Quote:
Originally Posted by Ricopedra
But you have to admit, it's relevant to the topic of downtown livability, the Lighthouse location, and perceived outflow of condo owners due to violent drug addicts around the University Bridge, no?
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It's relevant to an extent, but indulging in half-baked arguments that vacillate between suing big pharma into inexistence (sic) and nationalizing the same industry winds up with things getting pretty off-track (and detached from reality, frankly).
Back to the street crime issue, I don't think that it's helpful to act like violent crime hasn't been rising or that it isn't linked to broader socioeconomic issues. We have to be honest and acknowledge that there is a problem, that it seems to be getting worse, and also face the fact that there isn't a "smoking gun" we can point to. In my view there are a few things that would help.
1. More eyes on the street, which developments like Knox Tower and Baydo Towers would bring.
2. More funds directed toward (sufficiently trained) community policing and harm-reduction agencies.
3. Decentralizing the Lighthouse into separate emergency shelter, low-income housing, soup kitchen etc and spread these throughout the downtown and other core areas.
4. Continued public investment into amenities that draw people downtown such as the new library and new arena.
5. Certain things to make winter more palatable, such as warming shelters
6. Improve public transit to facilitate and promote people circulating through downtown and spending time there
There are other things such as downtown festivals and public events that Saskatoon already does quite well I'd say. We also do a good job of having cultural draws (Remai, Ukrainian Museum, Wonderhub, Kinsmen Park, Persephone, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan).
We want to promote a good investment climate downtown both for retailers/food service/nightlife, for tourism more generally, for condo residents, and for corporate citizens. These things feed into each other but the result will hopefully be an increased tax base for the city AND reduced crime downtown.
Maybe this went a little sideways but I think there is a strong connection between crime levels and public activity downtown. The more people are downtown conducting business and living their lives, the harder it will be for people to get away with personal crime. Not only this but increased economic opportunity in the core should mean that fewer people need to resort to crime in the first place (but perhaps that's overly idealistic). It should go without saying that access to housing/harm reduction strategies needs to accompany this.
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