What have you done for me lately?
So, it seems that the parasite is trying to take some bigger bites out of its host!
The audacity of Mayor McNamara to ask Windsor to compensate Tecumseh residents is astounding. How about acknowledging the compensation Tecumseh residents get by having access to a symphony, art gallery and amenities that they continually refuse to pay for. Tecumseh has many opportunities to be compensated by participating in a regional transit system which would create a win-win for both Windsor and Tecumseh which it continually stonewalls. Tecumseh is already compensated from a province that sees, hears and speaks no evil when it comes to lack of regional cooperation in Essex county, unlike in Ottawa, London, Kitchener, and Waterloo where true regional government prevails benefiting the entire population. Maybe if Mayor McNamara started looking at the whole pie instead of just his piece, he’d get far more compensation for the citizens of Tecumseh and wouldn’t seek to gain from Windsor’s pain.
Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong, though. Readers of this blog no doubt know how detrimental the relationship between the city and the ‘burbs remains. Mayor McNamara is garishly vocalizing to everyone that “entitlement” mindset that has been defined as “freeloading” by some.
Maybe now more people will question this unhealthy relationship and begin asking the tough questions?
Maybe we should send McNamara some roses from the Rose City?
Post Feedback
No, you haven’t got the wrong perspective!! Tecumseh, Lasalle, Lakeshore, Essex are all leaches have been for over fifty years! I’ve said it for thirty years and I will say it again..forget help from the province…go ahead annex them and I don’t care how long it takes or how loud they squeal!
I was going to post this in news for next week but it is relevant now:
Survey: Suburbanites want city amenities http://tiny.cc/FLUxl
“Today’s suburban workers and residents miss the amenities of cities and some would even change jobs or move to get perks such as public transit and cultural diversity,according to a survey commissioned by the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority.
Out of the 28 percent of 1,000 American respondents who work in the suburbs, nearly half — 47 percent — wish that their working environment offered more…..”
I lived in Tecumseh for the first 20 years of my life. I moved close to downtown Windsor just under 2 months ago.
During those 20 years, mostly from the age of 16 to 19, I’d always say “I hate Windsor, I can’t wait to get out of here”.
In the past year, I started spending more and more time in Windsor proper, and I realized that it’s not Windsor that I hate, I hated Tecumseh.
There is NO public transportation, and the Mayor doesn’t want to foot the bill to have Transit Windsor expand.
Once I found my way to Forest Glade Drive, all it took was $1.70 and the city became my playground.
I can say now, that I am happy to live in Windsor. Yes, despite the lack of jobs, the strikeS (I use Vet cab on occasion) and the reputation, I am happy.
So happy, in fact, that I have a 519 tattoo, and I plan on getting a rose right next to it.
Shit Chris! I said the exact same thing yesterday when I heard! I called him and his “town” a parasite because that is exactly what it is. It preys on the host that is Windsor until Windsor is no more (look at Oakland County as an example as it preyed on Detroit for years until it didn’t need Detroit any longer).
His residents do get reimbursed by not paying for the daycare they are not receiving. Case closed!
This is just another McNamara stance where he loves to put the fly in the ointment. One never to build bridges or come to a regional consensus but instead divide and fight. He sees the metro Detroit area and is using the same tactics here. Is he another L. Brook Patterson in disguise? I think so.
A bit of Schadenfreude but I can’t wait until his infrastructure starts to crumble and then watch their tax rates fly! But then they will all up and move to Lakeshore. Those taxes can’t stay small fall forever. And on and on and on it goes…
From Fairfax County survey: go here: http://tiny.cc/bfPQG
…“The survey results show that a large number of people who work and live in the suburbs want more options where they live and work, and it illustrates the wisdom of communities such as Fairfax County that envision a transformation into more urbanized areas that can offer those choices,” said Gerald L. Gordon, Ph.D., president and CEO of the FCEDA. “The Transforming Fairfax conference will highlight what suburban communities can and should do to be well-positioned as the strong business communities of the future.”
Of those who work in the suburbs, about three in 10 (28 percent) of survey respondents, nearly half (47 percent) wish that their working environment offered more, such as:
• More parks and other open spaces nearby (23 percent)
• Broader array of employers and work environments (20 percent)
• Access to convenient public transportation (17 percent)
• Greater cultural diversity (16 percent)
• A more walkable environment (14 percent)
• Proximity to housing options (12 percent)
Not quite half (47 percent) of suburban workers say they would change jobs or employers to work in a location that offered more of these characteristics, while 52 percent said they would not.
Of those who live in the suburbs, about (32 percent) of survey respondents, half (51 percent) said they wish their community had a wider wide variety of offerings, including:
• Access to convenient public transportation (23 percent)
• A broad array of housing options (22 percent)
• A more walkable environment (22 percent)
• Arts, sporting events and other entertainment options (21 percent)
• Greater cultural diversity (19 percent)
• Employment closer to where they live (17 percent)
More than half (52 percent) of suburban residents say they would move to a community that offered more of these qualities.
Nicole, I felt the same way when my family moved from Peterborough to Toronto in the early sixties…25 cents and TO was mine! Red Rockets and the Subway…I thought I died and had gone to heaven!!!
McNamara and all the other like Dukes should worry because when the auto industry goes in this area, they are going to really feel it with all those ex-Windsorites loose their homes and go into bankruptcy, then have to come back into Windsor to look for social assistance and housing! That is when we in Windsor should make them pay….for their foolishness in thinking that they could escape higher taxes!!!!
It is just not the amenities that they don’t pay for but the cost of social housing and welfare. I say let them go through a city of Windsor immigratrion review, to see if they qualify to return to Windsor.
Now hold on fellas. I know that McNamara has opened his mouth and spewed nothing but ignorance, but alienating suburbanites is no way to strengthen Windsor. Really, with the tide of Peak Oil beginning to come in, the collapse of the automotive sector and the reality of an aging infrastructure, suburbanites will be feeling the consequences of their decisions soon enough. Let McNamara spout off at the mouth — but don’t let that affect the core of what ScaleDown is all about.
Co-operation should be the first approach.
But if that does not bear fruit, studies show that a double cordon toll (one around the city limit and another around the core) gets as close to the ideal situation as possible. Technology is making this more affordable and thus viable by each passing day.
If we toll edgies and suburbanites to properly reflect the added cost their behavior dumps on our region then it does not matter if 30 some percent of CUPE workers don’t live in Windsor, or if they want to widen Manning Road, or what ever else they feel is important for their community.
I’m happily awaiting peak oil, and the collapse of unsustainable sprawl.
Uhh, unless I was mistaken, I thought unsustainable sprawl was already collapsing?!? Anyway else notice the SW USA and the swaths of for sale or foreclosed McMansions?
I don’t know — maybe CNN is lying
I hope you enjoy paying much more for everything. I’m not saying your comment is wrong or right, just that peak oil affects much more than the price of gasoline.
This is the thing I see ScaleDown existing for - to make the fall surviveable and easier. We’re not causing or accelerating the global resource crisis, just trying to prepare for it as much as possible. There is a ton of exerience in local-living out there (urban agriculture, DIY projects, etc.) that the bulk of citizens have forgot, there’s tons of communities out there who are taking back control of their lives, and we need to learn as mch as we can from all of them.
We just have to figure out how to explain these concepts to people in terms they not only understand but accept. That will be the hard part.
I don’t think anyone is seriously enjoying what we all know is coming!
…i see signs that indicate there are lines, but the grass looks green on both sides of the sign. its amazing that no matter how big or small the lines get, our property line, our street lines, our cities and county lines, provincial lines, country and continental lines, we continue to fight and argue over who has dominion over this or that or him or her. There is no collective vision. As I wrote to the Star, who will probably never print the letter, collaboration, cooperation, shared visions and dreams do not exist within the leadership of our vacinity (windsor, windsor councillors, mayors, provincial and federal governments, etc.)
I see no line where those two signs stand.
s.
I guess this type of feuding plays well with the voters
Geez Chris, you shouldn’t keep encouraging that type of fighting with posts like yours
I have a more opposite relationship where I have been working off the county and living in the city. But at least they way I do it, My house taxes are not subsidizing any of those county bike lanes on county road 42 or any other of the main roads. Oh, Wait, thats right there arent any.
And everyone laughed at the Bacon Man for suggesting setting up toll booths at the edge of city.
The people in the burbs will never understand how unsustainable their expansion to save a $1,000 bucks a year in taxes actually is until peak oil truly hits home. Its coming, and they will all pay in the end… probably more!
As much as I’m absolutely disgusted by the rapid expansion in Tecumseh, Lakeshore etc, we don’t gain a thing by being divisive. I think we all must move beyond and be better than the broken politics and politicians who have been doing a pretty good job ensuring that a collective regional response/plan to address long term sustainability can not occur.
I want to expand on this for a future post, but I’ll delve into it here…
It seems as though we are perpetually putting out fires in our society. Windsor’s woes are not unique, as many metro areas are dealing with the expansion into the unsustainable ‘burbs just like us.
We scream about the suburbs draining the financial and cultural blood out of the city. We wax poetic about the traffic and pollution the automotive-based transportation mode brings with it to our citizens. We write angry letters to council about the municipal decisions being made to accomodate this modal split, when we cannot afford to provide for both lifestyle choices.
In the end, we will never be able to address each and every reason individuals and families choose to move out into the bedroom communities. They are far too numerous. We need to address the core reason all this is happening, and that is the fact that we’ve allowed our urban cores to degenerate into areas where people do not want to be.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller
To throw on my capitalist cap, we need to produce a better product. We will never legislate behavior around the numerous loopholes that allow the suburbs to exist. We need to make Windsor proper THE place where people and their families want to live,work and play.
People need to make the individual choice to live a more urbane lifestyle, and they will only do that when it offers them a higher quality of life than the suburbs do.
So, let’s move beyond the urban/suburban battle that we always seem to fall back into. I am as guilty as anyone in perpetuating this. Let’s focus on designing a Windsor that makes the ‘burbs seem a cartoon version of the good life. Design a transportation system that is fast, efficient and inexpensive. Design neighbourhoods that are safe, attractive and affordable.
Eggs will need to be broken when making this omelette, so let’s get cracking. In the end, this will be our only otion for moving forward.
So, why wait?
That is a mighty small capitalist hat you have. I think you meant to say design “a public transportation system that has traffic light priority, separate right-of-ways and subsidized from general revenue” instead of “a transportation system that is fast, efficient and inexpensive”.
Traffic is not a major issue in this city - and I have a huge bias in that I lived, went to university and worked in Toronto. A 30-minute commute (either by car or by public transit) is a godsend in the GTA. Commuters in this area have it easy. Cheap land and minimal driving issues make it difficult to design neighbourhoods that are safe, attractive and affordable, when people think their existing neighbourhood is safe, attractive and affordable.
My first question to you is “what do you define as suburban” in Windsor? Is Fountainebleau suburban? Or are we talking East Riverside? LaSalle? Tecumseh? Lakeshore? Is it only suburban if people can only drive there? What if we built LRT out to Tecumseh, Essex and LaSalle, would that be okay?
If you consider LaSalle suburban, then how do you respond to that municipality’s desire to build compact and walkable neighbourhoods? To promote local commercial developments? To build a top-notch recreational facility? And so on? In some ways, LaSalle’s Official Plan is far more advanced versus Windsor’s OP when it comes to the whole “new urbanism” point-of-view.