Amalgamation

[jamincan]

In regards to the planning departments. We have all three cities plus the region determining where development should occur, where bike lanes should be placed, where parks should be built. We are a region that is seriously lacking in certain amenities that a city of similar sizes have (Olympic size pool, sports stadium, art gallery/event space, convention centre, hospitals that weren't built in 1950's).

I just don't see the reason why we as a region wouldn't want to amalgamate. Endless amounts of city departments would finally have a coordinated effort in terms of providing services to the residents. on that note, personally I would like to see the region kept and the three main cities amalgamate. I would sever off a bit of the townships into the new city, mainly breslau and bloomingdale. The townships would continue to be run as rural areas, but the urban centres would be one cohesive city.

First, I don't see how amalgamation could have much of an effect on us "lacking in certain amenities that a city of similar sizes have (Olympic size pool, sports stadium, art gallery/event space, convention centre, hospitals that weren't built in 1950's).
"
Not sure if or why an Olympic size pool is needed. What does it bring to the table? The Waterloo Rec Centre has a huge pool (and I thought it was at Olympic Standards) and has high diving platforms - but it's their only indoor pool as well. Kitchener has 4 indoor pools and Cambridge 2 or 3? But pools are expensive to run, and larger ones have larger requirements that might make pool require 1 or 2 other pools to close, which isn't the direction that we should go in (in this case, Waterloo's way is not very smart).

The Rec Centre was supposed to be Olympic-sized, but they ended up shortening to make room for the splash area for kids, or so I've been told. In either case, the pool isn't Olympic-sized and can't be used for competition. Laurier has an Olympic-size pool, and UW and the Stork YMCA both have 25m pools.