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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

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  1. If anyone can positively change Fredericton, it is Hayes.

  2. Fredericton has been growing rapidly the past few years, and our municipal government (while far from perfect) has made some modest efforts to incorporate a few modern, intelligent urban planning principles into the development. That said, the people in charge at city hall seem content to allow most of that growth to occur with little serious long-term planning for things like large traffic increases, necessary transit access, infrastructure maintenance  costs, environmental concerns, and potential social costs that arise when these and other needs aren’t sufficiently met.

    Shorter story, Brad Woodside has been reasonably competent (though some of his social views in the 1990s were absolutely outrageous), but his leadership in steering Fredericton toward building sustainable, clean, accessible, person-centered (as opposed to car-centered) neighbourhoods has been lacking. Fredericton is doing well, but it has the potential to be even better than what it is – I feel like voting for Woodside would be akin to choosing to rest on our laurels, revelling in what we already have rather than aspiring to our full potential. 

    Hayes has been talking about things that haven’t been brought up by candidates in Fredericton elections for a while. Past challengers to Woodside have often been little more than grievance candidates with a grab-bag of complaints, but Hayes actually has a goal for the city in mind other than “to become the mayor of it.” He certainly gives the impression that he has the grey matter to be more than a town-crank complaint candidate.

    A denser core only makes sense for the long-term health of the city center, and for that matter, for the city itself. Curbing the uncontrolled asphalt-and-strip-mall bonanza that’s cropping up at the fringes of our city, drawing dollars away from local businesses and requiring an expensive expansion of infrastructure into low value-by-density areas, is going to have to happen eventually. Why not get to addressing the issue sooner, rather than resting on our laurels until we’re forced to deal with it?

    …It looks like typed way more than I intended to. I guess I just have a lot of passion about the outcome of this race, as a young person weighing the pros and cons of staying in the city I grew up in, and desperately hoping that my fellow Frederictonians are as passionate about the future of this city as I am…