Downtown Calgary: Where are we at in 2014?

[onanewday]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

There was a huge office boom in the 70's-80's, but the thousands of residents and small businesses that exists in Downtown Calgary pre-1950 moved away, their buildings torn down, and paved over. I'm not trying to fear monger or anything, just speaking realistically about the communities I grew up in and love. Fortunately, Calgary never had the kind of drugs and violence that existed in other cities, but the loss of interest in inner-city culture is urban decay none the less. When a parking lot makes more revenue that a residential block, your city is deeply sick.

Today you see more pedestrian traffic, food culture, and live music that you probably have in 65 years (even per capita). Sure, there were many areas (Sunalta, Kensington, Mission, etc) that remained livable the whole century, but other areas (East Village, Victoria Park, even Eau Claire and Bridgeland) have become shadows of their former selves and only now have regained what was lost in the decay.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree to an extent. There was never loss of interest in our inner city. I just don't see that in the 70's or 80's. Either from a business or residential perspective. You just have to walk around and see that dates that building were being constructed.

Eau Claire was cleared in anticipation of construction. Like the original Eau Claire estates. That was to be the first. Victoria Park always had a tension with Stampede ground expansion. It was cleared after the Stampede bought it out. Most of the legacy in the inner city was of a boom gone bust. So if you want to characterize that as urban decay - I can agree. I think you have to remember the parking lots weren't meant to stay that way.

I think we sometimes have to look at the effects of the boom and bust of the time. Did this lead to a form of urban decay?

But one thing to point out... you can't compare a city of 400,000 with today for life on the streets. It is very hard to do. Calgary was a very different world in the 70's.

The reality is that Calgary's inner city would never stay as houses and small two story buildings. We are continuing to see that transformation to this day.