Recently I read about the city of Kiruna, Sweden. It's famous for starting the first ice hotel. But now it's in the news because they may have to move the downtown. See, the area is also known for mining, and that mining has destabilized the ground under the centre of the town.
It's unfortunate, because there are a few old buildings that will be lost. But at the same time, a lot of cities would benefit from a second chance to build part of the city. You could skip trying to make an urban mall work, cut back on the condos or office blocks, or take a Mulligan on zoning that Planet Hollywood.
Or you could just keep it the same, but put it in a more appropriate place. Screw with those suburbanites by dropping the downtown right next to the latest subdivision. Kitchener-Waterloo could call a truce and build one new downtown on a neutral location. Or we could move Cambridge up between KW and Guelph to make one big city.
So good luck to Kiruna. It sounds like a pretty cool place. Coming up with the ice hotel is the sort of winter adaptation Canada could use, as I complained about earlier. And I see on Wikipedia that it's even the home of Borje Salming. What else...it even has its own spaceport? That's it, I've found my new home!
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