And, by extension, some musings about Canadian cities, and Canada in general.
As I said in the Canadian-German cities thread, I'm presently in Winnipeg on vacation and have some thoughts. Did a ton of driving through the city today. Only briefly drove through downtown a couple times, will park my car and walk around downtown tomorrow.
Here goes ...
1. Generally, the south side is nice, and the north side not so much. In fact, the southern ~1/3 or so is, to me, what comes to mind when one says "Canadian city:" a neat and tidy, suburby-area, but denser suburbs with lots of apartments. Maybe that's because my main frame of reference is Vancouver, in particular outside of downtown. I could easily see myself living just about anywhere in the south end. The north side ... well, let's just say that much of it looks like the worst parts of American cities - certainly the parts just north of downtown. I drove up Main St just north of downtown and it was filled with druggies, mentally ill people and homeless. At a certain point the north side got better after you got past Kildonan Park, but it was mostly development still under construction up there.
2. The first place I went to this morning was the "Fort Whyte Alive" park. That alone makes it worth visiting Winnipeg. My hotel is right next to it. It's a big prairie park with multiple visitor centers and a herd of buffalo (which I could only see from a distance). In fact, this made me think Winnipeg is underestimated as a nature tourist destination. There aren't any mountains but there are lakes and rivers, prairies and forests. There were tons of kids there, many of them in school or church groups, and it's clearly a great place for kids to learn about, and experience, nature. They should try to carve out another 3-5 parks just like it surrounding Winnipeg.
3. The Canadian habit of cladding so many houses in stucco is utterly terrible. I think maybe half the houses in the city are clad in this rough stucco which ages atrociously. It seems to have become more common in the last 40 years or so, judging by the age of the houses, but even a lot of older houses are clad in the stuff. I think I noticed this sometimes when I went to Vancouver. Don't know if this is the case in other Canadian cities, but it's a plague in Winnipeg.
4. A lot of people don't seem to care one iota about their lawns. This seems particularly true in the newer subdivisions. The lots tend to be very small in the new subdivisions, and as far as I can tell the overwhelming majority of people living in these new subdivisions are immigrants. Did some of these immigrants not get the memo that you're supposed to mow your lawn?
Or something? But even elsewhere, there are a ton of yards which are little more than mowed weeds. I was wondering if the cold climate hinders some of the nicer kinds of grass from growing and you have little choice but to grow junkier looking varieties of grass, or something.
5. The combination of #3 and #4 made a lot of neighborhoods look worse than they actually are.
6. This has nothing to do with Winnipeg itself, but
the quality of the sunlight on sunny days when you get this far north is considerably different than when you live farther south. I found this extremely noticeable within about 15 minutes after driving out of the airport yesterday, and I really think it has a bigger effect on people than anyone realizes. In fact I wonder if it should be a big research topic among health and psychology scientists. I will extrapolate on that later.
More later, going to get something to eat right now ...
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