A little Scaledown.ca flavour in the morning paper.
There are two articles in the Star today that I want to bring your attention to.
First is the headline story about the cost of gas. Aside from the obligitory whining about gouging and “Big Oil” there was a bit about an Ottawa family that is not too affected. Why? Because, they already bike, bus and walk most places. The fact that they are mentioned at all gives me hope that the message of walkability and alternative transportation is on the minds of Star readers today.
The other is way back on A10. It seems an application for a zoning change was turned down because the community came out and said NO. This demonstrates that the decision makers can do the right thing for a community. Its just that the community has to know what it wants and does not want and the community must be willing to stand up and make themselves heard.
Today readers of the Windsor Star have ideas in their head that we can work on to help steer the conversation toward a better community. If you find yourself in a conversation about the price of gas today, say, yeah but the family in that article, they walk and bus and ride their bikes and the rising cost of gas doesn’t seem to bother them much. Maybe we should do more with less like them and help improve our community.
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Re the zoning…..
—Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac voted to support for the rezoning, saying she feared legal costs of a potential OMB appeal by Salim.—–
Incredible that these councilors are so weak that they make decisions out of fear!!! rather than doing the right thing. She is obviously very weak and should not be in a leadership postion for one day more.
Unacceptable.
This is really interesting - I knew the site was there, but hadn’t gone indepth. Haven’t seen anything yet for Windsor-Essex.
http://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9&Itemid=12
Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, 2006
Greater Golden Horseshoe
Growth Plan Area
The Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, released on June 16, 2006, is a 25-year plan that aims to:
Revitalize downtowns to become vibrant and convenient centres.
Create complete communities that offer more options for living, working, learning, shopping and playing.
Provide housing options to meet the needs of people at any age.
Curb sprawl and protect farmland and green spaces.
Reduce traffic gridlock by improving access to a greater range of transportation options.
Can Brister be consistent in his thinking? His words will be read back to him quite often.
“Yep its outrageous!” “I can remember when…..!” “I will still drive my sub-urban tank because it is safer but I am being robbed every time I fill up!” Standard quotes for any story dealing with the rising cost of gasoline anywhere in any North America’s sprawling sub-urbias. Live by the gas tank, die by the gas tank!
It seems that the rising price of a barrel of oil, is now the lead story daily. hourly on most media outlets. It is almost like watching lives go down the hose pumps one litre at a time. Almost as bad as weather porn, as one American magazine describing our fascination of weather related tradgedies from around the world, gasoline prices with sound and tape bites, frantic drivers, struggling households that rather drive than eat, and on and on.
But they still keep driving! Stating that they have no choice. You dear citizen always have had choices, you just didn’t think them out and went with accepting the status quo that tomorrow will be the same as today and yesterday.
And you may say, “I was never told about this or that this can happen!” It has been coming for years, quietly like a slow emerging virus one case at a time, one new sprawling development even farther out than the last one. The sub-prime melt down was only the facilitator of it all.
Now that the sprawl developers got you living to far from anything, and the automakers making you believe that you need sub=urban tanks to get milk, why wouldn’t the oil companies smile as they grabed you by your short and curlies! You have been suckered, duped, conned, scammed, for what, a dream that can’t be sustained. Barnum would have been proud!
Tonight when I leave work, I will walk to pick up some groceries, which I do several times a week, put them in my backpack, maybe shop at a couple other stores, and be home in thirty minutes. In the morning it is ten minutes to work. And with online shopping, if I can’t find it a twenty minute walking distance, I might use public transportation if it is not to cold, raining or snowing (not because of the weather but there are no shelters on most of the routes), otherwise I order it online through the internet and have it delivered to the door.
Happy Driving!
While walking may be an option for some, until such a time people are able to easily access services and amenities in this city, the car will rule the day.
For example, I live in Walkerville, and there is no way on God’s Green Earth I’m going to walk carrying 14 bags of groceries from Goyeau to my street. Nor is it convenient to take those same groceries on the bus. It is far easier to drive, or in my case, cab it.
Now, I have walked from the Farmer’s Market to my home, but only because it is relatively close - I’ve often stopped by Mr. Holt’s home to toilet paper his trees or soap up his windows
(Of course I jest).
Do people have a choice? To some degree yes - but with the current “layout” of the city, not really.
So that was you? I thought that was a repercussion from my latest online snafu.
I just wanted to comment on what Chris Schnurr stated about walkability. While you wouldn’t easily be able to walk from the Goyeau location, how difficult would it be to ride a bike with a kid trailer full of groceries. Drivers tend to give those with child trailers ample room and there are very comfortable routes from that store to Walkerville. it truly is about the choices we make, I’m not claiming to be perfect, but I’m not complaining that I can’t get somewhere without too much trouble under human power. It is absolutely a choice to own a car and when we make that choice, we should understand the potential costs associated with it. While it is easy to point the finger at the city and I agree wholeheartedly that it is poorly setup now, it cannot be said that you can’t do without a car in Walkerville, I think that’s a fact. If you want to drive, then just drive but please don’t say it’s just not possible to do without a vehicle.
I’ll be looking for your bike and kid trailer then Steve - especially in the snow or rain.
Look - absolutely we all could be making better choices - but do we? Do we all collect our rainwater? Do we all bike or walk to work or take public transit? For groceries? To the mall? Do we all shop downtown? Compost?
Not likely.
We each do what is realistically possible given our limited budgets, abilities and what we are each willing to sacrifice.
And until either 1 - a grocery store moves a little bit closer or 2 - the Farmers Market sells everything I need, I’ll be cabbing from the grocery store.
That is the reality. If you want to change behaviours, telling people to doesn’t work.
I read a phrase “Libertarian Paternalism” recently - or guided choices - make the preferred option the obvious one.
Want people to walk more? Hike up the price of gas further or institute no drive zones and/or road tolls. Want people to eat healthier - tax the crap out of fast and processed food. Want people to take public transit make it easier and affordable to take a bus.
I’ll admit - there’s no way I’m going to ride down Wyandotte Street lugging 14 bags of groceries in a kiddy cart - it’s just not going to happen. I could move downtown - but I moved away from downtown for many reasons - but mostly because of the noise and I like having a yard.
We can all sit here and say Mr. or Mrs. Smith “should” be doing this, but we need to ask, are we and even more, what can we do to achieve this goal, because it’s not going to happen overnight.
Another factor to take into consideration is employment patterns: I’d love to bike or walk to work, or take public transit, but I currently work in Michigan as an engineer due to the lack of positions in my field in the Windsor area.
I do bring my own canvas bags to stores instead of using plastic bags at least
Not that it is specifically related to this topic, but I thought it would be interesting for you Windsorites to know that your mayor has a job creation plan for the city (Ft. McMurray not Windsor). Only problem is that the carbon footprint of the commute is slightly larger than that of Lasalle to downtown.
http://www.macleans.ca/canada/national/article.jsp?content=20080409_78858_78858
That idea is way too comical, Pat. Windsor’s been a laughing stock since he blurted that out in his state of the city address. But that’s leadership, Windsor-style!
I know the main reason Francis wants this is to justify his decision to take over ownership of Windsor’s airport. There’s nothing like subsidizing your corporations business with taxpayer dollars! The only thing worse would be killing puppies in your SUV as you drive to the airport for your 2500 mile commute to the tar sands!
Hilarious!
Killing puppies, oh dear don’t give any one ideas now
It seems to me to be a slightly kinder and gentler version of a remittance-based economy, such as you have in the Philippine. Pimping out your labour force in not some pretty terms.
This long-distance phenomenon is becoming really common in the West. In Yellowknife where I’m living, 737s full of workers are flying overhead from Edmonton right up the the big diamond mines on the barrenlands. While some of them live around Edmonton, there are also guys coming in from Newfoundland and the other maritime provinces. Given the costs of flying, just can’t figure how this could be economical, but it speaks volumes about the profitability of the tar sands and the diamond mines.
Beyond the climate change implications of it all. Mayor Eddie should be very cautious about the social implication of the fly-in fly-out economy. When dad (or occasionally mom)is away half the month or more, it really but strains the family life. Moreover it’s pretty hard to maintain a life as a member of a community when you’re living in a work camp half the year. Coaching hockey, being on the PTA or playing in a band are really compatible with that sort of “lifestyle”. These people are often in limbo, albeit a well-paying one.
Is this dingbat francis even familiar with peak oil? Or does he think its merely cyclical? —-airports as the new bus terminals— its scary to think hes still the mayor for .. how many more years?!!!
939 days, 18 hours, 53 minutes and 42 seconds.
Not that I’m keeping track at all
It might look like no one will be flying much in the near future, with airlines going bankrupt, merging, increasing fuel levies, charging more for extra luggage, AND it seems the sky high rising prices for aircraft fuel on a daily basis, aging planes not being replaced, or just cutting back on them.
Come fly, Come fly with me….takes on a whole new meaning.
Long before the internet about 15 years ago, there was an op-ed article in some newspaper that I can’t remember now, on a study done on the use of taxis in a city, rather than owing a car. If you had a monthly contract with a taxi firm, to pick you up for work, deliver you to work and then pick you from work to go home, that within a ten mile radius it was cheaper than owning a car, after that it was almost the same expense. I called a local taxi firm, although they wouldn’t tell me outright that they would give a cheaper price on a contract, they did hint at it. A flat rate verses a metered ride. I use taxis sparingly, but they come in handy for going to parties in the far reaches of this city, especially coming home later, much later! Sure you’re out of pocket in cash at that time but you don’t do it every day either. Taxis aren’t a bad way of getting around a city.
Where was this ‘neighbourhood’ when Council approved the rezoning for the northwest corner? A Rexall is going to have way more traffic and longer hours than a medical office. The ‘neighbourhood’ raised no concerns about commercial creep, increased traffic, conflicts with the elementary school, etc. Nothing. Nada.
So please spare me the bit about this neighbourhood knowing what it wants and does not want.
Sorry that should be northeast corner - ugh I still can’t get over this whole water/Detroit is to the north thing coming from the GTA.
Interesting to see that residents in South Windsor are listened to but those in the downtown or core areas such as Walkerville are ignored. I guess it is true, money talks.
I agree Mark, I will gladly recite to Mr. Brister his words when another big-box development is being looked at or more sprawl-induced construction takes place.
For those who want to walk or bike instead of driving I applaud you. But in this city, until we have real mass transit or better alternatives people just won’t do it. But with high paying job losses I think the day of mass transit is coming.
for those who like to bike our so-called bike lanes are a disgrace. With so many potholes and people parking in the lanes they have really become un-useable.
…in the star today.. http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=e5193e88-3e51-4c0b-8c35-aa7772f326a3
at least somebody’s paying attention, but, merely stating the obvious.
What were the footprint standards of grocery stores 40 yrs ago. I think that the solution can been found there. Restrict the square footage and therefore the grocery chain cna be placed where the people are. Like before.
Looking at the locations of Food Basics, Price Choppers etc in the core, they are all situated one block or more off a bus route. You would think that if they wanted more foot traffic, putting their buildings closer to the bus route or to the front of the lot line WITH parking in the rear, so that those on foot wouldn’t have to walk a block through their parking lots.
I think the food chains, like all other stores etc. followed the money of the middle class, much like city planners in North America.
Urbanrat -
Good idea. When I lived in Ottawa (albeit a higher population density) they had community grocers - like the one in Sandwich Towne comes to mind quickly. Also, lived in the Market area, and there it was easy to pick up everthing i needed for a couple of days on my way home.
There used to be one on Ottawa Street and Hall in Windsor, but it closed a few years ago, but it was very convenient.
There are some smaller versions selling fruits and veggies on Wyandotte but I can’t get everything I need there.
How can we encourage such neighbourhood grocers amidst “big box” grocery stores?
Big box = Warehouse. Does zoning allow for warehouses to be plopped down in the middle of residential?
I lived in the downtown area of Ottawa, near Laurierand Maclaren (?), it was fifteen minute walk to the Bytown market, there was mid size grocer, I think on Kent just around the corner from me. Wasn’t there a supermarket just down Rideau from the market?
I loved living in the core of Ottawa, skating on the canal in the winter time to work, cycling to the Gatineaus in twenty minutes on a Sunday. And the transit system with the articulate buses, that can move 50,000 plus civil servants in minutes out to the burbs.
I don’t know Chris, I thought that Remarks markets, or an N&D were good sizes for neighbourhoods, talked to Remarks once about locating in the core giving them the demographics etc. but alas no luck.
I had pondered making a pitch to Whole Foods Market to locate in a core area. Alas, I think that pitch would be really hard to make now — given the economic distress the city appears to be in — that and Whole Foods is really just an organic Wal-Mart
What about a true Farmer’s Co-op? Forget a middle man — buy direct from the farmer.
Josh, why would it be any harder to make now than before.
Windsor may be in distress on the automotive manufacturing front but in the core we have more assets each year than the year before.
Convention Center, Arena, Hotel complex
College Campus
Transit Terminal
Improved facilities on our riverfront with the Peace Beacon
New Luxury Condo Bldg on the Riverfront adjacent to Downtown
More and better festivals with Fringe http://www.actorstheatreofwindsor.com/education/fringe.html
Each and every year, we are adding an asset to our downtown that would attract a “Whole Foods“ type market.
Also remember we still have Food Basics for now.
Mark, alas, Big Box markets (of which I classify Whole Foods, in spite of their organically minded business plan) are only interested in two numbers — how many people can we access and how much money do they have to spend?
In Whole Foods defence, they are not nearly as ‘Big Box-ish’ as some of the other players, but they aren’t about to keep the majority of their profits in the community in which they build.
Building infrastructure for the people is good — for the people. When the people come back, the businesses will follow, and more people will come back and more businesses will follow — you get the drift. The work of Scaledown is the build an environment that will make the neighbourhoods fertile ground for return of the people the core needs to be restored. If I remember anything from the past couple of years of research, it’s that a strong, vital arts community is essential to the restoration of a city’s most struggling neighbourhoods. Change council’s point of view on the art’s community and then you’ll have success at your finger-tips!
Development follows infrastructure, ESPECIALLY if that infrastructure is designed and SCALED DOWN for the people of Windsor instead of their cars.
wasn’t arguing about the type of grocery store (which I completely agree with your comments about.) My main point is that the core isn’t declining, it is being built up with hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. Thats why I invested downtown, I had the foresight to know the core is where Windsor’s revitalization will begin
I forgot to add the first 3 blocks of streetscape. $160,000 in decorative lighting decorations
Coming in the next few months $50,000 of new furniture and garbage cans on pelissier, 160 new hanging flower planters throughout downtown ($62,000)
The arts is next, Did I mention that the Capital is open for business (although not sustainably), and the Arts Council has a capable new Director.
My only issue with today’s globe and mail article is that I would have entitled it: Scaledown fuels Windsor with alternative energy
Oh, and it would have been nice to actually put the url in the article. https://scaledown.ca
The URL for the Globe and Mail article is http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080419.TURNER19/TPStory/?query=chris+turner
Local coverage…..okay, National exposure….PRICELESS!
Turner’s article is right on! Telling how it really is in this city..to the nation! And I really hope those at city hall, the mayor and council read his article. Somebody send all them a copy of the article, or do they read the Globe and Mail at city hall?
Kudos to Chris and Mark for telling their and our story!!
I just Googled: scale down windsor, got 156,000 hits, and the first three point to scaledown and good smattering of other Windsor blogs. So if the curious across are curious, there shouldn’t be any trouble finding the website.
To James in your article re “do more with less” like the ottawa family and how they walk and bike more. I wonder what it’s going to take for people to change. Gas is at 1.23$/L and I’m still amazed when I see a line-up of cars at the Timmy’s just idling and creeping along when they could park and walk in and order their coffee. Or when a train goes by on one of the main streets and blocks traffic for 5-10 mins and people just sit and idle and don’t shut their engines off. What is it going to take?? 1.50$/L 1.75$/L 2$/L ??? I sometimes think people are not willing or wanting to change. Or have become too used to their existing ways.
Tom N: The problem with your comment is that you assume that higher gas prices means that people will change their driving habits. It may be true that some people may change their driving habits (carpooling, transit/bike/walk, selling old cars, combing shopping trips, shorter vacation trips, etc).
However, other people will change non-driving habits. They may buy generic items in the store. They may not eat out. They may do a whole host of other things to save money.
Isn’t it true that you can judge a person’s priorities in life by what they spends their hard-earned $$$ on? If someone is willing to give up spending time eating out with their family in order to continue to drive a car (when there are other options available), I fear that is a person we will never be able to reason with at this point in time. Those are going to be the poor souls (and their collateral-damage families) who suffer the most when gas reaches 2,3 or 4$ a litre.
Tom, what Vincent says is our first reaction to higher fuel prices. Especially in a city like Windsor, where so many things are inaccessable due to car scale planning and a transit system that is…
Either in a previous post or comment I talked about gas prices. Somewhere I had run across the number $4/litre as the big number. I tend to disagree because I think $4 was based on a linear analysis of income vs. household costs. I’m no expert but I would say that the critical number is around $2/litre.
I think that by the time gas gets close to $2 we will have removed as many other changes to our spending habits as we can. Also, we will see upward pressures on prices that will force us to make changes to our other spending habits. Like grocery prices, changes in the job market due to higher energy costs (layoffs, plant closures, shorter working hours, etc.)
Already, I’ve noticed that store brand pasta has gone from $0.99 to $1.69 and store brand bread has jumped to $1.99.
Watch for the “dollar” stores to have to make changes soon too.
All we can do as individuals is to change our own habits. I drive less and combine my trips and try to keep my gas costs down because I don’t want to change my other spending habits. I like to go out to eat and I like to be able to buy stuff for my family. We can do more without the car than we can relying on it.
I would love to have a decent grocery store in the core. I mean Food Basics (I and a few others call it dirt basics because they are so filthy) and Price Chopper serve as a basic necessity store but what about decent meat and produce? I certainly don’t like having to drive all over the city to get my groceries and I certainly don’t like going to the fringes to buy decent food. So why is the core not serviced? I honestly believe that until the city really puts the effort into revitalizing downtown (and not just some money, a half-baked idea, and half-assed effort) the core areas will continue to be ignored.
Simple Dave! All city planners are educated, with one or more degrees thus they are in the middle to upper middle class range, including their salaries, so where do you think they live and who do you think the plan for..people like them, in sub-urbia! That’s all they know, that is all they have grown up with, so what do you expect from them. I bet not one city planner has ever walked in a core neighbourhood in this city or lived in one, except to drive through as fast as they can on the one way streets out of the core. And they aren’t poor, so how you expect to identify with anybody.
Same goes for our City Terrific department…ah…Traffic department. I call them the Terrific department because they are always so eager to build another road to nowhere, accommodate developers and or widen even wider another road..Terrific idea lets widen another road to nowhere, so we can get to nowhere fast.
You see the two departments are connected in lock step because they don’t walk they drive their sub-urban tanks, so they design for what they only know.
Simple!
I disagree with your criticism of Planning. Thom Hunt does not live in suburbia.
Planning in this city knows exactly what is the right thing and how to achieve that. My problem with them is that many times (not all) when they are called upon by council, they buckle to pressure to give only the particular answer that council wants to hear without providing the full answer.
They are being made acomplices to lies of omission. The questions by council and the lawyers for the developers are crafted to elicit only the answer that they want to hear.
Its up to us to ask them the right questions, get full answers from them. I do not believe this department will all out lie, its about us, you and I, getting the full story to the public and the councillors
Sort of light a court of law when they say “Yes or No answers only” when the context and background are far more important.
I am going to come out and say it. City planning is about designating class boundaries. Suburbs in this city are about class, sprawl in the surrounding communities is about class.
We, like it or not are class driven that is the reason for what I just said. There are no side walks in sub-urbia or sprawlsville, public transit only skirts the out side fringe of them and doesn’t happen in sprawlsville, the roads are designed for only those that live there and know their way around. AND THE BEST RETAIL OUTLETS! All, to keep the riff-raff and poor out. It began with Robert Moses in New York City and has been copied ever since by urban planning students ab nauseum, who came from those sub-urbia and sprawlsville, that is all they know. If you can’t afford a car, you’re a loser…STAY OUT!
City planners follow the money! You can’t revitalize the core until you make it safe and clean for the muddle classes. They don’t want to rub shoulders with hookers, puking nineteen old kids, the poor and downtrodden, they are SUB-URBAN with the emphasis on SUB! They, the middle class, don’t want the trappings of an URBANE LIFE, where the street and all who travel on it are king and open to ALL the public. Heaven forbid if a panhandler or drunk crosses their path, or a teenage single mother disturbs their view!
Home Depot, Rona and every other upscale retail isn’t about developing the core…there is no money there for them, they are class conscious and I dare them to prove me otherwise! Although there are 25,000 people living just in the core of this city.
Just look how Devonshire Mall and Transit Windsor treat people on a Friday and Saturday night at the Mall for those that travel by bus..teenagers, in forcing them and everybody else to get on and off from a transit stop that is very inconvenient for everybody. But not those in cars!
The same for Metropolitan Hospital, if you drive a car you can park close to the hospital, if you come by bus you are forced to walk a block across the parking lot or unplowed sidewalks in winter, and cross six lanes of traffic to get there. If that isn’t class designation, what is!
Our streets downtown are setup to facilitate easy commutes for the unlucky Sub-urban classes that have work downtown, so that they can get in and out quick, with one way streets demolishing city neighbourhoods and street life and inner action among residents in the core.
Look at Food Basics, Price Choppers in the core, you, if you are on foot, you have to walk an acre of parking from the street to get to the front of the store, even if you can get there by bus! Where was city planning then…the car comes first, walkers..the poor don’t even figure in their thinking, even in the core.
City planning has always been about class and that has to change. There should be a civilian overview or advisory group that works with and some times against city planning, the mayors, rubber stamping city councils and the like.
Give me and us back our streets!
Remember, free parking is a fertility drug for cars!
You are right Mark. But I am not apologizing. We have only the mayors and city councils of this city, including the current miasma of participants to blame. The city planners plan, then their reports gather dust on library shelves. Eddie is like an old tom cat, spraying the boundaries of this city, the new arena, big boxers east and west, he obviously has no faith in his city planning department to do otherwise! So why is he and council going through all the sh*t of visioning, if only they are going to spray their territory..our boundaries with unsustainable development and give fake photo-op lip service. I don’t believe them about their so called caring and sincerity.
It then goes to demonstrate that we don’t need a city planning department at all. Because a developer will walk into Eddie’s office and say, “Hey Eddie old pal, have I got a scam for you! and can you get around those annoying people in city planning!” Will do says Eddie, I will have council rubber stamp it later today!”
Everybody now! Take a big knee-jerk…aw…take a few and stay fit!
You know, I haven’t been thinking about it in those terms but I can’t dispute what you’re saying.
No need to apologize for past remarks, I have my share of those. One thing I agree with the Mayor, is that its time to change the conversation
People attribute bad policy to bad motives/intentions, when bad policy almost always comes from bad judgement of the situation.
We have to stop demonizing people, no one wants to have their kids look up at them and repeat these type of comments to them.
People attribute bad policy to bad motives/intentions, when bad policy almost always comes from bad judgement of the situation
I believe that was worth repeating
Some of us and myself included have been trying to change the conversation since the Devonshire Mall proposal, as far as I am concern, every mayor, city council and city planning department in North America are Johnnie come latelys. to the conversation.
Ever since RSS feeds have become available, I have been pulling in ten stories a day on sprawl, downtown/core, urbanism, walkability, sustainablity and the list goes on, sixty feeds or so in all. The conversation isn’t a new story, but the roar now being heard in N.A. is getting very loud. We can’t sustain what we have built period! Even if gas prices remain at $64.00 a barrel, we can’t, just look a Michigan and Greater Detroit, they’re going into hock, just to keep their freeways from deterioating and open!
When I see some bone fide action and that includes the money to do so by this mayor, then maybe, just maybe I will believe in it, so far just talk and no money!