Quote:
Originally Posted by wave46
The question remains: would the increase in crime and depopulation have happened anyway without amalgamation? Or did having an extensive suburban tax base prevent worse decline from occurring?
Many US cities lost lots of their tax base to the neighboring suburbs, which arguably caused more damage as they had to cut city services and police, which tended to exacerbate the population decline. With the surrounding suburbs contributing to overall funding, perhaps the city of Winnipeg suffered less than it might have?
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I haven't really thought about this, but this is an interesting alternative. I guess the only way of knowing for sure is if the city had never amalgamated in the first place. US cities are different to some degree, as race played a major role in their decline (i.e. "white flight").