Windsor targeted for deep probe into post-pandemic recovery

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Heavy toll in deaths and illness aside, the COVID-19 global pandemic brought a lot of other misery to Canadian communities, including debilitating losses in economic and social activity.

But some see a silver lining, with the worst health crisis in a century also serving up the best opportunity in generations to reimagine how people could live in urban environments, as well as how cities and towns might grow and evolve into more desirable, even exciting places.

“This is a particularly challenging but also a fascinating moment,” said Mary Rowe, president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI). The pandemic, she said, has highlighted both what’s wrong and what’s right about cities and also opened up new possibilities.

“Anything dysfunctional or disconnected before, it was made worse by COVID. Communities that were struggling before have really suffered with COVID,” said the head of an institute that serves as a national platform highlighting the best ideas and experiences in city building.

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Mid-sized cities like Windsor might now be in a good place, said Rowe, particularly as some of the shine comes off living and working in the crowded metropolises. After tackling Edmonton and Calgary last year, the CUI has assigned its professionals to cast their eyes and expertise on Windsor next, providing three virtual days this week with dozens of local leaders and hundreds of local residents.

The CUIxWindsor June 15 to 17 is the third stop in the CUI’s “virtual listening tour” designed to “gather interpretations, data, assessments, priorities, bright spots and stories from on-the-ground voices.” It’s the first devoted to a mid-sized Canadian city, with Halifax and Victoria next.

“We’re very excited to be coming,” said Rowe. Virtual workshops and panels will address a wide range of issues, from what’s needed to enhance the downtown and Windsor’s “Main Streets” to creating great public spaces through “The Art of Citybuilding.”

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Housing innovation and affordability, the future of work, Windsor as a “learning city,” and how to tackle a post-pandemic “just recovery” that is fair and equitable to all are among the sessions starting Tuesday, all free and with several open to anyone.

“This is a major investment by Canada’s major urbanist institute,” said co-organizer Anneke Smit, director of the Windsor Law Centre for Cities. The findings and much data-derived information already being collected by the institute will result in a comprehensive report later this year expected to spark ongoing local conversations and action.

The CUI, said Smit, also an associate professor of law at the University of Windsor, is a “big-tent” gathering place fostering best-planning practices and healthy community building through collaborations that it helps foster between governments, activists, business and academia.

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Aware of the CUI’s ongoing work — including campaigns recently launched to support downtown cores and “main street” revitalization — Ward 3 Coun. Rino Bortolin said when he first heard of the CUI’s potential interest in Windsor he pushed to make it happen. Contributing the first $1,000 from his ward fund, event organizers got similar financial commitments from five other city councillors.

Windsor’s new chief administrative officer Jason Reynar — who will lead a panel entitled “Is this the Mid-Sized City’s Moment?” — chipped in from his office’s budget, and other sponsors and participants include the United Way, WindsorEssex Community Foundation, the University of Windsor, Invest WindsorEssex and local Business Improvement Associations.

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The horrible hate crime in London on June 6, when a Muslim family was wiped out simply for being Muslim, is a reminder, said Smit, that there are different “lived experiences” among members of a community. Blacks and other minorities, youth and economically disadvantaged citizens will share the virtual discussion stage with decision-makers in business, education, the non-profit sector and government.

The CUI’s work had already begun long before this week, said Smit, with “a whole bunch of people studying Windsor.” The organization’s first report covering Edmonton will be formally released later this week, but a preview copy obtained by the Star shows an in-depth look at that city, its people and potential, presented in a slick package.

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The recent Windsor Works report, said Bortolin, looked at the city’s potential and suggested pathways to pursue, “but it doesn’t tell you how to do it.” The CUI’s effort, he said, will cost a fraction — about $25,000 vs. more than $400,000 for Windsor Works — and is about “working with the people in the trenches, the people doing the heavy lifting.”

The timing is appropriate as well due to the sudden boom in the local housing and development sectors, something Bortolin said he hasn’t experienced his entire life.

“Are we building a city that is exciting for people to move to, but leaving behind the people who have lived here all their lives?” he asks. “Windsor is still an affordable city, in the big picture, but what about the person below the poverty line?

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“If we’re growing and prospering but not bringing them along, we’re doing something wrong.”

Healthy cities are vital to the country’s future. Canada might be vast in geographic size, said the CUI’s Rowe, but it’s also one of the most heavily urbanized countries in the world, with half its 38 million residents living in only 25 cities. Nearly a quarter of all Canadian jobs are located in just six cities, according to a recent CUI report.

For more on CUIxWindsor, visit canurb.org/cui-x-windsor on the CUI website.

One of Wednesday’s panels will be led by Windsorites who left their hometown and found success elsewhere, discussing “the city they love (but left).” On a Thursday session, the discussion will be led by members of the city’s next generation who haven’t left. The topic: “Is Windsor a Great City for Youth?”

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Acknowledging that Windsorites can sometimes “suffer from a bit of a crisis of confidence,” Smit said this week’s event won’t be a forum to either “unequivocally boost or pan” the city, but will be an opportunity for “honest and good conversations” on the challenges and how to respond to them.

Originally from London, Rowe knows Windsor and its struggles over the past decades, but she sees a city population with “a gritty kind of (can-do) quality” and a municipality that also boasts “so many assets” — including river, border, manufacturing base, university/college and affordability.

For Canada’s mid-sized cities, she said, “this is an interesting moment.”

dschmidt@postmedia.com

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