(07-12-2024, 09:36 AM)tomh009 Wrote: I live and work downtown, so I know a lot of people who walk downtown. Of those likely 100+ people, I am aware of only a single person who is uncomfortable in DTK. But maybe all the people who are uncomfortable with it live and work in the suburbs?
There is some drug use, and there are some homeless people: a pervasive problem in most cities, as you note, and certainly not exclusive to Canada. It is far from being crime-ridden, though.
As for policies, there are no silver bullets. Housing-first approaches tend to be more successful, but with the combination of high housing costs, lack of affordable housing, lack of mental health funding and ready availability of illegal drugs, this is not a simple problem to solve. If it were, there would be far more cities that have addressed this.
People's perception of an environment has nothing to do with where they live in the city. When you are around it each day like most of us who live in urban cores are, yeah you get a bit desensitized to it I guess. But ultimately, nobody wants to be around that and if they claim otherwise they're full of shit. Nobody wants their community to be full of people who are high on drugs 18 hours a day or suffering from higher crime rates. And yes, it is crime ridden...the WRPS publishes data that shows downtown has some of the highest concentrations of various times in the region.
It all impacts the rest of the community. A sane person is going to seek a safe environment to live, work and play in which means many people are going to opt out of vising or living in certain areas, even if they wished to exist within that area. Downtowns and urban centres are fun and vibrant, but if social disorder becomes a prominent feature then people are going to wish to avoid it. Take a look at cities like Vancouver, San Francisco, Portland, Edmonton and so on where recent increases in social disorder have caused people to GTFO of the communities they once cherished.
Alas, yeah...we never seem to be capable of electing the right people for the job and so very little changes. The issue isn't specifically those who use drugs or suffer from severe psychiatric issues, it's that the people put in charge of improving that don't care to actually improve it. If someone is deciding where to buy a home for them and their children, or where to open a new business...chances are they're going to opt for somewhere with less visible issues and that unfortunately means the suburbs. New condos and retail spaces don't change that, because as the article says many who live in those condos don't care to go out and those retail spaces often sit vacant.