would pale to anything you could possibly build on that land. period. Generations of downtown residents will be forever thankful if we create a new park. Create a new building and they'll simply wonder why this building couldn't have been located in the booming urban neighborhood of point Douglas, or the former dirt farm that our chinatown of today once was.

Well, in 50 or 60 years when the downtown is overflowing with people, we can start looking for places to plunk down a park. In the meantime we want to focus on getting the downtown overflowing with people.

I'm not against a park, I'm against pretending that the Forks was ever supposed to be one. In fact, they've been saying from nearly the beginning that the Forks was always going to have a residential component but never anything about turning it into Japanese gardens. Frankly, we're far, far better off with that residential component than any park that's going to sit barren of people %95 of the time. Who's going to use the park, after all? People who are driving to the Forks from some suburban community. They can drive anywhere and get a better selection while they're at it. First come the people, then come the parks.