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Downtown

As an aside, I wonder how much it is that Edmonton is a much more laid back city too? I went to the grandstand show at the stampede for the first time last year, and watched about two dozen dancers in sequins sing "Calgary! Calgary!" with a big drone show of the Calgary tower behind them.

That's absurd; you couldn't get away with that in Edmonton, you'd be laughed out of the room...But at the same time they seem to have a degree of civic pride we don't and I think that translates better to attracting investment, particularly in their core.
 
IanO said:
Bravado, confidence, experience, care, love.
Click to expand...

I guess it's time for this story.
A friend of mine just recently flew to Toronto from here and was seated by a woman (in her early 80s) who was connecting in TO for a flight to visit family in Israel. In talking to her, she has lived in many 'world class' cities primarily in Europe throughout her life - and she called Edmonton the best city she has ever lived in (it's been about 20 years). She talked about safety, her community, kids sports programs for her grandkids and on and on my buddy said. She said they have now lived here longer than any other city and knew after the first year this is the place they wanted to stay.

Our dt is hurting, but many people love the communities they live in.

This same friend is a VP at a corporate office in dt. During this same conversation he talked about a time when they had to go to Toronto and have a booth at job fairs to recruit IT staff because they couldn't find them here. Many of the recruits were newer immigrants. He said when he looks at those recruits now that were brought here, most of them are still with the company and have families now. Many, many people love living in Edmonton after experiencing other cities around the world and in Canada.
 
I do think people who dump on dt and don't really care if it fails and criticize the city for any investment in it, fail to realize that even after all the troubles, dt contributes to the tax base of this city significantly and if it wasn't for dt and the office towers and density of people who do still live here, our taxes would be higher and so too our city costs.
 
Edmonton is rich in the exurb department with a huge population living on treed acreages, many with year-round streams and lakes -- those are missing in Calgary. I'm not talking about suburb communities -- they extend as far west as Lake Wabamun, as far east as Vegreville, as far north as Athabasca and as far south as Pigeon lake. It makes Edmonton's hinterland rich with people. And yet Edmonton is new and diverse -- we still have yet to gage what effect the ICE District will have on downtown and as the high-rise scene develops what the ultimate effect that will have on the CBD. My pen knows only optimism and it is disheartening to read the impatient power of negativity and those that purvey those scenes. Mostly I ignore those comments but some, as written, are louder than others and are difficult to ignore.
 
Why do we always have to do this? Someone takes a trip to Calgary and then we have to immediately get defensive. There is no question Calgary's downtown is better, but I certainly won't be lectured about a personal lack of "bravado" as the problem. None of this discussion is new and little seems helpful. Edmonton should focus on Edmonton and ignore the rest of this noise.
 
IanO said:
Headed to Downtown Calgary this past Saturday for some shopping and to walk the area around The Core and Stephen Avenue to get a better sense of the look, feel, offerings etc. I was curious to see and feel the differences between walking around Downtown Edmonton of late.

The mall was reasonably busy, clean and had far more clothing/shoe/personal item offerings than I recall; only two or three empty stores. We went to Simons, Club Monaco, Banana, The Bay, Simons, Birks, Browns, Patagonia, Aritzia, John Fluevog, among others.

The pedway system was open, but fairly quiet and most notably had a number of dark, empty, drywalled spaces in tower podiums.

Stephen Avenue was a mixed bag of busy stores, 2/3 filled restaurants, packed coffee houses and I'd wager 25-30% empty spots.

However, there were hundreds, if not thousands of people walking around, shopping, eating, exploring and socializing. I cannot tell you how much safer, inviting and interesting it felt. The most stark difference being primarily a lack of those visibly high/unstable and no visible gang member activity.

Parking for 2hrs was $0.27, yup, $0.27 at a meter one block from the mall.

Sidewalks and streets were quite dirty, as expected this time of the year, with multiple garbage/refuse areas in poor shape, but nothing over flowing with garbage and very little garbage on the streets overall.

We both came away with similar comments that Calgary felt a lot more 'big city', safer due to how many people were walking around and that Downtown Edmonton feels forgotten about comparatively speaking.

It was a bit disheartening to think about how far behind Downtown Edmonton is on so many fronts relative to its big brother to the south.
Click to expand...
Well all the wacky parking ideas our city council has certainly don't help. One downtown street shows paid parking until 9 pm. There is hardly anything open on that street until that hour.

Having free parking downtown on Saturdays is something the city should have done a decade ago. It might have helped. I am not sure there is much to save at thing point.
 
tkoe_ said:
Why do we always have to do this? Someone takes a trip to Calgary and then we have to immediately get defensive. There is no question Calgary's downtown is better, but I certainly won't be lectured about a personal lack of "bravado" as the problem. None of this discussion is new and little seems helpful. Edmonton should focus on Edmonton and ignore the rest of this noise.
Click to expand...
In this case downtown Calgary is not the problem. If citing it makes people angry and defensive it is only because it highlights our failures.

Frankly, there is a lot blame to go around and if that makes some people here uncomfortable - good. I walk around downtown almost every day and while I am not timid, I am not some exceptionally brave person and can see a lot of the fears are exaggerated. It is actually about avoiding things that make us uncomfortable, which is why so many people retreat to their suburban communities. Maybe they are better at facing these things head on and dealing with them in other places.
 
TAS said:
I guess it's time for this story.
A friend of mine just recently flew to Toronto from here and was seated by a woman (in her early 80s) who was connecting in TO for a flight to visit family in Israel. In talking to her, she has lived in many 'world class' cities primarily in Europe throughout her life - and she called Edmonton the best city she has ever lived in (it's been about 20 years). She talked about safety, her community, kids sports programs for her grandkids and on and on my buddy said. She said they have now lived here longer than any other city and knew after the first year this is the place they wanted to stay.

Our dt is hurting, but many people love the communities they live in.

This same friend is a VP at a corporate office in dt. During this same conversation he talked about a time when they had to go to Toronto and have a booth at job fairs to recruit IT staff because they couldn't find them here. Many of the recruits were newer immigrants. He said when he looks at those recruits now that were brought here, most of them are still with the company and have families now. Many, many people love living in Edmonton after experiencing other cities around the world and in Canada.
Click to expand...
The city will be judged by many, especially by visitors from out of town by the state of our downtown which is not good. We ignore this at our peril.
 
IanO said:
However, there were hundreds, if not thousands of people walking around, shopping, eating, exploring and socializing. I cannot tell you how much safer, inviting and interesting it felt. The most stark difference being primarily a lack of those visibly high/unstable and no visible gang member activity.

Parking for 2hrs was $0.27, yup, $0.27 at a meter one block from the mall.
Click to expand...

I'm curious about parking. You mentioned there were thousands of people downtown doing different things. Did you find street parking fairly easily or did you have to drive around?

As you were strolling around, did you notice if there were still street parking spots available?

Do private parking lots charge more or do they offer those same rates for two hours? We're these private parking lots full?
 
Had planned to park at the mall, but the parking was actually full and so they turned us away via attendant and now I can see why. We found metered parking 1.5 blocks away.

Parking_Map_Website.png
 
IanO said:
Had planned to park at the mall, but the parking was actually full and so they turned us away via attendant and now I can see why. We found metered parking 1.5 blocks away.

Parking_Map_Website.png
Click to expand...
So their business community and whoever owns the dt mall is providing free parking for 3 hours. Nothing like that here I take it?
 
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