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Introduction Kitchener's downtown core is not particularly attractive. Those who would argue differently either haven't travelled very much or else, like mothers of ill-favoured offspring, are happily blind to the flaws of that which is near and dear. This is not to say that it is an ugly city exactly. It isn't scruffy or dirty, for example, and it has no slums (or at least nothing that a Neapolitan or Mother Teresa would call a slum), and its inhabitants don't have to worry about the industrial pollution index on hot summer days. Quite the contrary. The air is pure enough to make a passing Torontonian envious, the streets gently rise and fall over the hills upon which the city is built, thus giving the potential for interesting contours and vistas, and once away from the main streets one can find sufficient trees and parks everywhere to make starlings a hazard in the Fall. And yet, for all these natural advantages, and although it is surrounded by some of the loveliest towns in Southern Ontario, Kitchener itself is about as exciting as a tool shed. In trying to account for this curious fact one probably begins with general impressions of architecture and layout. One notices, for example, that whereas towns like Fergus and what used to be Gait are built of stone, a material that hints at permanence and dignity, Kitchener is a city of brick, and the brick is mostly of the Victorian red and pallid yellow variety. As for the buildings themselves, the gracious houses of the older residential areas, though large enough, have a fussy bric-a-brac quality about them, as though the cluttered decor of the drab nineteenth -century parlour has somehow become externalized. Many of the numerous churches are not too inspiring to look at, particularly if one compares them with, for example, the Roman Catholic cathedral in Guelph, or the two fine Presbyterian 1 2 The Battlefor Berlin churches bordering Queen's Square in Gait. To some extent a main street is a reflection of a city's soul, and here again comparisons do not flatter Kitchener. Stratford's Ontario Street, for example, has a spaciousness about it that seems to give the elbows of the mind, not to mention human beings, plenty of room to move around in, while Kitchener's downtown King Street is so cramped that it feels like a canyon into which the sun only shines at high noon. One could probably speculate on the reasons for these differences for a long time. The cultural background of the early German settlers? Victorian sensibilities? The arrival of Scottish stonemasons and the accessibility of quarries? The colour of local clay bodies? Real estate speculations? No doubt these all played their part, but two influences (that converge and become one influence) seem to be of particular importance and deserve separate mention. A friend once perceptively remarked that Kitchener is a city that seems to wear its business heart on its sleeve, and does so with a frankness and innocence that is quite endearing. Ken McLaughlin interestingly points out that the early factory owners liked to "live over the shop" so that they could keep an eye on the business, and that the resulting juxtaposition of industry and residence is, even today, one of Kitchener's distinguishing features. Certain it is that factories were sited uncompromisingly on main streets, railway lines ran through major intersections (and anywhere else that commerce required), and there was generally no attempt made to camouflage the sources of prosperity . In other words it was a city fired by materialistic dreams. But, it may be objected, business and commerce are what keep any big city growing, which is true. What one is talking about is a matter of ratios. Most "great" cities genuinely recognize the existence of spiritual or human or artistic values, and encourage the expression of these values through the purchase of a Henry Moore for a square, the subsidization of a theatre company, the creation of Pedestrian Only streets, and so on. But Kitchener pays only lip service, if that, to such frills. True, it built a Centre in the Square (more a Centre in the Parking Lot really), but like so many similar efforts that are fuelled by civic pomp rather than by a real understanding of community needs, it ended up with a white elephant that plays host to (apart from the K-W Symphony, a genuine achievement of real...

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