Visions or Myopia?

Visions or Myopia?

Postby Oscar » Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:39 pm

Visions or Myopia?

The Editor
Winnipeg Free Press

March 9, 2009

Dear sir:

RE: Tale of two visions for the city 09.03.09

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/ ... 61477.html

As encouraging as it is to have Mr. Kives and Ms. Welch report on this subject it is equally disappointing that so many generally believed misconceptions and construction industry dogmas go unchallenged and unquestioned.

In the very first paragraph the underlying fallacy as spun by developers, zips by without notice: The phrase- ‘parcel of easily developed land’… with the emphasis on easily… is one of the biggest fallacies supporting urban sprawl and the continuing decline of our city. Sure it may be easier to go into open land and build a patch of housing based upon 70 year-old concepts of progress, but the real costs to the existing taxpayers for the new infrastructure , which are never recovered, and the subsequent difficulties that are rarely seen as costs of that development, are left out of that calculation of ‘easily’.

With the continuing boondoggle in the south-west corner of our city and the huge uncalculated costs of the highways and underpasses; and mindless demands for even more roads and underpasses that solve nothing, it amazes me how an article such as the one in today’s paper (and I have dealt only with the short first paragraph) is published without any balancing perspective.

Furthermore, the article seems to pit ‘the city’s desire’ against the provincial government’s powers, and we all know that the city, or rather EPC behind closed doors, capitulated to the demands of the Doer government and eviscerated Plan Winnipeg to jump-start Waverley West. So all this ink about public review of the New Plan Winnipeg... after the developers and Doer government have manipulated the whole process to their liking, seems to be nothing but wishful thinking that ignores the recent history of so-called development in this city.

Shane Nestruck
Winnipeg, MB.
shanedn@mts.net
Oscar
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