Kitchener’s Mayor and 7 or 8 new Trends
Listening to Kitchener’s Mayor, I wanted to briefly point out some initiatives they have which I’d like to see
1. Zoning of Massage Parlors out of downtown
2. 3 am closing without the battle that we had (I’m still exhausted, I dare someone to try it)
3. Municipal grants to convert space over the main floor from office/commercial to residential. (Larry told me they give $100,000 per bldg.
4. Downtown Campus’ Wilfred Laurier, U of W. I think it was the School of Social work and the Pharmaceutical school. Now there is a medical school that will be a part of a “Health Sciences Campus”
5. 110 Million Development fund with every penny going back into the core.
Sigh…….. I guess we can dream. P.S. I’d add panhandling controls such as near ATM’s and over Cafe Railings to my list
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Seven new Trends affecting cities from Smart City Radio
I listened to the program twice as they promised 8 but could only hear 7. I challenge anyone to name the 8th
1. Accelerated Awareness - More people waking up sooner
2. The power of “co” - words such as community, collaberation, cooperation etc..
3. The trend towards local - local food, local businesses, local wineries
4. Instant Karma - The trend of society towards doing the right thing but wanting immediate results and gratification. This may sound superficially bad at first but local campaigns can tie into it. Heck, if it’s a trend, lets harness it.
5. Blurred boundaries. Between virtual and Physical. We don’t differentiate the two as easy. We switch between virtual and physical shopping without thinking. We switch between virtual and physical sources of informaiton such as tv, newsprint vs internet and we don’t bat an eye.
6. In between spaces- There is no down time, it used to be a new york Minute, now its an internet second. We utilize every second we have to interact with each other or to receive or disseminate information
7. Re-invention - we are reinventing the way we do things and this is driven by our seniors. We used to think our youth is our future but it will become increasingly apparant that our seniors will also play a large part in our futures. They have time, knowledge and experience and happily will not go quietly into that good night. They will be a force for positive change that we can and will harness
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Windsor’s Advantage? … It’s seniors population…Kitchener only has 11.7% seniors, lower than the national average……..Windsor has 14.1%, higher than the national average of 13.7%.
Downtown’s first priority has to be getting more of those seniors to live downtown….so far we ar not doing a very good job.
Places like Sunrise and Glengarda, which is marketed in large part to active seniors, must be developed downtown…………but anytime you suggest to the city that it must restrict ad hoc development and target development to specific areas, our city council gets weak in the knees.
Kitchener is also having problems similar to ours with panhandlers rubbing shoulders with the clientele of upscale food places downtown and random violence…there must be a discussion about the bad being allowed to drive out the good at some point.
I am very familiar with Kitchener’s downtown renewal efforts…this is their third major infusion of cash in ten years…..for geographic reasons that are somewhat similar to ours, many of these initiatives have failed to “take”
Are they good ideas? Sure.
Would I be in favour of it? For the most part.
Would I trust $100 million in Mayor Eddie Francis’ hands? No.
Would I trust this City Council with $100 million? No.
Mark, these are some good ideas but this is not the Council and Mayor that we can trust to do it and use the money wisely.
If we started now the fund would’t probably be accessible until after the next election. That election would determine who managed it.
If we don’t start now, then the next council will have no tools or resources with which to improve our city.
Kitchener has incentives to increase residential downtown, we have none.
Natale…Your concern can be addressed through a fund set up through the Greater Windsor Community Foundation…….I believe that they can set up a separate fund for specific community projects. The Fund is not administered by the city.
Just curious - why should the county then contribute towards this economic development fund if the primary beneficiary will be downtown Windsor?
The same question came to my mind Chris, the mayor of Kitchener didn’t mention anything about the surrounding suburban towns etc. contibuting to that city’s fund. I can’t see the burb town around here contributing to a fund that might be used to rebuild the core of this city. Our mayor is on his own in this one.
Chris, Glad you asked that question.
Kitchener’s fund was paid for by their entire region. In a new study released on CEO’s for cities entitled “Driven to the Brink” they show when the housing bubble burst that not only did suburb’s housing prices fall more than urban house prices but…
Housing prices in suburbs and exurbs around week urban centers fell far more than housing prices in suburbs and exurbs around strong urban centers and core’s
Those in the suburbs and exurbs that think they can simply ignore and abandon the core with no consequence are wrong. The chickens are coming home to roost.