Post-awesome: a prairie movement

You know what’s post-awesome? Large scale urban ‘revitalization’ projects that require multi-level government spending that leave huge holes in the ground while the finances are sorted out.

Halifax has an existing Convention Centre, the Halifax Metro Centre (top photo). However, it was felt that this centre wasn’t meeting the convention needs of the maritime city. A plan was cooked up to build a higher, faster, stronger centre one block away from the existing facility. All in the name of, you guessed it, downtown revitalization.

Despite concerns about the impact of the new centre on the city core, in March 2010 Halifax tore down an entire city block in the heart of the city in preparation for the new project. Demolition was over a year ago, and yet they’re still haggling over how to pay for it. And thus the hole in the ground on Argyle Street, across from the Economy Shoe Shop and the Seahorse Tavern, languishes today. It’s the most depressing sight (site) in the country. This project was supposed to be a “no-brainer”, according to the city’s mayor. However, a whole year later the project is stalled and the taxpayers will ultimately be on the hook for this mishandled project. 

The Coast ran an article on April 10, 2010 in which they interviewed professor Heywood Sanders, an expert on convention centres and urban planning from Texas. This quote really sums up the realities of large scale ‘revitalization’ projects in cities like Halifax and Edmonton:

“The first part is the assumption that, simply and somewhat amusingly put, you will build it and they will come,” he says. “They don’t always come. You build a new or expanded convention centre based on a consultant’s study that says more people will come, and you don’t in the end get nearly as many people as the consultants say you will. In a very large number of cases, you don’t get any new people, it turns out.”

So why do these projects persist, despite the fuzzy science behind their claims of revitalizing cities? 

“His answer: local elites—-the chambers of commerce, the politicians, the development industry, the convention centre managers—-want to revitalize downtowns in ways that don’t cost them personally, but from which they can personally profit through governmental expenditures, construction contracts, bigger managerial salaries and more votes. As Sanders says, “They propose these things because they work for them.””

Sound familiar? 

Let’s take a moment, too, to revel in the fantastic beauty of the renderings for the proposed Centre (middle right photo). Isn’t it magnificent in its towering glass and stucco beauty? So, hip! So now! So “I’m going to raise this beautiful historic city core out of its backwards looking myopia and launch it directly into the happening swagger of an Idaho commercial district!”. And so worthy of $327 million of taxpayer’s dollars!

Three cheers for greed over need.

Further reading: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1257383.html

*Photo 1 is mine. Photos 2 and 3 via the Coast (http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/the-convention-centre-rescue-plan/Content?oid=1588177)

You can watch a video of the demolition here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4yeFa19WRs