Building Winnipeg to meet the lowest common denominator

Winnipeg has been slow to evolve. Slow and steady is the mantra of citizens and politicians alike. It seems that should someone come up with an innovative, never before done in Winnipeg idea, many Winnipeggers nix it even before the ink is dry on the proposal.

I wonder what it is with us Winnipeggers that drives us to shun progress with such vigour rarely displayed elsewhere.

Several good examples of late include the Human Rights Museum, the South Point Douglas/Stadium proposal, the Polo Park Stadium proposal, the Canad Inns Water Park proposal, the Assiniboine Avenue condo project...

The whining about not having these things is incredible. And yet the volume against those innovative proposals is deafening. For so many reasons. Especially the use of taxpayer money. What astounds me is the number of people who nix these proposals because they are not fully accessible by everybody.

While I believe it would be wonderful for everyone to enjoy equal access to everything, that is not the way the world works. What we get when we build to accommodate the lowest possible denominator is what we have now with many public amenities. Swimming pools and community centres are a couple prime examples. Vanilla.

Many people want other flavours. The trouble is with public amenities we cannot (or will not) afford chocolate or strawberry flavours. And the vanilla flavours are often under-used.

The proposal to redevelop Winnipeg's South Point Douglas area is a prime example. This is a part of Winnipeg that has been allowed to deteriorate to the extreme. Here is a tract of land on the banks of the Red River that is almost completely undeveloped, with little more than one or two dozen ramshackle, run down houses and some modest commercial properties.

Along comes the Aspers with a pretty neat proposal to fully develop that area. Beautiful new water park, retail development on the banks of the River and a $150 million football stadium. Nope, we don't want that here. Save the houses. Some even say we need to save the unaffected neighboring houses: can't have that, the taxes will go up.

Unfriggenbelievable.

The negative-naysayers of this city better give their collective heads a shake. And soon. What these whiners seem to ignore is the fact we don't have a whole lot of people knocking down our doors with fistfuls of loot looking to develop this burgh.

And don't whine 20 years from now at the snail-like pace of development in Winnipeg. We've had a chance to get what others have and we cavalierly waved them away.

Oh, and don't bother rebutting this post here. I see too much of that elsewhere.