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Some photos from a drive my friend I took to Brantford, Ontario a city located about an hour west of Toronto. Brantford has one of the most decayed downtowns in Ontario and Canada. The downtown is a little better now thanks to the opening of the downtown campus of Wilfred Laurier University, but as you can see, it is still very troubled.
This is what happens in a small city when you move your city's retail heart and economy to a suburban mall 5 minutes away.
The Grand River
This is a new development with a public square to try and help in the revival of downtown.
The failed downtown Mall.
The mall was built for the EATONS Department Store.
Last edited by miketoronto : 03-24-2009 at 02:23 AM.
Anyway, doesn't look TOO bad. Hell, they have infill. That's more than I can say for a town that size in most "rustbelt" states. Strangely, it reminds me of Muncie, Indiana...
Are you kidding me miketoronto? You call that urban decay. I am from Flint MI and vacation in Detroit, I will trade you our urban decay for that. I assume you are the same miketoronto who posts on detroityes so I know you know what I am talking about. I would kill for Flint to have that kind of building stock downtown to be decayed.
Brantford didn't seem quite as bad when I was there a couple years ago. The immediate area around the little square in front of the courthouse seemed pretty nice, even if a lot of the buildings on Dalhousie Street were empty.
We have a similar problem here in Belleville, although not nearly as bad as Brantford's. People like to dress up and parade around looking good, and malls make it easier for them to do just that.....especially with Canada's climate!
It is sad though, especially for people like us here on the forum, who want to see these small down-towns thrive.
Good post though Mike.
Actually, it looks just as bad as he made it to be, and let's be clear, this level of abandonment is due to a helluva lot more than a mall and simple suburbanization. Brantford was a major manufacturing center which obviously isn't so much, anymore.
Interesting tour. It's still a bit surprising to see a city like this along a major transportation route and in between so many healthy and relatively healthy cities. I'd like to see the whole area along the corridors between Detroit and Toronto and Toronto and Buffalo more closely tied together in terms of regional revitalization.
Interesting pictures and it is certainly decayed, even if not in the burned out building / empty lot kind of way. One thing I notice is that many of the buildings with shuttered storefronts still seem to have residential tenants on the upper floors. Is this accurate? It seems to be a trend in a lot of areas in Ontario where retail is failing but there is still a rental market. In some neighbourhoods I've looked at (including mine) it's gotten to the point where building owners are converting main floor retail space into illegal apartments. It's better than the building staying abandoned, but still not really a good thing.
Lmich I think the mall is mostly to blame for the decay in downtown, because the rest of the city looks fine, and if you go to the mall its packed.
The only spot that really is on hard times is the downtown so to speak.
Brantford did lose alot of manufacturing and being only an hour from Toronto by train, they really should use that to their advantage.
The one thing I've noticed in Brantford is that there is little interest from the residents to improve the downtown...most if not all have given up on it....my S-I-L and her family live there and they never go downtown for shopping....the mall on the east side and the mall on King George and the parasitic retail that feeds off the big malls is where people do their shopping (or Hwy 24 in Cambridge or London or the big box stuff in Ancaster). I've yet to see a gentrified neighbourhood in the core..
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Nice photo exhibit...but as some testify, not all is decayed and decrepit. Fundamentally, it is a combination of a great many factors (for example, the decline of Brantford as a manufacturing hub, and the exodus of residents to the outlying areas, etc.), and not just "some suburban mall" that leads to such decay.
The city has great building stock, and would be well-poised for an urban revitalization if someone could steer jobs to the immediate area. Virtually every building shown here can be salvaged.
Plenty of downtowns do just fine with big boxes on the outskirts. Brantford's problems are truly multifaceted in nature, and there certainly isn't just one cause for the abandonment.
I thought I had stumbled into upstate New York for a second. When I was a kid in Albany, NY, the downtown was so crowded and busy, even on weekends (especially on weekends). Then Colonie Center was built. Pearl Street downtown emptied out almost immediately, although crime and other social factors also had something to do with that. You take a good picture, by the way.
Nice photo exhibit...but as some testify, not all is decayed and decrepit. Fundamentally, it is a combination of a great many factors (for example, the decline of Brantford as a manufacturing hub, and the exodus of residents to the outlying areas, etc.), and not just "some suburban mall" that leads to such decay.
Actually walking distance from downtown are some very nice neighbourhoods with very nice homes that are all intact. It really is an issue I think with people going to the mall. In small cities like this, it is hard to support a downtown and a mall at the same time, unless you are a university town or something.
It is correct that a lot of the buildings do seem to have residents living above. I would venture to say the residents are people who have nowhere else to go, as the downtown was full of people who looked like they had seen better days and were stuck in downtown.
They're not fooling anybody!!
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