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  #21  
Old Posted Apr 3, 2017, 10:46 PM
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The enormous amalgamations for Ottawa, Hamilton, and Chatham were all beyond stupid. Amalgamation should have happened in Windsor a long time ago...it's the only larger city where the province has not forced amalgamation in the past 50 years and now we have too much city/suburb bickering.
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  #22  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 3:17 AM
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Originally Posted by Blitz View Post
The enormous amalgamations for Ottawa, Hamilton, and Chatham were all beyond stupid. Amalgamation should have happened in Windsor a long time ago...it's the only larger city where the province has not forced amalgamation in the past 50 years and now we have too much city/suburb bickering.
Judging by what people from unicities say, that city-suburb bickering doesn't go away with amalgamation..
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  #23  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 3:25 AM
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The Montreal de-merger was dumb. Places like Westmount already get a lot of their services from the City of Montreal, so what's the fuss over being separate?

.
It was an ethno-linguistic issue. Look no further.
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  #24  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 3:26 AM
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One Montrealer I know calls Westmount "an island of sanity."
Are you sure he's not a Westmounter as opposed to a Montrealer?
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  #25  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 3:49 AM
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One Montrealer I know calls Westmount "an island of sanity."
Now that's funny!
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  #26  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 4:02 AM
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One Montrealer I know calls Westmount "an island of sanity."
It's more 'an island of sanitization'.

Their location on the mountain gives them the unique ability to live both within yet above the rest of the city.
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  #27  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 4:16 AM
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Are you sure he's not a Westmounter as opposed to a Montrealer?
Yet they all identify as Montrealers when they're travelliing. Same with the Waste Islanders: Meet them in Prague or Berlin and they're not from "Beaconsfield" or "Pointe Claire" or some other shitty suburb, suddenly, they're from "Montréal!!!"

They should have to pay for the use of the name, de-merged assholes that they are.
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  #28  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 4:27 AM
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Yet they all identify as Montrealers when they're travelliing. Same with the Waste Islanders: Meet them in Prague or Berlin and they're not from "Beaconsfield" or "Pointe Claire" or some other shitty suburb, suddenly, they're from "Montréal!!!"

They should have to pay for the use of the name, de-merged assholes that they are.
where you from ? I'm from Montréal. where in Montréal ? the South-Shore. oh I see, so you're from that mullet city, right ?
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  #29  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 4:47 AM
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where you from ? I'm from Montréal. where in Montréal ? the South-Shore. oh I see, so you're from that mullet city, right ?
Well I'm not 'from' Montréal I moved here by choice, and I live in Villeray - a block from Marché Jean Talon.

And my choice of hairstyle is none of your business. (Has the mullet REALLY gone out of fashion??)

And the South Shore, however wonderful Taschereau and DIX-30 may putport to be - is not Montréal.
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  #30  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 4:51 AM
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Originally Posted by OutOfTowner View Post
Well I'm not 'from' Montréal I moved here by choice, and I live in Villeray - a block from Marché Jean Talon.

And my choice of hairstyle is none of your business. (Has the mullet REALLY gone out of fashion??)
relax, it was not directed to you, it was a joke. I may have forgot to clarify it
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  #31  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 5:07 AM
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relax, it was not directed to you, it was a joke. I may have forgot to clarify it
Cool! I shall retain my mullet!
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  #32  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 6:04 AM
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Halifax's RM seems a bit ridiculous. How did they figure Sheet Harbour fits within Halifax, at 90 minutes away? How would it even be in the CMA? I get merging Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, Timberlea, the Sackvilles, etc but the RM extends way too far IMO.
I think the reason for this may have been that those areas are so sparsely populated that they would have struggled to pay for their own services. By tacking them onto the city the province solved that issue. Guysborough, east of Halifax, is incredibly sparsely populated and some municipalities there have been dissolved.

It makes sense to amalgamate places within a ~1 hour radius since they are part of the commutershed and should be involved in regional planning (in smaller cities people often choose to commute from farther away instead of living in the suburbs and having a short commute time). But it's hard to do that when there are existing towns and cities. Halifax has towns to the northeast, northwest, and west, but not to the east. That's why the CMA and municipality are tightly bounded on every side except the east.

It's common to hear that the Halifax CMA is hugely bloated or the municipality is unwieldy because it's so large. However, almost nobody (maybe 4% of the population) lives in the eastern 2/3. Had the census divisions been laid out a bit differently, the CMA might have had 500,000 people or more in a much smaller area. Some Halifax suburbs like Lantz and Elmsdale are officially outside of the metro area because they're grouped in with adjacent census divisions that are, say, 60% outside of the commutershed. Kings, Hants, and Lunenburg counties all have significant numbers of commuters. It's common in the Halifax area to have coworkers who come from Windsor, Lunenburg, or Hants County somewhere. There are no other similar cities for people from those areas to commute to.
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  #33  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 8:10 PM
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Does anyone have information of the population changes of cities that have undergone mass amalgamations (Hamilton, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax)? I'm curious if they compare to Winnipeg's (i.e. significant population decline in the old city neighborhoods).

........Former boundaries vs. Current boundaries
1951: 236,000..................354,000
1956: 255,000..................409,000
1960: Metropolitan Corporation of Greater Winnipeg is established
1961: 265,000..................472,000
1966: 256,000..................505,000
1971: 246,000..................536,000
1972: Amalgamation of Winnipeg takes effect Jan. 1
1976: 220,000..................561,000
1981: 200,000..................564,000
1986: 202,000..................595,000
1991: 196,000..................617,000
1996: 191,000..................618,000
2001: 190,000..................620,000
2006: 191,000..................633,000
2011: 194,000..................664,000
2016: 200,000..................705,000
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  #34  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 8:23 PM
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Toronto's amalgamation was one of the best decisions ever made. Etobi-coke-ians (gaffaw, gaffaw..Rob Ford) and Scarberians (Siberian barbarians) didn't get as much development as a result with most development concentrated downtown and in North York. I think that regardless of that fact, most Torontonians are proud of the developments downtown and the increasing concentration of power in that area. Especially young people, who tend to be quite proud of the city we are currently, and what we're developing into.
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  #35  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 8:32 PM
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Originally Posted by mistercorporate View Post
Toronto's amalgamation was one of the best decisions ever made. Etobi-coke-ians (gaffaw, gaffaw..Rob Ford) and Scarberians (Siberian barbarians) didn't get as much development as a result with most development concentrated downtown and in North York. I think that regardless of that fact, most Torontonians are proud of the developments downtown and the increasing concentration of power in that area. Especially young people, who tend to be quite proud of the city we are currently, and what we're developing into.
That's good that amalgamation was a positive thing for the former city, although this must also be why you hear rumblings now and then of Scarborough (most often) threatening to separate. If demographics are any indication, it wasn't the same for Winnipeg. Clearly, amalgamation wasn't the sole cause of this decline but it certainly played a factor (notice the single biggest decline was from the 1971 to 1976 censuses).
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  #36  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 8:56 PM
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Originally Posted by balletomane View Post
That's good that amalgamation was a positive thing for the former city, although this must also be why you hear rumblings now and then of Scarborough (most often) threatening to separate. If demographics are any indication, it wasn't the same for Winnipeg. Clearly, amalgamation wasn't the sole cause of this decline but it certainly played a factor (notice the single biggest decline was from the 1971 to 1976 censuses).
There's no real sentiment for separation in Scarborough. If anything there's a sentiment that Scarborough needs better access to downtown and its opportunities, hence the Scarborough subway brouhaha. When I say that most Torontonians are proud of the developments downtown, I'm including Scarborough and Etobicoke.

I'm curious to hear why you think amalgamation didn't help Winnipeg? What factors related to amalgamation could cause a city's relative decline?
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  #37  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 9:21 PM
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Originally Posted by mistercorporate View Post
There's no real sentiment for separation in Scarborough. If anything there's a sentiment that Scarborough needs better access to downtown and its opportunities, hence the Scarborough subway brouhaha. When I say that most Torontonians are proud of the developments downtown, I'm including Scarborough and Etobicoke.

I'm curious to hear why you think amalgamation didn't help Winnipeg? What factors related to amalgamation could cause a city's relative decline?
I think a big part of the issue was that neighborhoods in the inner city (Downtown, River Heights, West End, North End and Elmwood) were already in decline since the early-1960's. The infrastructure was aging, and the taxes were higher in comparison to the 11 other municipalities which were seen as being tax havens. This was largely why amalgamation was seen as being a good thing, taxes being equalized in the entire urban area.
When the city amalgamated, it still had 50+ councillors for the entire urban area, because all elected officials from the former municipalities in turn came to represent the entire new city. With the expanded area, the city councillors responded by increasing their wages, believing that they had extra "responsibility" for managing the new "megacity".
Also, most of the newly merged municipalities had room for growth (sprawl) whereas the old city did not. Suburban infrastructure spending skyrocketed, at the expense of maintaining existing infrastructure in the former city. The 1970's also saw crime rates begin their increase, however crime was limited to the older city, safety was another issue plaguing the city, and continues to be one. The homicide rate in the former city is about 9/100,000 (down from 19/100,000 in 2011), compared to only 1/100,000 in the former amalgamated municipalities.
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  #38  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 9:26 PM
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Originally Posted by balletomane View Post
I think a big part of the issue was that neighborhoods in the inner city (Downtown, River Heights, West End, North End and Elmwood) were already in decline since the early-1960's. The infrastructure was aging, and the taxes were higher in comparison to the 11 other municipalities which were seen as being tax havens. This was largely why amalgamation was seen as being a good thing, taxes being equalized in the entire urban area.
When the city amalgamated, it still had 50+ councillors for the entire urban area, because all elected officials from the former municipalities in turn came to represent the entire new city. With the expanded area, the city councillors responded by increasing their wages, believing that they had extra "responsibility" for managing the new "megacity".
Also, most of the newly merged municipalities had room for growth (sprawl) whereas the old city did not. Suburban infrastructure spending skyrocketed, at the expense of maintaining existing infrastructure in the former city. The 1970's also saw crime rates begin their increase, however crime was limited to the older city, safety was another issue plaguing the city, and continues to be one. The homicide rate in the former city is about 9/100,000 (down from 19/100,000 in 2011), compared to only 1/100,000 in the former amalgamated municipalities.
Interesting, thanks for sharing. In our case, amalgamation was shortly followed by new planning regulations (forced through by the province) which not only created a greenbelt surrounding the city to limit sprawl but also set out parameters for greater densification in the core and a few nodes surrounding it (for political expediancy). This may be useful for Winnipeg to consider so it can leverage all the advantages of amalgamation without all the disadvantages, which frankly Toronto also had to deal with until the province stepped in to refocus priorities.
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  #39  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 9:29 PM
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To balletomane's point, how many of those things can be said to be the fault of Unicity? There were broader trends at play such as the decline of Winnipeg's stature relative to other major western cities, the influx of a relatively impoverished population (leading to higher inner city crime), the fact that the large urban core was growing quite old and in need of rehabilitation/renewal.

Although shopping and retail has been decentralized, many of Winnipeg's important office, institutional and cultural functions remain centrally located. That would have been much tougher to accomplish had suburban cities been free to do whatever they wanted to steal activity away from the core.

As with Toronto, I think there came to be a more unified and cohesive attempt at planning the city, rather than letting every little municipality do whatever it wanted. No question that came at a cost of letting suburban areas wield some more control over things, but I think Winnipeg has done an acceptable job of keeping sprawl in check.
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  #40  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2017, 9:29 PM
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Originally Posted by balletomane View Post
I think a big part of the issue was that neighborhoods in the inner city (Downtown, River Heights, West End, North End and Elmwood) were already in decline since the early-1960's. The infrastructure was aging, and the taxes were higher in comparison to the 11 other municipalities which were seen as being tax havens. This was largely why amalgamation was seen as being a good thing, taxes being equalized in the entire urban area.
When the city amalgamated, it still had 50+ councillors for the entire urban area, because all elected officials from the former municipalities in turn came to represent the entire new city. With the expanded area, the city councillors responded by increasing their wages, believing that they had extra "responsibility" for managing the new "megacity".
Also, most of the newly merged municipalities had room for growth (sprawl) whereas the old city did not. Suburban infrastructure spending skyrocketed, at the expense of maintaining existing infrastructure in the former city. The 1970's also saw crime rates begin their increase, however crime was limited to the older city, safety was another issue plaguing the city, and continues to be one. The homicide rate in the former city is about 9/100,000 (down from 19/100,000 in 2011), compared to only 1/100,000 in the former amalgamated municipalities.
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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