Poll: What was Winnipeg's Best Era for Urbanism?

[esquire]

I've broken the eras up into 15-year chunks. Not specifically limited to downtown, but realistically downtown is going to be the focus.

PRE-BOOM ERA (1885-1900): When Winnipeg first truly became a city. Downtown was still centred around the area north of Portage and Main. This was the era when horse-drawn carts dominated. Buildings of this era include Old City Hall, Fortune Block and several Exchange District warehouses.

BOOM ERA (1900-1915): Peak Winnipeg, when the city was in growth mode and turned into a metropolis on the prairies. This was when Portage Avenue turned into one of Canada's most prosperous commercial thoroughfares. Downtown was still fairly small, but it was the undisputed hub of activity. We started to see the early development of street car suburbs and motor vehicle use in these years. Winnipeg started to see the formation of satellite hubs, as strips like Selkirk Avenue and Osborne St brought many amenities right to the areas where people lived. Buildings of this era include many of Winnipeg's most iconic structures, including the Manitoba Legislative Building, Union Station, Eaton's, the Hotel Fort Garry and the Union Bank Tower.

INTERWAR YEARS (1920-1935): Winnipeg was a mature city by this point, the explosive growth of the boom era was over but there was continued progress as downtown started to fill out and grew to the west. Cars started to figure prominently in these years. Buildings of this era include the Hudson Bay store and the Winnipeg Auditorium.

POSTWAR YEARS (1945-1960): The baby boom and increased prosperity brought cars and sprawl to Winnipeg, but downtown was still the place to be as streetcars and later buses brought hordes of shoppers to the department stores lining Portage Avenue. Buildings of this era include Polo Park Shopping Centre, the Norquay Building and Manitoba Hall at the University of Winnipeg.

MODERNISM AND SPRAWL (1960-1975): These years saw downtown reshaped from a fairly complete neighbourhood into a mainly 9-5 office district. Huge amounts of office space went up in new towers, and ambitious block-long redevelopments replaced the small buildings of Winnipeg's early years. Downtown grew physically as it swallowed up many blocks of formerly residential streets to the south and west. Suburban sprawl and shopping malls ate into downtown retail activity but downtown was still the centre of it all for shopping and entertainment. Buildings of this era include the Richardson Building, Centennial Concert Hall, the old Winnipeg International Airport terminal, the Royal Bank Building, the Winnipeg Convention Centre and the towers of Lakeview Square.

THE UNICITY ERA (1975-1990): By this point downtown was reaching a point of serious malaise as the suburbs had eaten away at its prosperity and vitality. Winnipeg was firmly a car city as well, as the city had been reshaped during the Metro era of the 1960s to handle more traffic, and there were no major transit improvements to revitalize urban neighbourhoods. Downtown shopping declined significantly in these years, and social problems increased. Unicity allowed Winnipeg's municipal government to grow to be more responsive to these problems. A lot of government-assisted projects were aimed at fixing problems downtown, like Winnipeg Square and Portage Place. Buildings of this era include 201 Portage (TD Centre), One Canada Centre and Fort Garry Place.

URBAN RENAISSANCE (2000-2015): Rising economic tides and population growth led to improvements downtown, and brought more people back to the streets. A mix of big projects like a new arena, with smaller ones like various downtown housing developments brought more people back to downtown streets. A renewed focus on transit helped. By this point downtown retail was starting to disappear completely, so downtown became focused more on dining and entertainment with a new arena and restaurants opening up. Buildings of this era include Centrepoint, Buhler Centre, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the new airport terminal.