Quote:
Originally Posted by jc_yyc_ca
The vibrancy and character of downtown Calgary is different than other older cities, but it doesn't make it have less character or vibrancy, just a different style.
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Calgary is evolving but still has a largely single-use office downtown dominated by office towers with around 30% vacancy, for example, and outside of that it transitions relatively quickly to suburban land use patterns. It's not just differently-vibrant to Stockholm and underappreciated because people don't get western urbanism. At the same time, it's true that Calgary has done impressively well for its size, age, and location in North America, has improved and likely will continue to improve a lot. Though I wonder if these large condo/apartment developments will produce the same sort of outcome in the end, and there are wider negative trends in areas like retail and restaurants affecting every city. The advantage of older cities wasn't that they had some kind of foresight, and it's not just subjective. They had stronger aesthetics and urbanism in an age before modernism, ubiquitous car ownership, and postwar planning.
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