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Originally Posted by someone123
FWIW my impression is this comes down to planning nuts and bolts and overcoming bureaucratic/political inertia plus implementing the right construction market incentives (which could include payment for construction of public/subsidized housing or other thing; I just mean "actually getting real construction workers to build things"). There doesn't seem to be much in the news coverage so far that sheds light on those details. A while back I think I read that NS was looking at some incentives for trades. I wonder how much Canada's labour force is lacking in this area. It feels like there is a lot of emphasis on university education, both for citizens and immigrants.
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It is interesting to look back over the decades at some of these large sites and how they turned out. It seems that more often than not, the result given some perspective of time is "not good". You go from middling ones like Convoy Place in the north end, which is at best just OK but now is rather cramped inside and out, and is quite dated, to Bedbug Towers on the Barrington Bubble which is awful; to Quinpool Centre which has a bad tower, townhouse units that are somewhat better, but a total disaster of a shopping mall that has been continually rebuilt to varying degrees of success. All of these involved significant Planning Dept work at the time which seemed to do little good in the end.
The St. Pat's site was held up by Jennifer Watts and her cronies on Council to develop a planning vision for the site which took years and acted mostly as a significant roadblock. The Bloomfield site is a textbook example of a govt debacle which should never been allowed to happen. One could argue that in neither case were the benefits, if any, of the delays outweighed by the result in the end (especially since the results still have not been realized years later). Then you have St. Pat's/Alexandra which was another example of Council caving to squeaky-wheel loudmouths over doing what was best for the area and the city. I think all of those projects were seen by the Houston govt as examples which led to their decision to involve themselves in HRM planning. And who knows how the Cogswell project will actually turn out despite the long and winding road it has taken through the planning process. Past experience would place the odds on it being not good in the end as very likely.
The issue of building trades capacity is one that is not new. For some time now there has been a distinct push in the education system to push public school graduates towards university, in many cases leaving them with degrees that do not prepare them for jobs down the road and saddled with significant long-term debt. Trades were seen as lesser outcomes somehow and looked down upon. We would be far better off with more plumbers, electricians and carpenters and fewer library science and women's studies grads.
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