IKEA comes to Winnipeg. The first thing to do is...
Widen Kenaston!
City studying ways to widen Kenaston
By: Mary Agnes Welch and Bartley Kives
CITY hall is already studying ways to widen the most gridlocked parts of Kenaston Boulevard, a plan in the works before IKEA announced it is coming to town.The city has quietly commissioned an 18-month-study to look at where the road ought to be widened, how much it might cost and where the work should start.
The "functional plan," which is being done by the MMM Group, looks at a long stretch of the major artery from Ness Avenue near Polo Park to Taylor Avenue. The next step is detailed design and construction plans.
But the study doesn't include the small strip south of Taylor that Premier Gary Doer and Mayor Sam Katz pledged to widen Tuesday at a cost of $18.5 million. A functional plan has already been done on that section, and the right-of-way is already owned by the government. Adding two more lanes there is much simpler than buying up homes or expropriating land along the rest of Kenaston.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/city_studying_ways_to_widen_kenaston.html
But on the same day, city hall passed the capital budget plan that cut funds for bike paths!
City council passed the 2009 capital budget this afternoon but it did so to the disappointment of community activists who had earlier pleaded with councillors and Mayor Sam Katz to increase funding for bike paths and pedestrian walkways.
Council voted 11- 4 to approve the $476.1-million public works plan.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/breakingnews/Council_passes_capital_budget.html Outrageous.
A friend of mine just retired and sold out his furniture store business. He said that people don't want quality furniture anymore. They want cheap stuff that looks okay...until they want to toss it and get something new. IKEA fits the bill perfectly.
Personally, I like good-quality furniture that will last for years...preferably decades. I really appreciate hand-crafted work.
_________________________________________________
Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
It doesn't matter. Fifteen years from now it will be an empty shell.
With "it" being...what? Earth?
______________________________________________________
Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
A coordinated campaign of domestic terror and sabotage.
Oh, you mean the first thing the city will do when ikea comes here.
Isn't Sam Katz already doing that?
"Earth will be what it is now. A stinking, rotting, landfill."
You should show some respect to the Earth. She is the only reason any of us live another second. When humans become too much for her to take she'll shake her back and we'll all be gone.
I forget who said it but I always liked the quote (which I will paraphrase as):
"Widening roads to deal with congestion is like loosening your belt to deal with obesity."
This just shows that perhaps Nick Ternette is right. Winnipeg isn't a city (or at least, it won't be if we keep going this way). It's a collection of suburbs with highways going to major retail outlets
That's not a bad assessment. The current Metropolitan arrangement came from the amalgamation of several different cities. (I believe this happened in the '70s under Schreyer.) The core, what used to be just the City of Winnipeg pre-amalgamation, is struggling. I wonder if the City would be better served under a similar arrangement that Toronto used to be under its metropolitan government. What I mean is that Winnipeg is broken up into different cities (Winnipeg, St. Boniface, Kildonan, St. James, Transcona etc) which elect their own councils, and they deal with their own local issues such as parks and recreation. There would then be a Metropolitan government that handled major city services, like transit and protective services.
Interesting...I guess it's a bad thing that almost all the furniture in my apartment is from IKEA... :( The only things in my whole place that aren't is my dresser (got it second-hand from someone about 10 years ago), my son's captain's bed and mattress, the mattress and box spring on my own bed (given to me 10 years ago as well), and one couch in my living room (which came with my apartment).
Why is IKEA worse than any other furniture store? (I'm not asking that in a sarcastic manner - I am genuinely asking for information.) I thought they were at least somewhat okay because they don't use old-growth forests for their furniture, they replace trees they use, etc.
And I don't know about anyone else, but I am still using some IKEA furniture (a desk and hutch) that I got when I was 10 years old (that's 26 years ago for those counting at home). Other pieces are hand-me-downs from my mother, who bought them 20 years ago when my parents separated. So I haven't noticed that it's bad quality or falls apart.
IKEA is basically the only furniture I can afford to buy, short of going to sweatshop emporiums like Walmart and Zellers and getting stuff there. And that stuff DOES fall apart quickly, whereas I find that IKEA stuff is decently engineered to fit well. The only bad experience I've had with IKEA is a children's bed I bought there once for my son.
Right, sort of. They were historically all separate municipalities (e.g. West Kildonan had its own mayor, council, etc.). In 1960, the chamber of commerce pitched a "metropolitan" concept, borrowed from some U.S. cities, and the "Metropolitan Corporation of Greater Winnipeg" (I think) was created that year. It didn't eliminate the separate "townships", but teamed them together to provide transit and some other services. Sort of like the old Communauté Urbaine de Montréal, prior to the screwups of amalgamation and de-amalgamation of this decade.
"Metro" survived till 1971, when it was wound up and replaced by a single municipality, colloquially known as "Unicity". That spelled the final end of all the mayors, town halls, etc.
Should Winnipeg go back? I've been away far too long to judge. But if Nick Ternette and other activists are saying so, I'll lean with them.
Hey, while drifting here, I just heard that Nick is retiring and there's a gala for him this month! Any news about that?
Damn. That's a gala I'd like to be at. But I'm a little too far away now. I will make some inquiries and see what I can see.
I brought up that idea from my own thinking. I don't know if it has come up in other activist circles.
Their 'solid wood' products fared somewhat better, but both shelves and a bed died what I consider premature deaths. It seems to me that Swedish pine is considerably softer than its Canadian counterpart.
I still have one piece of Ikea furniture in the house, nearly 20 years old. I believe it is Malaysian in origin - so it is made of rainforest woods and by third world labour; no different from any Walmart or Pier 1 imported product in terms of environmental impact.
And what of the environmental impact of Ikea products, shipped to their Big Box warehouses from factories on the other side of the world?
I imagine the Swedish workers are better paid than their Chinese counterparts, but in terms of the environment I can see little difference.
Here ya go, N.Beltov:
NICK’S BIRTHDAY/ RETIREMENT BASH!
As a result of continuing health problems after battling - and winning against cancer twice since 2005, Nick is finally going to publically.......
ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?
RETIRE!!!!!
40 years of public life, our Nick is finally taking a much needed rest.
Come and celebrate his
birthday and his many life achievements!
FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2009
WESTMINISTER BOOKSTORE AND CAFÉ
898 WESTMINISTER AVE.
7:00 - 10:00 PM
MC: Lawrie Cherniack
Guest Performer: Singer/Songwriter Sara Kreindler
Sara’s performance ranges from smoky jazz to quirky comedy, from haunting ballads to outrageous satire.
RSVP: by e-mail as there is limited seating - ternette@mts.net. or by phone - 775-9327.
That pretty much sums all modern urban development and what has been described as the Geography of Nowhere.
I have no issues with IKEA per se. The main issue here is that this particular store will be part of a new big-box development on the fringe an already sprawling city. As genstrike pointed out, planning in Winnipeg is atrotiously poorly done, and this new development will only make it worse.
The other issue is one of self-esteem. Many people in Winnipeg seem to think we are now "on the map" because the foreign-owned IKEA decided to set up shop. It's almost as if people want outsiders to noitce Winnipeg and what a "great" place it is instead of building our own community here. No different than judging your own self-worth by whether or not the "cool" kids in school notice you.
Municipalities have developed this destructive self-image of themselves that if they were teenagers we would send them to therapists. They believe they exist not for those who reside and pay taxes within them, but for foreign investors somewhere remote detached. Thus they sacrifice local, home grown businesses for the sprawl of big box retailers. As well, they fail to fully understand the value of land. Once land has been sold and developed for roads or so-called regional retail nodes, the land is gone no matter what other productive purpose it served whether agriculture, wet land, forest, habitat, whatever (all things we end up having to pay for. For example, a wet land provides the same service for free as does a $100 million storm water treatment plant).
In the next 20 years, people in cities all over the world will regret not having more undeveloped green spaces and agricultural land close to where they live. They will not regret having missed another consumer opportunity at another Big Box store.
Since when? Most Ikea's are still around, and in actuallity, their stuff is functional, enviromentally friendly, easy to put together, and timeless (or at least won't go out of fashion.) And it's not frakking Wal-Mart, at least.
I like Maria Vinka's rocking chair made from banana tree leaves. Waste not want not.
And they apparently teamed up with a housing developer to build affordable housing in England. Brown's Labour put $15 billion on social housing, and some of them look pretty good as far as I can tell.
That's all fine and dandy and I tend to agree with you. However, the low-income single parents etc. who want to provide a reasonable standard of living for themselves and their kids aren't necessarily able to afford that luxury. I'm not trying to run to the defense of IKEA, but you have to at least understand that people face very different circumstances and thus are forced to make different choices.
As nice as handcrafted furniture is, I'm not as fussy about having a handcrafted desk lamp, handcrafted dish drainer, handcrafted cutlery, and so on.
I have a serrated-edge kitchen knife from Ikea which is my main kitchen knife (not being picky about kitchen utensils) that I use for everything from chopping vegetables to cutting meat and even cutting hard candle wax. I've had it for at least 20 years, and it's been the favourite of many I've shared an abode with. I don't think I've ever sharpened it! I don't have a knife sharpener.
Just sayin' :)