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Originally Posted by Hali87
While I don't disagree that downtown could be better, I wouldn't really call it "hollowed out" or "not-vibrant". Compared to most downtowns in Canada, it's a clear winner. Among cities Halifax's size, only Victoria and London, IMO, are really comparable, and both of their downtowns are more modest than Halifax's. Victoria's feels slightly less hollowed out because it is less built up to begin with. Even larger cities like Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Hamilton (the latter based on anecdotal evidence) feel like the have less going on downtown, and while dt Ottawa may be more vibrant during the day, dt Halifax is definitely more lively at night.
Seriously, im not Trying to argue that we can't improve anything here, but I'd challence you to fin. A city or two in north America, roughly halifax's size, with a better overall downtown.
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Yeah, I'm overstating my case, to be sure. Things are going significantly better downtown.
But I do think we've had significant "donut" growth in HRM for 20yrs, which has led to struggling businesses downtown and empty shop fronts all over the place, including Barrington and SGR. And, truly, we will continue to have that growth for the foreseeable future as the RP still targets 25/50/25 urban/suburban/rural growth, and that means we'll likely end up with 20/65/25, because there's nothing we've done to with the necessary policy levers to change the old growth incentives like tax reform, tax cuts for downtown, cutting developments fees, zoning restrictions on more suburban/exurban sprawl. I don't think I'm overstating this.
But two places I've been to lately, comparable but actually smaller than Halifax, are kicking our ass on downtown energy.
St. John's, NL -- I hadn't been there in years, but was shocked with the change. It's downtown really had an energy and vibrancy, and I'm not the only one that has noticed:
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There's definitely been the sense that St. John's is on a roll since then [oil went online in 1997]. New subdivisions are being built, the downtown is a beehive of shops and new workers, and council has had a few hundred million dollars in development projects brought before it in the last few years. (Don't forget that a whopping estimate of $5 billion has been put on the value of what will be built on the lands that Danny Williams wants to develop south of Mount Pearl.)
The comparison struck home when I was in downtown Halifax last year, and saw large vacancy signs that, to be blunt, shocked me. Yes, it seemed that commercial hubs had been shifting around the city (Spring Garden Road seems to be booming) but Barrington Street had clearly lost some of its zip.
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Link:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfou...hing-1.1184460
Another town, not Canadian, but comparable and smaller-- New Haven, Connecticut. Approx 130,000 people and, like Halifax, essentially a university town. But it really has one big university-- Yale. Like Halifax, it also suffered serious decline in its downtown from the 1970's to 1990s, which, as always when you decrease urban density, led to a rise in crime rate.
However, while Halifax wasted an entire decade by electing useless clowns like Peter Kelly starting in the 2000s, New Haven, under the leadership of its "economic development manager" (Kelly Murphy), has been working hard to revitalize since 2000, and its downtown has really turned around.
Downtown you have this kind of retail: Urban Outfitters, J Crew, Origins, American Apparel, Gant Clothing, and an Apple Store. New Haven also has a Barnes & Nobles downtown.
Halifax, by contrast, has nothing like that. We don't even have a single major bookstore downtown, a travesty in a city filled with downtown universities!
I've often mused about what it would have been like, if the Mayor or Planner or Business Commission or Chamber people actually took the leadership and initiative and tried to convince Apple to open downtown on Spring Garden or, even better, on Barrington. Of course, that never happened, and instead we have it located in a commuter mall (at least well connected to transit lines).
By chance, there was actually a *real* campaign in NH to bring an Apple Store to downtown.... which was successful!
http://downtownnewhaven.blogspot.ca/...-downtown.html
I can't imagine a similar campaign here; you'd have the typical luddites and NIMBYs out whining about non-existent "local" computer shop choices.
Anyways, the answer to New Haven's problems was actually quite simple: serious investment downtown, along with policy changes, to encourage residential development downtown; both large scale and small scale.
Here's the NY Times piece "On Renewing New Haven"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/re...czo.html?fta=y
Unlike in Halifax, where offices are constantly being migrated to the suburbs (like the Fed Gov's decision to move CRA to a biz park), New Haven & State Government invested $180 million to move offices and colleges downtown and also added "tax credits" to encourage downtown development.
Halifax is on the right track, but we're nowhere near where we need to be, in terms of what policies must be put in place, to achieve proper growth and revitalization.
And, I fear, we have too many provincialist dimbulbs on Council and too many HRM bureaucrats resistant to change (ie resistance to changes on the Regional Plan was an eye-opener) for these necessary changes to take place.