The Dome Will Solve All Our Problems.
Emmet Matheson links to this article about Regina’s proposed domed stadium which gets me more fired up than anything I have read in a while which is saying a lot since I’ve been closely following Americans misrepresenting Canada’s healthcare system. A couple of key quotes from Kevin Blevins’ article:
“A city is many things, and it can’t just be about trying to solve poverty issues, which seems to be Elliott’s position over and over again. You also have to do something for the great majority of people who are paying their way: gainfully working, employing people, paying their taxes.”
It’s nice to think of the less fortunate, but in a city like Regina, where unemployment is at an all-time low, the less fortunate are clearly the minority. Building a large downtown entertainment centre that will host football games, concerts and conventions is about making our city better and stronger in the longterm. It will draw people to the downtown, and that will create business: new restaurants, new hotels. Conventions will bring more people to the city to eat in those restaurants and stay in those hotels. So will major concerts.
This is all well and good though from an editor, I expect at least some evidence or investigation even from Op-Ed pieces. As one remarked on Twitter: “Was someone just paid to write that sentence?”.
This online journal bears no resemblance to nor carries the pedegree of journalism so it seems fair to do some editorializing of my own. As a citizen, I would say that instead of building a domed stadium to revitalize our downtown, we could do simple things like building a city owned parkade to repair some of the damage done by Impark and make parking for the people that wish to shop downtown, re-imagine public transportation in the city, provide tax breaks to entrepreneurs who wish to situate downtown as relief from unbelievable commercial lease rates, quit moving all services and development to the edges of our city. What is the incentive to business to locate in our core when we keep (quickly) opening other areas of the city to commercial development? Ever been to Stephen Avenue Mall in Calgary? It’s pretty awesome. Theaters, shopping, dining. I don’t know how they do it! Unheard of. Our city has one active commercial street in our downtown and it’s an embarrassment. Whatever happened to revitalizing 11th Ave.? What the F is going on with Rose and Hamilton? Was there an air strike here that I was unaware of? I’m embarrassed that this city is so gung-ho for a new stadium while one whole are of our city has been pointed out again and again as a horrible display of poverty in Canada. Truly disheartening.