Statistics Canada Reports II

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I don't actually think in many ways that Calgary and Edmonton are that different. There is a suburban culture in Calgary too. Tuscany and Terwillegar are like fraternal twins. But Calgarians have pride in their city and a desire to make it into something. Edmonton isn't a go-getter that way.

Something I've thought about with Winnipeg is that none of its main streets are at the level of Whyte Ave, let alone the top tier ones in Calgary, but they are so much more interesting. Winnipeg is self-deprecating, but it uses towards more productive ends rather than just whining about not being Calgary. Winnipeg doesn't care if its cold and boring, it has better river skating than Ottawa, better winter festivals than "Festival City" Edmonton, and its citizens are better at dressing for winter and even making it fashion. I've noticed an uptick in Inuit and Indigenous-made parkas in Winnipeg. There's a scrappiness to Winnipeg because it knows that it gets overlooked and has to fend for itself. Edmonton is too fat from petrol to know how to do that. The result is that even if Winnipeg is fairly suburban and car-centric, there's still a pridefulness and making the most out of it that Edmontonians lack. Look at Wolseley -- the Four Squares are colourful, the street boulevards have vegetable gardens, in the winter there are lots of elaborate front lawn family skating rinks, snow sculptures, etc while in the summer people get out the trampolines, have the tall grass prairie gardens, etc. In similarly old, "crunchy" areas in Edmonton like the Highlands or perhaps Mill Creek/Ritchie there isn't this desire for residents to take the same pride and make the neighbourhood feel vibrant even when there aren't a ton of pedestrians meandering.

Edmonton offers a lot of great things and has its own appeals, but they are largely outside of the world of urbanism, aside from the odd progressive planning headline. I think a lot of people put their hopes on the Ice District and while it did eat up a huge swath of brownfield, the CRUs are just banks. The tallest building in Canada outside the GTA has a vacant food court at the bottom, but I guess Brookfield Place can't say much about that even if it's the hotter one. I'd argue that Winnipeg's True North Square is a similarly styled development to Ice District, albeit smaller scaled, and despite nobody knowing what the Sutton Hotel will look like, is more successful on the ground. But Winnipeg's a real city, not what happens when you add a million people to Moncton. There are no abandoned warehouse raves in Edmonton because there are no abandoned warehouses to conduct raves in and if there were nobody would be brave enough to do anything about it.