[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by esquire

This era was probably the biggest paradox in terms of urbanism. Architecturally this was an amazing era, many of the buildings you listed are among my very favourites in Winnipeg. So from that perspective it was a good time for urbanism. There was certainly an impressive quantity of major buildings that have endured, and the quality was usually there too.

The downside of that era was that probably more than any other era, the central parts of the city declined and went from being a complete neighbourhood to a 9-5 office district. Compare Winnipeg at the beginning of that era (1960) when Portage was still the dominant retail strip in town, to the end of the era (1975) when suburban subdivisions and malls had eaten away at a lot of downtown's traffic. The importance of transit had declined as cars took over. Even downtown itself spread out to an unsustainably large size leading to the situation we still face today where there are many highly underutilized blocks with surface lots and small single-storey buildings... a lot of downtown residential south of Graham was cleared to make way for some new buildings, but also a lot of new parking lots that stand today. So the urban fabric definitely frayed in those years.

The separation of uses is a huge problem for that. Creating neightbourhoods only for one purpose or another really hurts the areas where there isn't a significant permanent resident population...