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ssiguy
I have never lived in Winnipeg but live in Vancouver for 20 years and have lived in Toronton and Ottawa so I have a good non-partisan view. Although it is refered to some by Winterpeg when talking about its weather most Canadians affectionatly refer to as "the Peg". It is also known for being home to one of {if not thee } most famoud corner in the country....Portage & Main. When saying those two words most Canadians know it's Winnipeg.
Winnipeg was Canada's fourth most populace city until the late 60s and has been now passed by Cal/Edm/Ham/QC. Often seen as Canada's semi-dying city. Not totally dead but will never will be the city it once was. There have been great benefits to this however. Due to the city not being newly built like Van/Cal/Ed, it has many old buildings and districts whereas Van/Cal/Ed couldn't {and in Vancouver's case still} tear them down fast enough.
This has resulted in Winnipeg as being one of those cities with a real "umph" to it. It feels sturdy and, like Chicago, doesn't feel like a drop in some commodity price will bring it down. Winnipeger's are a friendly lot and quite a casual and liberal. Remember Winnipeg was the first major city in Canada with an openly gay mayor and Manitoba was the third province to legalize gay marriage.
Winnipeg's geographic isolation has helped in it's cultural develpment. Winnipeg' Royal ballet was the first one in the Americas. It's theatre, festivals, and music scene are well known and many of Canada's cultural and musical icons are from the Peg. Winnipeg is known not only nationaly but also internationally for it cultural scene. Go to any travel guide and that is always one of the things mentioned about Winnipeg. It is easily Western Canada's cultural mecca {although Vancouverites would protest} but no one else in the country would. For a city of it's size it has probably the most unique, vibrant, and interesting downtown and no other city in NA or even much of the world has Winnipeg's cultural vitality. For a city of just 660k it's quite shocking. It's a beautiful city with tree-lined streets with beautiful old homes and some are very impressive due to Winnipeg having old wealth. Winnipeg, for it's size, has a dizzing number of good restaurants and cafes' on a per-capita levels the highest in the country
It is very affordable but it has it's negative attributes namely poverty and crime much due to the fact that there is a large native population. It's cold as you know but one thing that hasn't been mentioned that really hurts her reputation........mosquitos. It's Canada's mosquito capitol and spraying of neighbourhood still goes on and the joke in the rest of Canada is the that Winnipeg has two airports.......one for the planes and one for mosquitos.
Things are a changing in the Peg in the last few years, it's economy and population is booming mostly by huge international immigrants. Winnipeg is also Canada's FIRST truly multicultural city. It was populated at the turn of the century by people from Europe looking for their future on the praries while Vancouver and Toronto were as white as the undriven snow til 1970.
In short, it's winter's are brutal, mosquitos the stuff of legends but at the same time the most vibrant, interesting, cosmopolitan, cultured city in all of NA for a city it's size and is cheap to boot. You may not want to live there long term but it is one of Canada's most unique cities {also one of the few cities that truly shaped the nation} If you are going there with an open-mind you will very much enjoy it but of don't believe me just go to the Michiline travel guide which gave it 3 of a possible 4 stars.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=4371287&postcount=86
