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Reviving central Brandon in the early twenty-first century. (Canadian Urban Landscape Examples--23).

Article Excerpt
"The plight of the central sectors of North American cities has, within recent years, been publicly recognized as a major social, physical, and economic problem ... Brandon has recognized the deteriorating quality of the downtown core but has yet to commit to a strategy or plan for addressing that problem."

E.A. Stillinger 1986, 2-3.

Brandon is the second largest community in Manitoba with a population of just over 40,000 and a trading area of approximately 180,000 people. Over the past half century, in common with most Canadian cities (Robinson 1991; Graham et al. 2000), and not least prairie cities (Thraves and Barriault 1988; Spina 2001), people and businesses have been moving out to the suburbs of Brandon (Everitt and Stadel 1993), with a consequent decline of older residential areas in the centre and the traditional commercial main street of Rosser Avenue (Figure 1). This central area has a population of about 5,500 with a downtown core that includes about 500 businesses and services. These are primarily locally owned operations and, together, represent an interesting mix of retail, hospitality, government, and professional services. As has been the case with many Canadian cities over the past twenty years, an attempt has been made, and is being made, within Brandon to counter this movement to the suburbs, revive the historic core areas, and improve the quality of life of citizens. The notion of `reviving Main Street' has been ongoing since the 1960s (Holdsworth 1985). Despite Stillinger's admonition, however, the efforts that have taken place in Brandon can still not be described as a city-driven "strategy or plan", but rather must be seen as a series of events which are all positively affecting the central sectors of Brandon as a result of input from key actors (such as politicians and local officials) and concerned citizens and citizen groups (including local businesspersons). (1)

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

In fact it is argued here that the advances that have been made would have been impossible without the intervention of these individuals. Interestingly these key actors and concerned citizens are of a variety of political stripes and are to be found in opposing camps on many issues that are outside the philosophical boundaries of central area revival. These individuals include or have included the mayors, the city councils, the local Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), the local Member of Parliament (MP), downtown business people, individual citizens, neighbourhood-based citizen groups, and provincial bureaucrats. Reflecting the nature of small-city society some individuals have assumed several of these roles at different times. The common ground between them is the desire to see central Brandon improved physically as a `place', improved socially for the residents of (at least) the central city, and improved economically, specifically in the Central Business District (CBD) which has suffered the most from the market forces of recent years. Five major attempts to re-invigorate Brandon can be isolated. In describing each attempt, one common element emerges. Citizens living within the Rosser Ward (Figure 1) play predominant roles. While acting informally for decades, it was not until November, 1994 that the Rosser Ward Citizens Association was officially established. These attempts reflect a coalition building mentality that is described in detail elsewhere (Keyes 1987).

The Downtown Mall

The first attempt at renewal was symbolised by the city-sponsored construction of a Downtown Mall (`The Gallery') to counteract the perceived negative effects of the suburban mall (`The Shopper's Mall' (sic)), and reinvigorate what one ex-city manager has described as Brandon's "lifeless downtown" (Backman 2001). As Kalman (1985, 32) noted, the suburban "shopping mall is the biggest threat to the survival of Main Street", accounting for most of the growth in the urban retail sector since the 1960s (Jones 1991). Commercial development in Downtown has long been a subject of study--dating back to at least the mid-1960s (Underwood, McLellan and Associates 1967; RAMP Committee 1971; Stadel and Everitt 1988). Suggestions of street malls and other `improvements' were made, but in the end the major concrete attempt to address this issue was The Gallery, completed in 1980. It was opposed by some people, including a new councillor who was manager of the suburban mall and was later to become mayor, and later still the local M.P., who still believes that the city should have focussed more on its other resources--such as its...