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This article was published 13/10/2014 (2169 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Winnipeg's population is increasing only because of immigration. Its downtown is expanding largely because of public subsidies. Crime rates in the city remain high and social inequity is growing. Roads are crumbling, civic services are declining and taxes are rising in an attempt to keep up with the low-density, sprawling city we have decided to build. The people chosen in Winnipeg's upcoming municipal election will have a number of significant challenges ahead.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Dedicated bike lanes, such as this one on Sherbrook Street, are attractive features to younger city-dwellers.

The difficult solution to many of the city's issues is to increase opportunity and prosperity for its citizens, improving their quality of life, growing the economy and civic revenue.

In business, the greatest success is rarely the result of following trends. Wealth comes from being ahead of the curve, predicting and investing in what's coming next. A city is no different. Prosperity, particularly in this age of unparalleled mobility, can only be achieved by building a city that inspires and attracts the next generation.

Often called generation Y, 18- to 35-year-olds make up the largest demographic in North America today, with the greatest spending power and highest level of mobility. Their lifestyle choices will have a significant effect on the economy and competitiveness of cities across the continent. Those that are most successful at retaining and attracting a young, creative population will flourish in the future.

Winnipeg loses 3,000 to 5,000 (mostly young) people per year to other provinces, yet we continue to focus on creating the city of our postwar dreams. Our auto-centric urban-design template has taken the city from being a place with unique neighbourhoods and a distinct personality to one filled with low-density, cul-de-sac development, making it indistinguishable from any other.

Cities across North America are beginning to understand the baby boomer, suburban dream is less often the dream of the next generation.

North American young people are showing a clear shift to a mobile and flexible lifestyle supported by a greater level of density and urbanization. They live in smaller spaces than their parents did when they were young, focussing more on the dream neighbourhood than the dream house. For the first time, car ownership is dropping across the continent. In 2009, American youth drove 23 per cent less than they did in 2001. During that same period, bike trips increased by 24 per cent and walking rose by 16 per cent. Canadian transit ridership is growing at twice the rate of the population, and more than 100,000 of us belong to car-share programs.

These statistics show young people are gravitating in larger numbers to a lifestyle that is much more urban than past generations did. Walkable streets, vibrant public spaces and accessible amenities are beginning to replace the two-car garage and sprawling front-yard dream. The cities Winnipeg often loses its young people to, the places we compete with for investment, immigration and tourism are looking to the future, reacting to and investing in these changing trends.

In Ottawa, city council recently voted unanimously to invest $4 billion in its rapid-transit system. In Alberta, civic elections are fought over which neighbourhoods will get the next LRT lines. These cities see transit investment as an opportunity for growth, as well as the solution to potholes, congestion and infrastructure deficits. Yet in Winnipeg, we continue to debate the very value of rapid transit. If you were a young person looking to connect to a city, or a company official looking to relocate, which ones would you consider to be more progressive, more invested in the future?

Vancouver and Montreal are greatly expanding their cycling infrastructure to meet the lifestyle demands of the next generation. Downtown living is exploding in Calgary and Edmonton. Overall, Canadian suburbs are becoming more dense, adding on average more than 126 people per square kilometre from 2006 to 2011. In Winnipeg, however, when changes to zoning bylaws were proposed last year to promote density and infill growth, public outcry made civic politicians balk. Commercial development on main arteries such Academy Road have recently been inexplicably opposed by neighbours fearing change, as we continue to instinctively resist densification and build our city on the unsustainable ideals of the past.

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At some point, Winnipeg's leadership will have to deliver and enforce the unpopular message that we can't be opposed to higher taxes, growing debt, potholes and reduced services, while at the same time opposing density, infill growth and investment in active and public transportation. The latter is necessarily the solution to the former. It is inevitably the future. Do we want to fall behind the other cities that already understand this and are taking major steps toward these goals? Do we continue down the same path and off-load our unsustainable city on to the backs of today's youth? Or do we want to pass them an efficient, sustainable city that allows them to find their lifestyle choices here instead of somewhere else?

A place that inspires, a place that connects, a place with walkable, active neighbourhoods and a vibrant urban core, is the future other cities are striving to create. It is the future many young people are looking for. Investment in the infrastructure that promotes urban living and suburban density will provide the opportunity and the lifestyle choices the next generation is seeking. This will not only bring economic growth, it will translate to a more compact, efficient city that is the holistic solution to everyday issues such as poor snow-clearing and crumbling roads.

Young people don't leave Winnipeg because of potholes, photo radar or even taxes. They leave for opportunity and lifestyle. They leave to find a city they can fall in love with. The answer to creating prosperity in Winnipeg is to inspire the next generation. On voting day an important question to ask is, which leaders have the big-picture vision to build a city that our sons and daughters will fall in love with, so they stay here, invest here and prosper here.

Brent Bellamy is senior design architect for Number Ten Architectural Group.

bbellamy@numberten.com