By Jeremy Derksen / Illustration by Rodrigo Lopez Orozco
The sign says, “ALWAYS THE BEST!” in cheery, though slightly faded, red capital letters, with the exclamation point leaning to the right like a person casually leaning against one of the theatre’s grey stone walls. It’s perched on the side of Burton Cummings Theatre, in Winnipeg’s newly gentrified Exchange District. Built at the turn of the 20th century, the theatre is nothing architecturally remarkable, but it’s a remnant of a time when Winnipeg was one of the fastest growing cities in North America thanks to the booming grain industry.
The building is also one of many heritage properties scattered through the roughly 20 blocks that make up this revitalized business area. In the Exchange District, you can shake on a deal under a pillared heritage building, entertain clients at the Forks and then walk home along a riverside trail. Think of it as the urban planning version of a work-life balance. You might say that Winnipeg is, along with countless cities through North America, trying to achieve as a metropolis the same work-life balance that many of us are looking for as individuals. “It’s basically a puzzle and you’ve got to have all the pieces: active transportation, affordable housing with easy access, attractions and integrated communities,” says Sam Katz, its pro-business mayor.
The results of poor urban planning – congested streets, cubicle farms filled with the dim hum of processed air and corridors of sunshine-blocking skyscrapers – have a profound influence on our working lives. Career opportunities, income, cost of living, lifestyle, even our ability to find a mate, are affected by our choice of location, Richard Florida points out in his recent book Who’s Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life. “We owe it to ourselves to think about the relationship between place and our economic future, as well as our personal happiness, in a more systematic – if different – way,” Florida writes.
This idea, though never more revelant, first surfaced almost a half century ago. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs envisioned a thriving city premised on greater density, diversity and walk-ability, with affordable housing near transit routes and streets bustling with cafés, grocery stores and theatres. Parks and gardens would break up the concrete monotony. The year: 1961, nine years before Joni Mitchell’s folk-anthem “Big Yellow Taxi” decried paving paradise to put up a parking lot.
Pages: 1 2
Leave a Reply
