space, landscaping, streetscapirlg andchistori- cal preservation strategies would not work unless the underlying economic and social problems that had created the decline in the first place were addressed. Plan Wﬁinipeg's revision was, in fact, originally intended to be not only a development plan but also a plan that set out strategies to reverse the economic and social decay and identiﬁed monies to ac5 complish these strategies. The deliberations had involved the provincial and the federal governments, both of which Had given finan- cial support for the plan in its early stages. The exits of the senior levels of government from the Plan Winnipeg negotiations in 1979 left a much weakened planning document in their wake.3 Plan Winnipeg contained goals without either the detailed plans or the money to achieve them.

There were hopeful signs, however. An- other government scheme concluded around the same time was going to be of some help in upgrading city parks. The Canada-Mag— toba Agreement for Recreation and Conser- vation (the ARC Agreement), which was ini- tiated in 1978, was intended to enhance riverbank park development at no cost to the city. The purpose of the ARC Agreement was to preserve and enhance the historical, natural and recreational features of the so-called "Red River Corridor”, an area of the river extending from St. Norbert north-

ward to Lake Winnipeg. Among other things the ARC Agreement made possible an attracEi tive Escenic drive along the old Riverioad between Winnipeg and Lockport Biusmﬁz- ing one of George Champion's dreams of 1908. Under the agreement, too, some of the cityuparks with river frontage - Kildonan, St. lohn’s and the St. Boniface rivmerbank - re- ceived attention in order to make them at- tractive and accessible to boaters. The most notable aspect of the ARC Agreement was its declared intention to create a park on the CNR lands at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. This would provide the much-wanted downtown park, but even the ARC Agreement could not provide enough funds to secure and develop the forks site without additional involvement.

Emir ttl _

While Plan Winnipeg was in the process of revﬂion and following the conclusion of the ARC Agreement, another scheme relat- ing to inner city and downtown develop- ment was percolating around Winnipeg. This was the brainchild of Liberal fedeﬁl cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy and re- ﬂected his intense interest in downtown re- devgppment in general and in Winnipeg's downtown in particular. A child of Win- nipeg’s north end, Axworthy was a poﬁtical science professor at the University of Win-

nipeg prior to his political career. There he founded the Institute of UrbanEStudies in 1969, a research institute that had published numerous studies on aspects of Winnipeg’s urlzan problems. Among oﬁer things, Ax- worthy discovered that a widespread per- ception - nothing really changed in the inner city despite governments’ best efforts“; was far from the truth. In fact, the“ situation was growing measurably worse. In:1951 inner city residents earned, on average)”2 11 percent less than residents in the rest of the: city. By 1978, this disparity had grown to:32 percent. During the period 1962 to 1978 employment in the core area declined by ten percent while employment elseﬂwhere in the city in- creased by 48 percent. With both detailed knowledge of the problem and clout at the federal cabinet table, Axworthy was able to get the three levels of government together to funﬂ the most powerful assault on inner city decline that Winnipeg had yetﬁexperi- enced. The 1981 Winnipeg CoreEArea Initia- tive (CAI) represented anneffort by the fed- eral, provincial and city governments to im- prove ﬁle social,»economic§and physicalE con- diﬁbns in a ten sqiage mile area of :Win- nipeg's inner city. The five year initiativeEl was to funnel some 96 million dollars into various projects, with each government con- tributing one third of thershareable costs for all approved prej'e—ets.4 In 1986, the CH waE

mom @mmfms