It’s been a while. But I have a good excuse…I have been at the centre of the Universe –Toronto. This time in downtown TO, not in some near-the-airport-hotel hell. Couple of things struck me on this visit – first it is the shocking amount of cigarette butts everywhere…it’s worse than anywhere in France. It was pretty brutal to navigate through piles of butts around every door and enjoy that wonderful wet tobacco odour…sort of like a slinky little Pinot. On a more positive note, the city seemed to be in a construction boom. Everywhere, tall apartment and condo complexes were in various stages of construction; there were so many construction cranes it looked like Dubai. Only colder.

This made me a tad jealous. How can Toronto, seemingly spiraling into a wicked recession, be in development hyperdrive and Winnipeg, supposedly the only place on the continent actually growing, have squat for development?

Oh that’s right, Toronto likes development and actively encourages people to build things where Winnipeg seems to do everything under the sun, to impede, prevaricate and obstruct any building or initiative.

When was the last time an apartment building was constructed in Winnipeg? More than 20 years. Apparently, developers are protesting government mandated rent controls. Whatever. Winnipeggers who want to rent an apartment anywhere near downtown are forced, whatever their income, to rent some 70 year-old brick shithole. The result, most opt for somewhere in the ‘burbs and then drive into and than out of the downtown every day. More pollution, more infrastructure costs, more sprawl.

Take the Lower Fort Garry fiasco, wherein a developer did want to put up a block and then a gang of city bigwigs under the guise of a grassroots movement ended up scuttling the deal. Here was one example of a developer that made the leap and was slapped down as quick as you can say ‘Save the “insert name of crumbling pile of crap” here.’ At least all the bigwigs don’t have to look at an apartment block as they down their MacCallums at the Manitoba Club. Did I say that with my outside voice?

I am still waiting for my interpretive centre. How is that coming along? About as well as my boutique hotels on Albert.

How about Waterfront Drive? Not exactly exploding with development. Provencher? A new condo and a couple of cool bars do not a French Quarter make. Well worth building a multimillion dollar foot bridge for. Apartments in the Exchange – non-existent, but a hydro generating station seems like a swell idea.

But hey, want a boring tract of cookie cutter houses in a development with “another winner from Greentree homes” with endless, treeless streets with beige, plywood and stucco boxes, then the city can’t get those permits out quick enough. And if people bitch about the lack of infrastructure and inadequate traffic planning then bung a freakin’ great IKEA nearby and we are all happy. IKEA as a Huxley-like feely. 

Winnipeg can’t even get a government building on Main Street right. The WRHA building (above) was supposed to be user friendly, accessible and have street level businesses and ended up looking like a Bauhaus block with a huge parkade on the side. And all the people involved driving by it everyday just didn’t notice it until it was almost finished. See that’s what you get when Winnipeg does development.

I can honestly say that for all the snide, smug digs at Toronto that self satisfied Winnipegers like to launch, at least that place actually acts like a city and isn’t afraid of development. It is a city where people want to live downtown and where there are developers who are willing to cater to that need and politicians willing to make it happen.

But at least we have a brilliant reconstructed fort in our downtown…oh right, WE DON’T.