[esquire]

Oh yeah, that reminds me of another thing that's missing in Winnipeg. Downtown shopping. We actually have the "functional" stuff that people need day to day, such as small but useful grocery stores, pharmacies, dollar stores, etc.

What we're missing is any kind of destination retail. All that's left is the downtown Bay which is a shadow of its old self (only 2 of 7 levels remain open), a handful of low-end shops in Portage Place, and then a handful of random boutiques and specialty stores mostly in the Exchange. If you want to buy a men's suit there are literally 2 places in all of downtown where you can go and buy one off the rack... The Bay or Hanford Drewitt. I guess there's also International Clothiers if you're 16 and you need one for your high school's formal dance.

Even much smaller cities like Regina are way ahead of us in terms of downtown retail selection. I get that downtown retail will never be remotely as big as it once was here up until about the 70s, but it would be nice to actually be able to buy a few things without having to boot it out to suburbia.