, Canada

NMM in Winnipeg

Winnipeg is an isolated city on the Canadian Prairies – the area exceeded 350km2. Despite continued slow population - closest major centre is Minneapolis, Minnesota, eight hours growth, large new residential neighbourhoods and commer- bourhoods lobby for new facilities. drive south. Its location marked the gateway to the fertile cial “power centres” are still being built on the south side of Prairies while topography and geology funnelled railways the city. In a time frame that saw the population increase by This expansion of the urban footprint and a rapidly increas- through the city. Early expansion was fuelled by agricultural one third, the footprint of the city more than doubled. and transportation roles. The downtown liberalism where the City government and its pro-business - The growth at the fringe is happening at the expense of the mayor support developers’ agendas – arguing that home tury warehouse buildings that attest to its former economic Downtown and the inner city. Although Downtown still pro- builders know best what customers want – and are set on strength. vides 25% of the city’s employment, only 2% of the popula- continuing a thirteen year property tax freeze, while reduc- tion call the core “home.” Those who continue to live in the ing business taxes. Although economic circumstances changed with the open- inner city tend to be lower income households and the cen- ing of the Panama Canal – reducing the importance of trans- tre of the city accommodates much of the city’s fast growing The city’s political and business leaders desire growth and Canada rail transportation – the population continued to aboriginal population. However, it lacks the general ameni- grow rapidly, fuelled by post-war immigration and the Baby ties of everyday life (grocery stores, pharmacies, etc.) and not simply taken into account the possibility of population Boom. However, since the early 1960s, growth has slowed. Downtown is no longer a preferred shopping or entertain- growth, but have required this growth (growth that has not Between 1961 and 2001, the population grew from 475,989 ment destination for most Winnipeggers. occurred). They have approved new suburbs (e.g. Waver- to 619,544, less than 1% annually. ley West) that provide an illusion of growth but increase the This pattern of development and distribution of wealth has - Since the 1960s, the footprint of the city has continued to ship projects to attract global attention (e.g. Canadian Mu- Canada 9’984’670Km2 * Inhabitants 34’019’000 expand and at rates that far outstrip demographic growth. seum of Human Rights); all of these without improving the In 1961, Winnipeg’s urbanized area covered approximate- the increased use of automobiles and demands for wider lives of the city’s most vulnerable inhabitants. Urban Region 7’500Km2 * Inhabitants 750’000 ly 150 km2. By 1991 this had doubled, and in 2005 the and faster roads; schools and recreation centres in the cen-

Inner Ring Road

CentrePort Proposed

McPhillips / Garden City

Failed Projects in the Centre: Ukranian Labour Temple CanWest Tower Shopping Concorse Commodity Exchange Tower and Winnipeg Square Portage Place Shopping Mall Winnipeg Convention Centre New Airport Terminal Aboriginal Centre Circle of Life Thunderbird House Jazz Festival Market Square Fringe Festival Mondragon/Natural Cycle Regent Avenue Eco-Network Spence Neighbourhood Association CanWest Park Baseball Stadium Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Esplanade Reil “The Elms” University of Winnipeg Expansion Canadian Museum for Human Rights The Forks West Broadway Development Corporation River Walk /Skating Trail Polo Park River Walk /Skating Trail

Proposed BRT Transitway

Bus Rapid Transit Phase 1

Legend Urban Region Central areas

Areas of State-Led Reinvestment / Areas of Urban Regeneration Areas of Private Reinvestment / Areas of Intense Neighbourhood Upgrading

Trendy Neighbourhoods

Tuxedo Yards/Ikea Gated Communities / Exclusionary Zones

Areas of Privatization Bus Rapid Transit Phase 2

Very High Income Area St Vital Centre Areas of disinvestment

Subcentres

McGillvary Blvd. and Kenaston Blvd. Strategic Urban Infrastructure Projects

Flagship Projects

Events

Failed and Grounded (large) Projects New Stadium Informal Settlements

Spaces and Places of Resistance / Alternatives scale 1:25.000 other Other: Failed (Uncertain) Project: Flagship Project: Failed (Uncertain) Project: Aboriginal & Métis Populations Waverly West Development Canadian Museum of Human Rights Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

Aboriginal, Métis and Inuit Populations (2006) Purpose Purpose Purpose Canada: 1,172,790 (3.8%) Intended as a showcase suburb with environmentally friendly, A new national museum to promote the understanding of

Manitoba: 175,395 (15%) new urbanist design standards. The sales pitch included human rights (projected to open in 2012). on regional streets, decrease need for expansion of roads, Winnipeg: 68,380 (10%) geothermal heating, front porches, back lanes, a village bridges, and parking supply, reduce greenhouse gas Dimensions emissions and strengthen the Downtown. Stage 1 of the 2 2 Population Growth 2001-2006 Under construction but delivering few of the promises. 4,400m (47,000 feet ) of exhibit space, with a 100m tall glass Canada total growth 5.4% “tower of hope” adding to the city’s skyline and providing Downtown with the suburban . Winnipeg total growth 2.2% Dimensions views to the horizon. Over 12 km 2 encompassing about 10,000 housing units in 6 Winnipeg Aboriginal growth 22.0% Dimensions new neighbourhoods and a central commercial district. Project Costs Stage 1: 3.6 km transitway; Stage 2: 6 km transitway $310 million (CAD) and rising. Unemployment Rates 2006 Project Costs Project Costs Investors/Developers $138 million for construction the Southwest Rapid Transit Non-aboriginal 3.4% Public-private partnership between federal, provincial Aboriginal 9.1% home per year. Actual capital costs are higher than initial Corridor (Stage 1). Stage 2 has no funding commitment. estimates and costs for city services were underestimated. & municipal governments, The Forks North Portage Partnership and private donors. The CMHR will receive its Investors/Developers Living in Poverty Investors/Developers operational funding from the federal government. City, Provincial, and Federal funding programs. Non-aboriginal 16% The Province of Manitoba and Ladco Company Ltd. Aboriginal 43% Architects Architects/Planners Architects/Planners Antoine Predock Architect PC, Albuquerque MN GPP Architecture; Dillon Consulting; McGowan Russell; ND LEA Engineers and Planners Ltd. Smith Carter Architects & Engineers Inc., Winnipeg MB Landmark Planning and Design Inc.

Circle of Life Thunderbird House. Architect: Douglas Car dinal Bridgwater Forest Neighbourhood, Waverley West CMHR Architect’s Rendering Proposed BRT Vehicle

http://www.livinginwaverleywest.com/popgallery.aspx?pic_id=47&cat_id=8 http://www.predock.com/CMHR/CMHR.html http://myride.winnipegtransit.com/assets/241/Southwest_Rapid_Transit_Corridor_-_Stage_1_-_April_2010_Public_Open_House_Boards.pdf Background Context Background Context Background Context Background Context Winnipeg is home to the largest urban Aboriginal population The optimism of Winnipeg’s early years has persisted. Planning for the museum was started by the late media Winnipeg’s existing transit system is treated as a luxury in Canada and the city as a whole betrays deeply mixed Many decades of slow growth reality has not dampened the mogul and billionaire Izzy Asper, whose daughter has since good by the City (i.e., restricted hours) and designed to be feelings about this. Main stream culture and media dreams and fevered desires for a fast growth and a rapidly taken on the project. Once completed, the CMHR will be the transportation of last resort (used primarily by the poor, show both a pride in the size of the Aboriginal and Métis evolving urban landscape. senior citizens and people with disabilities). population – as if it was a great tourist attraction – while (Canada’s capital). Waverley West represents the most recent, and most While plans for rapid transit date back to the 1950s, recent simultaneously displaying overt as well as subtle systemic outrageous, example of development in Winnipeg that fails The site is located on The Forks National Historic Site, where planning began in 2004. When the current mayor came into racism. Every aspect of civic life is effected by and in turn to take into account the current realities of being a slow the Red and Assiniboine Rivers meet. Aboriginal people power later that year, he cancelled plans for the 50 million growth winter city. With a declining inner city, decaying have used this junction as a meeting place for over 6,000 BRT project and redirected the funds to pay for new and unwillingness at the municipal level to acknowledge this years. The Forks is now a mixed-use “festival market” area renovated recreation centres. He later commissioned a cultural divide, and no political will to change. Waverley West commits Winnipeg to a further diffusion of that includes recreational, historical, cultural and commercial Task Force to further study RT development, resulting in city resources. Decreasing density and a thinner tax base uses. There is a strong sense of public ownership over The additional delays. The Task Force recommended virtually This absence of discussion and outright refusal to face Forks and recent proposals to build housing on the site have the same plan that was proposed earlier. service base. In a slow growth city, rapid expansion at the sparked controversy and debate. historic injustices, along with their contemporary results, Three years later, in 2008 as oil prices peaked, the City means that Winnipeg is hobbled and blinded in its efforts fringes comes at the expense of the older neighbourhoods and the downtown core, and serves a narrow demographic to grow, change and serve the people, businesses and This project is a deliberate exercise in city image building. of the Southwest BRT Corridor. However, when the City organizations that live and work within. Civic involvement with slice of the overall population. Aboriginal and Métis populations is often based on cultural Antoine Predock, is being touted by politicians and museum to Phase 2. This year, with the Phase 1 under construction, stereotypes, misinformation and poor communication. It’s organizers as “Winnipeg’s Bilbao”. The CMHR is being the mayor is openly musing about changing course again, Waverley West was predicated on the continuing illusion really hard to claim to be building a city for everyone when promoted as a major tourist attraction and as a catalyst for to light rail, and has commissioned yet another study, and promise of fast growth. The Manitoba Homebuilders the fastest growing segment of the population is excluded. Downtown regeneration. creating further delays in the implementation. Council has Association, along with other organizations, created a false not allocated funds for the Stage 2, and is proposing to use Historical Context sense of panic about the lack of available lots suitable for new Unlike the “Bilbao effect” (in which the Guggenheim Museum federal money to repair roads and bridges. housing developments. Population and demand projections was one piece of a broader and long-term commitment to natural meeting and trading location for Aboriginal people continue to be overstated. As Waverley West develops, regeneration), the CMHR is driven primarily by the private for thousands of years. Gradual contact with European demand is lagging far behind developer projections. sector and can only be considered an ad-hoc attempt, if The BRT project is representative of the NMM in two cultures brought waves of change to traditional ways of life. any, at urban regeneration. distinct yet contradictory ways. In its uncompleted state, Initial contact led to the establishment of the fur trade as well Deals and Stakeholders Winnipeg’s BRT system is a massively delayed project Stakeholders and their interests as devastating depopulation from European diseases. The with an uncertain prospect. It remains a marginal project The Asper family has been the driving force behind this growth in the fur trade led to the creation of Métis culture and being developed, by the (vaguely social democratic) controlled by the interests of a select group of politicians. project; they believe that a national cultural institution can alongside the Aboriginal and European cultures. Trade provincial government. The Province, as proponent and The public is denied authentic access to the process and exist outside the national capital and that Canada’s social and mutual support transformed into outright colonization. developer, is also the regional development regulator.. ultimately the product. This was accomplished through a process of government history should be told. surveys, white settlement and military repression of Métis The second largest landowner is Ladco, a private developer Sustainable and active transportation has become a general independence efforts. Treaties with Aboriginal people that will see the value of its properties increase dramatically ideological and physical architectural standard of the through provincial and municipal infrastructure investments, metropolitan. If realized, the BRT project has the potential to vested interests in the project remains unclear. The promise such as the extension of regional highways. Almost none of become a key element in creating a dominant urban culture order to free up land for newcomers - while the Canadian of federal funding may be a thinly veiled attempt to gain this increased value will be captured by the public. that acknowledges a new understanding of quality of life. favour with Winnipeg voters. The public sector has loosely As the population of immigrants swelled the Canadian The University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecture also Deals government adopted a policy of Aboriginal assimilation. facilitated a design charrette that gave the developers the industry and downtown renewal. The municipal government Each iteration of the BRT project has involved some This policy saw the invention and use of numerous coercive language and ideas they needed to sell this project. provided in-kind contribution - the land. form of funding arrangement between the three levels of tools intended to eradicate Aboriginal culture. Examples government. The City’s recent decision to re-evaluate its Impacts The CMHR will operate as a national crown corporation include mobility restrictions, denial of voting rights, and governed by a board of trustees. The lack of diversity of board plans for BRT in light of new evidence of lower LRT costs Despite the “new urbanism” sales pitch, Waverley West will it was illegal for them to be in the presence of a lawyer. members has been criticized, as well as the appointment has sparked some suspicion (that the mayor is using this increase car dependency, as the commercial district will be Aboriginal children were enrolled in residential schools and of the CEO has raised controversy. The CEO is a former appeal of a sexier option as a way to delay doing anything) segregated from the residential elements by a highway, and forced to learn English. Traditional Aboriginal ceremonies, conservative member or parliament opposed adoption and the isolated low-density development coupled makes public customs and governance structures were suppressed and pension rights for same-sex couples. and transit advocates. transit too expensive to be effective. replaced by “Indian Agents” and The Indian Act . Only in the Impacts last two or three generations have many different Aboriginal Deals The increased car dependency will further increase the The lack of a conclusive decision-making and commitment to and Métis peoples have begun to reclaim a place in the The federal government has committed 22 million in annual demand for cheap/free parking in the downtown and inner Rapid Transit is troublesome from a planning, environmental Canadian diaspora. city neighbourhoods - creating more pressure to level operating and 100 million in capital funding. Despite this existing buildings to create parking spaces. substantial amount, there has been limited public criticism Contemporary Context or debate on the museum’s reliance on public funding in Winnipeg’sAboriginal, Métis and Inuit population is about 10% Growth at the fringes will further the decline of Winnipeg’s order to be viable. municipal government and the political process. of the population. The city is home to hundreds of Aboriginal core and will force the redirection of social services and infrastructure such as community centres and schools away Impacts Possibly the only positive impact to emerge from the from the inner city and out to the fringes. Tensions about the purpose of the museum cannot be delayed BRT project, is the mobilization and maturation of have succeeded in establishing primary and secondary dismissed – is this a genuine effort to promote human rights local environmental and active transportation activists in the Winnipeg is a winter city, and the extreme temperature schools in Winnipeg’s inner city, reclaiming control over a or is it a tourist enterprise under the guise of human rights City. These individuals and organizations (both informal and portion of their education and development. The provincial or can these two purposes co-exist? pattern of development. It is easier and more cost effective government has worked to devolve the delivery of Aboriginal realized can be directly attributed to their tireless efforts. to deliver high quality and physically warm services such as There are questions about how it will address local human and Métis social services to Aboriginal organizations, giving heated transit shelters in higher density neighbourhoods. rights issues and contribute to improving local conditions. Aboriginal and Métis people greater cultural and social This is particularly relevant, given that only a few city blocks control over themselves. These successes are obscured by away, the City’s growing homeless and disadvantaged negative cultural stereotypes and deep, systemic racism. populations, many of whom are Aboriginal, are lining the Aboriginal and Métis people are over represented in prison streets in need of services. populations and poverty statistics, while underrepresented in mainstream institutions and civic life. Authors: INURA Winnipeg