Yes and More: Downtown (Winnipeg) Development

Yes and More: Downtown (Winnipeg) Development

Postby Oscar » Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:53 am

Yes and More: Downtown (Winnipeg) Development

To: WFP EDITOR
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 11:28 AM

The Editor
Winnipeg Free Press

Dear sir:

Today's front page headline is about 'repairing downtown'.

Reading the information from the three leading developers in the downtown, it seems the solution is to have better incentives for downtown development.

Of course, there may be some truth to that opinion, but it, and the report in the Free Press, seem to miss the fact that no amount of incentives will suffice until the real costs of urban sprawl are calculated, and the huge and unfair subsidies to those so-called developments are removed from the development equation.

Downtown development should be favoured because of the overall benefits to the city.

Urban sprawl should be exposed to Real Cost Analysis.

If such were already the case, this whole news item would make more sense to the public.

Not only are incentives to the downtown in need of improvement, but the drain on our resources that sprawl causes must be stopped.

Shane Nestruck
Winnipeg
shanedn@mts.net
Last edited by Oscar on Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Oscar
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Posts: 9345
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Vacuous Rhetoric!

Postby Oscar » Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:58 am

Vacuous Rhetoric!

To: 'Gerald Flood' ; WFP EDITOR
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:21 AM

The Editor
Winnipeg Free Press

Dear sir:

In today's editorial the WFP decries the apathy of voters in both the city council election and the school trustee election.

Is this hypocrisy or vacuous rhetoric?

The campaign started in early February.

During the campaign, did the WFP dedicate space in the Editorial section, or the Local News section to issues surrounding the campaigns?

Did it dedicate a quarter page daily (or even three times a week) where it solicited answers from the candidates to questions concerning Council or Trustee issues?

In short: Did the Winnipeg Free Press demonstrate any community responsibility to help make the process more alive to the public, or facilitate the democratic exchange of ideas during the campaign?

Of course, to have done so would have demonstrated that municipal governance and education are of significant importance to both the WFP and the public .

It would also have underlined the role of the press in democracy, and the significance of the word Free in your name.


Shane Nestruck
Winnipeg
shanedn@mts.net
Oscar
Site Admin
 
Posts: 9345
Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm


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