[FALLSVIEW]

Although I didn't grow up here! I can tell you that living here now, this place is "not" in a total decline at all. As a matter of fact if you eliminated the falls the downtown and the tourist area, the dreaded suburban lifestyle is the exact same, and is growing at the same rate as many other smaller North American cities. I live in a subdivision near the Mall, and it in the last couple of years it has added a Future Shop, a Winners, Linens and Things, Petcetera "some" new stores inside, and is adding a huge addition the the mall which will soon add a Mandarin, Michaels, JYSK, Additon Elle and AppleJacks restaraunt plus other stores. In the mall parking lot will be a large Canadian Tire, across the street will soon be a Sobey's, Rona Building Center and talk of a Walmart Supercenter across from the QEW.

Two years ago in the same area they built the Macbain Community center with a YMCA, a Library, skateboard park and a nice outdoor park with a soon to be added splash park. NF is in the process of building a 2000 seat 4 pad arena complex closer to the downtown which we replace the other decaying arenas in the city and will help to spur the area with development. Decaying buildings will be torn down in that area soon and will be replaced with more greenery as well as a new road off of Thorold Stone Road to access the new arena.

Lundy's Lane although still a bit seedy has actually seen quite a few of it's stores either re-done or rebuilt over the last couple of years as well. A new Shoppers Drug Mart is the latest new store coming to replace the old one down the road.

The Downtown is a mess and unless you are going to the Great Wolf Lodge or out to N.O.T.L nobody that lives here ever bothers to go to that part of the city, everywhere I have ever traveled has slums and this is ours. However Arron Lightman came along with big plans of a 100 million dollars worth of retail redevelopment but the city could not commit 35 million in parks and road repairs without proof that Mr. Lightman would truly come through with the investors...it is a dead deal now! Now a group of artists are starting to filter into the area hoping to revive the DT with affordable galleries for young starving but eager artists, fingers are crossed.

More to do with the tourist side of the city is a 52 story Hilton under construction, soon to be started is a 30 story Marriott, a 30 story Hampton Inn, a 26 story Westin a huge expansion to the Fallsview Plaza, the Brock Plaza becoming a Crowne Plaza, a new Convention Center and a 300 million dollar expansion to the Greg Norman designed Grand Niagara Golf Resort including a Hilton Hotel, and far to many other things to list.

I know some people hate this city and think it is just a big seedy cash grab, but it's actually quite a normal city to live in if you take away the tourist district and the area surrounding the Downtown. With all that said good pictures of a slummy area!!