In retrospect, 2018 was a mighty fine year

Appalled by a soaring homicide rate, a rash of overdose deaths and the untimely loss of a lot of fine people, most Windsor area residents seemed relieved, even delighted, to see a bruised and dented 2018 kicked to the curb. Like many over a certain age, I always feel a twinge of melancholic sadness when they start warbling Auld Lang Syne and yet another in our finite allotment of years, good or bad, is consigned to history’s dustbin.

But was 2018 really that awful for Windsor? From a social worker or first responder’s perspective, dealing with a homelessness crisis and a meth/opioid epidemic that’s sweeping this continent, it was gruesome.

And yet, for the vast majority of area residents, those with secure jobs and reliable incomes, it was a mighty fine year, as anyone who tried to find parking at the malls or near popular restaurants over the festive season could testify. It was a year of record low regional unemployment, a red-hot housing market and countless jobs going begging.

It could be, if the global economy pancakes over the next year or two, as some bearish economists predict, that we’ll look back on 2018 and see “the good old days.”

One thing is certain: Windsor, for all its social ills, took concrete steps forward in the past year. Here are just a few that merit recognition:

Perhaps the most significant development

■ was the fall announcement that Quicken Loans, owned by billionaire Dan Gilbert, the driving force behind Detroit’s miracle comeback, will establish a “beachhead” in Windsor with 100 jobs in the beautifully restored downtown building that once housed the Fish Market. The potential upside of that initial cross-border investment could be the best thing that’s happened to our downtown in many years.

The University of Windsor’s new School

■ of Creative Arts in the former downtown armouries, which held its first classes last January, is an eye-popping example of how a vacant yet historically important building can be transformed into a beautiful yet seriously functional centre of learning. It is, as former university president Alan Wildeman put it: the university’s “crown jewel of historic preservation.”

Taxpayers never feel warm and fuzzy about

■ paying for a new city hall, but Windsor managed to open one on time and on budget, in an election year no less, with little public backlash. It provides practical, convenient stateof-the-art space to conduct the city’s business and is light years better than its dumpy predecessor. It would have been nice to build a landmark, architecturally significant building, but councillors were acutely aware of the “Taj Mahal” manure storm that would have ensued.

You won’t see the results for some time, but

■ council made a $6-million commitment to the riverfront Festival Plaza that will see that vast expanse of ugly asphalt, a sizzling wasteland in a typical Windsor summer, transformed into a green and inviting oasis.

For the first time in decades, Windsor residents

■ who don’t own a boat now have access to the city’s most beautiful park, Peche Island. The $1 million council committed to rehab the island, purchase a boat and start a ferry service was a smart quality-of-life investment that will pay dividends for years to come.

I’m hugely impressed by the dramatic Toronto-calibre

■ makeover of 49-year-old Devonshire Mall. A gloomy, seriously dated structure has been transformed into a sunny, inviting space. It’s a big leap forward and a daring commitment at a time when retail is considered under siege. Two legacy projects unveiled in 2018, the

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Tecumseh-Brock monument and that beautiful Victorian arch, have created an inviting entrance to historic Sandwich Towne. The tantalizing question now is how will millions in community enhancement funds from the consortium building the Gordie Howe Bridge be used to bolster that besieged neighbourhood?

After all that political ranting and raving

■ about the city’s “outrageous” expenditure on its Bright Lights Festival, it proved a smash hit with area residents and their wide-eyed kids and grandkids. It’s clear we want more than potholes filled. We want a little magic in the dead of winter. Bright Lights delivered. Big time. And a staggering 100,000 people responded. Talk about folks voting with their feet.