Quote:
Originally Posted by balletomane
I just wish the city would try to sustain the stronger we've experienced the last few years. It seems like they're anticipating a two year growth spurt of 16,000 annual growth and then back to the norm of 13,000. Why not realize, "we are growing faster than expected, let's try to sustain this growth" instead of "this growth is just a temporary."
Yes, we should be happy that the city is growing twice as fast as a decade ago, but why can't the city still try to accelerate it? It seems that there is a bit of a lack of vision, plus stronger growth could really force the city to modernize it's infrastructure in places its lacking. Like making the Perimeter a real freeway.
|
I guess I'm confused about how the city could really accelerate growth. The best government can do in my opinion is to set good conditions for growth and hope for the best. It's like farming in that sense - the crops will grow at the rate they grow - all the farmer can do is make sure they have the best conditions possible within his control.
Having lived in declining cities that have tried the 'vision' thing with debatable results, I'm kind of skeptical about government 'vision' on growth. The role of the city IMO is to provide appropriate infrastructure at a reasonable costs to keep the city fertile for growth. We don't need 'pie in the sky' wild eyed idealists with utopian visions - I'll settle for pragmatists.
As for why the city might be hedging its bets - the predictions of population from the early 1970s era were off by a fair margin - the 1980s and 1990s hit Winnipeg like a sack of bricks. It is better to have a conservative projection of population growth and be pleasantly surprised by having expectations exceeded as opposed to optimistic growth projections and miss them.