Death Fences

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• I don't think you're looking hard enough Dave. Windsor has a lot of hidden architectural gems that are just waiting to find new life. After all, if Windsor is such a terrible place, then why are people investing their time and money to rehabilitate landmarks like the Lowe Martin house or the old YMCA? This old guard at City Hall needs to get out of the way to make room for new blood and new ideas.

• I'd say Toronto is an ugly city with their ridiculous real estate prices. A milion bucks for some small townhouse in Cabbagetown. That's 10-20 times what they cost in downtown Windsor. That's two Lowe houses. You become a virtual slave in that city, struggling to pay basic living expenses unless you're one out of a million to get subsidized housing. Sorry, Toronto? Did it, hated the high cost of living, never gonna do it again. Feel free to move down there, max out your credit cards trying to pay rent, and jump off a skyscaper after it breaks you financially. I'll stay here and fight to preserve what's left in this city. But, the value you get out of this city for what you pay in cost-of-living such as the Riverfront, parks, events, historical building, and Detroit across the river is well worth it.

• I don't think Dave is far from the mark here folks.
  You are all jumping on him for stating the obvious. All of us get up in arms about the way this city treats it's heritage yet when someone makes the same remark we all get defensive.

  Yes Windsor has some great architecture left but he didn't say there was no architecture here. He also didn't mention house prices so i don't understand what that has to do with anything? T.O. by comparison has more people that can gentrify an area much quicker than Windsor can. But they have also put in place the tools necessary to gentrify. Windsor is just scratching the surface, and not very hard at that!

  I truly don't get gleeful like the rest of you do when someone states they are leaving this city. We are losing quite a lot of population that is only being replaced by immigrants with little to no job skills. How is that going to help our city? We have one of the smallest populations of youth in cities that are similar size because we can't retain them. Yet you are all so quick to kick people out of this city.

  Can anyone here really state that Windsor is a good looking city? CAn anyone really say that is is inviting and nice to look at? Sure we have some decent parks but they too could be so much better instead of the half-assed attempt of putting in a few flowers and sick looking shrubs. This is by no means an indictment on parks & rec because their budget was slashed to the bare bones for "last minute" Eddie's legacy projects. But is the city nice looking?

  You know I have brought visitors to Windsor and most think the city does not look good except for a few places and a few parks. Though everyone one of them said the people here were outstanding! In fact I have had to fellow colleagues who were gonig to move to Windsor but decided against it because it look so much like a poor industrial town. Their words were "dumpy", "tired", "dirty", "rag tag". When I asked what "rag tag" meant they said there was no cohesion amongst the city.
  It looked like kids planned the city because so many elements were missing yet horrible looking buildings were everywhere and hardly anything pleasing existed especially in the housing market! Unless they wanted new mega-mansions, garages with houses attached or a big fixer upper, there was not many neighbourhoods to choose from. Other than Walkerville or a small place in Riverside they didn't see the worth of these neighbourhoods.

  So what does the above tell you? Should we dimiss their criticism as well? Remember folks these are people who wanted to move here or in Dave's case moved here from another city. Why must we ignore what people tell use when we don't want to hear the truth? Have you all started drinking "last minute" Eddie's Kool aid?
  There is nothing wrong with being positive and showcasing what great amenities we do have but we can't ignore what is staring us straight in the face...and it isn't pretty!

• Of course Windsor is a good looking city; otherwise, I wouldn't have moved down here and lots of others wouldn't have stayed. Could be improved, but it looks a hell of a lot better than other cities I've Iived in. I think it looks better than London or Hamilton, which were my other two choices. A lot more historical buildings than Kitchener. Last time I checked, most people were moving to Alberta for those high paying oil related jobs not put a hole in your wallet Toronto. With the low cost of living, this city could be great. We just need to get the unions in line instead of scaring away companies with their aggressive demands for Toronto wages.

• David, if you think Windsor has more a better look than Hamilton than I have to disagree. They have much more of their downtown intact than does Windsor. Even London has more 19th century buildings left. They might not look great but they sure as hell can still be refurbished while Windsor has one block left (Manning house) and that is all.

  I agree Windsor should be all spit and polish especially because of the low cost of living but this city markets to itself (look at the W.E. Can ads why are they here instead of in other cities?). Windsor is also known as a difficult city to deal with. Until this stuff clears up we will always be relegated to the back shelf. Our actions surely speak louder than our words and there is little action to be had except for the destruction we are seeing on a bi-monthly basis.

• Windsor has all the tools to be a very beautiful city with a very rich history behind it and the location on the weather map for cultivating a vibrant landscape.
  Our biggest problem, in my humble opinion is that we need exercise our pride more and show some ambition by just cleaning up after ourselves, like cut the grass or weeds on a local boulevard, trim a tree of a broken branch, pick up some debris that is lying around, clean up our yards of dead cars, bikes and old lawn furniture etc,
  Its the people that make a city beutiful, not the other way around.

• You should be reporting it to 311 more. Most of those things are covered by the city by-law and Parks and Rec on a complaint basis, but more should be added to the by-law such as too many children's toys scattered across a lawn or lowering grass height limit. People cannot keep a dead car in their yard without a valid license plate and plate sticker. Not much can be done about bikes and old lawn furniture though. I doubt the people who leave this mess are going to change their ways on their own.

• Another problem with the city is just not enough enforcement by the city. There are way too many people removing their mufflers because they like the deafening sound of their engine. I was walking around downtown yesterday and heard quite a few cars and motorcycles. I know that a 2.1L Honda, a classic car with a 302 engine or a Mustang Notchback 5.0 shouldn't be sounding that loud if it had a muffler or proper muffler on it. How can anyone enjoy downtown when you hear everyone's unmuffled car?