Regressive Renewal

The ugly truth about the provincial government’s inner city housing initiative

Daniel Hildebrand

Amidst some media fanfare, the provincial government this past week congratulated itself for investing $7 million into inner-city housing initiatives. The money had come from several recent land sales to suburban developers. In announcing the funding, housing minister Gord Mackintosh stated, “This punctuates our commitment that suburban development [not be] done at the expense of the downtown.”

The duplicitousness of this move is stunning. It would be less absurd for the government to announce an endangered species protection initiative, only to see it funded by the sale of hunting licenses for the few remaining animals needing protection. In other words, the provincial NDP is claiming that downtown renewal can be accomplished by feeding the very thing that destroys downtown.

There are literally thousands of empty lots and other sites ideal for construction inside of Winnipeg’s grid-patterned old neighbourhoods. What prevents the development of many of these sites are periodic injections into the city’s supply of land. The province, conspiring with the city and a cabal of developers, intermittently makes new land available for suburban development. In the short term, a new development of land on the outskirts of the city nets the government a bunch of cash; but in the long term it spreads our already insufficient tax-base thinner and impoverishes the city. Now the province is offering a few scraps from the table back to some downtown housing programs. Yet what the government neglects to mention is that these initiatives would be unnecessary had they rejected suburban sprawl in the first place.

Winnipeg’s population growth is nearly stagnant. This means our tax-base is also stagnant. Add to this the fact that our city is spending about $188 million less than required every year on its infrastructure, and what we have is a serious problem. The infrastructure deficit is not money required for improvements, but money required just to maintain what we already have from crumbling. Remember that bridge in Minnesota last summer? Given all this, it is beyond irresponsible for the province (with significant support from some short-sighted city councillors and a completely blind mayor) to commit to providing roads, sewers, and bridges in new low-density suburbs. That this is being sold to us as a prerequisite for downtown renewal is only an added insult. What downtown really needs (as do all Winnipeg’s central neighbourhoods, for that matter) is adequate and efficient infrastructure.

One crucial infrastructural need repeatedly neglected in Winnipeg’s older central neighbourhoods is that of public transit. It is no coincidence that the decay of Winnipeg’s downtown has been most devastating since the last streetcars were removed in 1955. Since then, the street-car’s proposed replacement of a subway system has been downgraded to light rail, then to bus rapid transit, and finally to the rumoured conclusion that “roads are our rapid transit.” Planners and politicians have forgotten that Winnipeg’s central neighbourhoods were not designed with automobiles in mind. They can certainly accommodate a good number of cars, but a viable mass-transit option must be available for these neighbourhoods to actualize their full potential.

Consider Osborne Village: although the neighbourhood has some drawbacks (one most obvious is that a major thoroughfare cuts right though its heart), it is generally considered to be a fairly healthy central neighbourhood. One important reason for this is that it does receive relatively good service from Winnipeg Transit. On a weekday, U of M students and faculty have the option of up to 120 buses going each way between their neighbourhoods and their school. Those residents who need to get downtown have even more public transit options. Despite recent increases in property values, Osborne Village continues to accommodate a substantial number of low-income people. One major reason for this is that its proximity to decent public transit service makes owning a car unnecessary.

As an alternate central neighbourhood, consider Sargent, where transit service is mediocre at best. Only one medium-frequency route, the 15, serves the area. By bus, a destination like U of M is at least an hour away. In its physical characteristics Sargent is in many ways similar to Osborne Village. It has an eclectic mix of shops, a cosmopolitan array of restaurants, a pool hall, a Safeway, and an independent video rental outlet. It is even superior to Osborne Village in one obvious aspect: the car traffic volumes on Sargent are quite light. Yet Sargent is generally considered a less attractive neighbourhood than Osborne Village, and this is evidenced by the area’s high number of vacant lots and boarded-up houses. The reason for this is infrastructure. Osborne Village has adequate public transit infrastructure whereas Sargent does not.

If the provincial government truly wanted to help central neighbourhoods, it would stop its parasitic campaign of suburban sprawl. Instead it would work together with the city and the federal government to develop the rapid transit plan that Winnipeg should have built in 1959. At the end of the day it will cost far less than another mega suburb.

Daniel Hildebrand is a fourth-year student majoring in history and philosophy.