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Downtown

Point being that I live and work in some of the cities that you reference and that my wife is native to NYC with family in both Beantown and Chitown to boot, and over 1/3 of my Board of Directors live and work in Edmonton, which I travel to regularly. I spend oodles of time in the company of my inlaws in these U.S. cities on a regular basis. Ian, you are just dead wrong about the very cities that you reference. And CCTV is part of the answer for Edmonton; not all -- just part. The City also needs more social activity and connectivity (Old Strathcona is a good model to follow) in its matrix of urban streets -- that is one area where Edmonton has a l-o-n-g way to go. Unfortunately, the City has a planning department focused on passive activities -- planters and benches (don't get me started on that tune again) instead of active streets. I can hardly wait until post-COVID to show in real form what it is that I am talking about. Beljan gets it, if you want a local reference.
 
Vis a vis other major cities, our CBD presents very poor relatively speaking. I travel regularly to other major cities and regularly come back wondering why our Downtown simply does not impress. I completely agree about Beljan and the need for active streets, but I have to disagree.
 
I am so torn here. I wish that there will be more adequate resources for out less fortunate to get help for whatever addiction, have a warm place to stay, etc. going forward, but every time I see something like this I can't help but curse the person who did it, even though they most likely fit under that umbrella of needing help. I don't know, am I a bad person for getting mad at the person who wrecks nice things in our city out of some sort of twisted fun or spite for their circumstance? Am I wrong for getting mad at the fact that whenever I get into a discussion along these lines, it usually comes down to "we can't force them to go into housing or get treatment or do anything because they are free-thinking and independent people", but when someone goes and does something stupid like this it was because "they couldn't control themselves and didn't know what they were doing", like what? That's scary, that we allow people who can't control themselves and who suffer from mental illness to roam the streets like stray animals in the name of maintaining their "freedom". Why shouldn't they be treated like the rest of us and, while given a place to stay and adequate support and guidance depending on what they need, held to keeping their lives in check and staying on the right path? You guys are free to think what you think about this issue, but in my opinion, the way to go is to agree to treating and helping the less fortunate like actual humans and not like stray dogs which we can just abandon on the street and "deal with later", because when you treat a person like an animal what do you expect them to become?
 
Yep, aimless vandalism like that isn't even maddening or frustrating anymore. Just... sad.
 
9maxvpf1l6461.jpg

https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/k9tz0v
 
Of note, the '3rd tusks' are still missing from the Jasper Avenue New Vision... whenever that is the future.
 
archited said:
Point being that I live and work in some of the cities that you reference and that my wife is native to NYC with family in both Beantown and Chitown to boot, and over 1/3 of my Board of Directors live and work in Edmonton, which I travel to regularly. I spend oodles of time in the company of my inlaws in these U.S. cities on a regular basis. Ian, you are just dead wrong about the very cities that you reference. And CCTV is part of the answer for Edmonton; not all -- just part. The City also needs more social activity and connectivity (Old Strathcona is a good model to follow) in its matrix of urban streets -- that is one area where Edmonton has a l-o-n-g way to go. Unfortunately, the City has a planning department focused on passive activities -- planters and benches (don't get me started on that tune again) instead of active streets. I can hardly wait until post-COVID to show in real form what it is that I am talking about. Beljan gets it, if you want a local reference.
Click to expand...

There are many policies in place for active street frontages here, so I wouldn't blame the City for that. We just need more developers like Beljan to follow suit with those active developments.
 
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