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Originally Posted by esquire
I don't think Winnipeg was too far off from other Canadian, or at least western Canadian, cities in that regard. It does seem that they generally went through early 20th century boom periods and then only sporadic bursts of development until the 1960s when it all really started to explode with the modern highrise boom. Even Toronto's skyline in 1960 wasn't that wildly different from 1920, whereas by 1975 it would have progressed dramatically.
But yes, considering Winnipeg's relative size and importance, it is a little surprising how little of significance was built between WWI and the 1960s boom period... once you get past a few buildings near Memorial Boulevard (HBC, Auditorium, Winnipeg Clinic, Mall Hotel, Great West Life), there wasn't all that much.
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That’s true, I suppose. And even when you look at photos of Manhattan’s Financial District and Midtown skylines from the early 1960s, it still hadn’t changed significantly since 1930 or so. I think the difference for Winnipeg would be that there wasn’t much to show for the 1920s, so downtown would have seemed even older. Though that could also be said for other large Canadian cities.
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Based on what I have been told by my in-laws and family friends who grew up in the Centennial and Wolseley areas respectively, beginning in the late 50's and progressing through the 60's was rapid middle class flight from the inner city areas of Winnipeg.
People of my parents generation (really early baby boomers) who grew up in Winnipeg seem to have kept a certain bitterness towards these areas of Winnipeg that they watched deteriorate first hand.
Wolseley is definitely on the upswing, but you would never know it if you talked to my wife's parents!
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My grandparents’ generation (born in the early 1930s) experienced the late stages of downtown’s (ie, Portage Avenue’s) golden age, gradually embraced suburbanization between the 1950s and 1970s, but began expressing a sense of loss and nostalgia about downtown by the 1980s. (This nostalgia would be a big driver of support for Portage Place – a development that promised to resurrect the grandness, flash, and excitement of the 1940s and ‘50s, but with protection from the weather!) By the time my dad’s generation (born in the late 1950s) came of age, Portage Avenue was just one of a few regional shopping areas, and much of it was increasingly going down-market. He does remember taking the bus to Eaton’s with his grandmother (who didn’t drive and was deeply set in her ways), but by this time downtown wasn’t a big deal. He and his generation definitely don’t have that same nostalgia their parents did, and often wear their avoidance of downtown as a badge of honour.
Then of course came my generation (born in early 1980s) and downtown was initially exciting and interesting
because it was seedy and forgotten: because it wasn’t the suburbs. Plus Portage Avenue had all the best record stores.
And I think you're right that there's a strong sense of bitterness among people who once lived downtown and in the inner city, especially among people who were poor. While the economic decline of Portage Avenue between, say, 1960 and 1980 could be nostalgically mourned, the huge social and physical breakdown of many inner city neighbourhoods in that same period could understandably be resented by families who remember a different time.