Five interesting suggestions from Reddit post on improving Kitchener

If you could change anything to make Kitchener a better place to live, what would you do?

That’s the premise of a thread that has been picking up steam in the Kitchener subcategory on the popular online forum Reddit.

Some say they’d like to see a more pedestrian-friendly city; others say they want more community gardens and green spaces.

“Anytime we see citizens taking the time to put ideas [on how to make our community better] onto social media through something like Reddit, Facebook, or Twitter, or engaging directly with us as elected officials, it’s both important and fantastic,” says Berry Vrbanovic, Mayor of Kitchener.

It all started when Redditor Zer0_Karma posted this message: “Let your imagination go a bit and let’s talk about all the things, both grandiose and subtle, that you think would make Kitchener a world-class city or maybe just a somewhat more pleasant place to live.”

Since then, some users have chimed in, imagining a big stadium or convention centre off the 401.

Others say they’d like to see affordable housing downtown.

Vrbanovic adds that a number of the ideas are things he and city staff are already looking into.

“The whole issue of a fibre network for a community like ours, that’s built on tech and innovation, is something that [we] and others have been starting to look at,” says Vrbanovic.

“There’s also things like more festivals and music kind of events, and that’s something that we’ve been doing as a city.”

FIVE SUGGESTIONS FROM THE THREAD:

1) “Two words: FIBRE NETWORK.” (Sirskills)

2) “I get the feeling that Kitchener downtown would be better off by converting King Street between Victoria and Frederick into a pedestrian-only street.” (IUseRhetoric)

3) “We need mixed housing downtown, not just high income lofts/condos. We need more affordable food access downtown. Our aging population will need these things in addition to good transit in ten years.” (Sir_Cirrus)

4) “Walkability, complete streets, pedestrian-friendly or designs that are not planned around the car, inter-city transit, more community gardens or integration with natural spaces.” (tbrown123)

5) “Tech is the industry that will never die because there will always be new tech. We should aim to turn KW into a technologist mecca.” (OrbitalStrikeBadger)

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