01-11-2023, 01:20 AM
(01-10-2023, 02:06 PM)ac3r Wrote: Really? Well I'm referring to the very high vacancies, high rents pushing everyone normal out (both businesses and people who just can't afford to live down there now), the high crime rates, the petty crime like property theft and robberies of stores (either for goods or money), the literal shanty towns we have all over the place, the strung out drug addicts the police seem to refuse to do anything about (if I started to fight people while drunk or high, then took someone's bike to steal from the LCBO I would expect to get arrested), the overdoses, the hazardous used needles and human waste all over the place and the Marxist-Leninst protest movement that has convinced unfortunate homeless people to camp out there so Julian Ichim can LARP as a revolutionary. You can go down there and find him literally helping people smoke fentanyl in the gazebo. I'm not even kidding. There's a picture of him doing it in The Record. This is of course only scratching the surface of things. I guess I should add the street kids that are being groomed by adult street people, who have now been found to be sexually trafficking them and providing them with drugs.
Maybe you see these things in a different light than I do, but to me any many others, it has ruined our downtown that was otherwise on the right track to having a comeback after the dreadful 1990s. It is the 1990s again, only worse because back then people didn't use fentanyl. This is not an environment a lot of people want to be in...whether it's to go for a walk, rent a business or buy a home.
This is an extremely offensive amount of stereotypes and misinformation. Do you spend any time in Kitchener? Do you live downtown?
I have lived by the Kitchener Market for a decade. Before that I was in the Mansion Lofts. I grew up here, I went to Cameron. I've seen every iteration of DTK. Even with the changes since COVID it's still better than it was when I went to high school.
The issue with downtown right now is that office work has left for good, which is creating vacancies in office buildings and that means downtown doesn't have much more than residents and people who come downtown for a purpose like dinner. To fix it, much of the office space should be converted to residential – offices aren't coming back, particularly not when downtown employers were mostly knowledge workers where remote-first is the new normal. Flex space might be around but most of the office buildings are going to be empty.
The homeless issue needs to be resolved but it's not unique to Kitchener, every city is struggling with it right now. Every city is also struggling with balancing policing with mental health support. There are no easy answers to the problem, but dehumanizing people who need help doesn't help anybody. What is your proposed solution to the homeless problem? Bulldoze people out of the city? Where do they go, to another city to be someone else's problem?
There is not human excrement or needles "all over the place" – I walk downtown every day. I don't have a car, so I walk for my groceries, pharmacy, everything I need. I can't recall a single instance I've seen that. Are you confusing Kitchener for San Francisco? I again ask if you have even spent any time in DTK recently.
Downtown has more new, better restaurants and better coffee shops than ever before. It has new stores. It has a good community. It also has problems like every downtown in North America has right now.
Lastly, none of your arguments – "go for a walk, rent a business or buy a home." King St is full of people walking every day. Starbucks just re-opened. Rose Cafe. The Pulao Gals. Humble Lotus. The new Portuguese chicken place. Eby Bodega. Lucero. Goldie's. Talula Fields. KWFamous. All of these businesses opened in the past year, in the downtown you claim no one wants to rent a business. Have you seen home prices? They're still high.
I like this forum to understand the developments in this city, but the level of elitism and dehumanization that is allowed to happen here is disgusting.