Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban recluse
Poor planning. In defense of this, 100 years ago, the thought was the city would grow to become closer to Minneapolis. Of course, one of the most prominent nails in the proverbial coffin was the exodus of the U of M. Reducing suburban sprawl while redeveloping areas closer to downtown is critical. Another aspect to note is not seeing freeways in aerials, which would have replaced a significant portion of land close to downtown.
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Looking back on things, downtown could have been a totally different place if the original residential character of the area south of St. Mary Ave. was left intact, so that the area between the river and St. Mary Ave. would have effectively been a big residential neighbourhood like Osborne Village, or if you want an out of town example, Regina's "transition area".
I guess in the postwar boom era the old turn of the century houses were falling apart and everyone figured that skyscrapers would replace them, so everything was flattened. As it turned out, very little of that space was actually needed and 60 years later we're still trying to fill all of the voids in that area.
Had the area remained residential, it probably would have concentrated more development into the Portage Avenue and Main Street corridor. It probably would have also kept a critical mass of activity in what is still the most forlorn part of downtown, basically the northernmost stretch above the Exchange District. It would have also resulted in a much more substantial downtown residential neighbourhood.
Expanding the CBD area to its current footprint was a big mistake that we're still paying for.
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