I liked this thread on Twitter by Peter Schryvers.
Although he starts it off by "Why I voted No" I think it has a lot of truths regardless
https://twitter.com/PeterSchryvers/status/1062752479987658752
The key points:
Calgary is a city that is struggling with a transition. Office vacancies and unemployment are at historic highs & the energy industry shows no signs of a quick rebound.
Many are looking for a single solution. Getting Amazon or the 2026 games. But these are misguided.
A single big event, or attracting a large company, is often too expensive and too risky. When you fail, you fail big. Cities need to learn to fail small. What we need, instead, is to create a city where ideas can grow. That is a different strategy than having one big thing.
We need to create a city where people want to live, and where they can create businesses. I would rather have 1000 small companies started than to attract an Amazon, because that strategy allows us to fail small.
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My big concern with Calgary, especially now, is that we've been like a giant sized turn of the century mining town. One main industry, boom years, then it dries up.
If you think about it, for decades we've had one primary industry (oil & gas) and one primary tourism play (Calgary Stampede). No those aren't the only industries or tourism attractions, but I wonder if having such major ones have caused us to forget how to not rely on them, or perhaps a better way to put it is it's trained us to try to find "one big thing" to replace the previous "one big thing".
To paraphrase Peter, we need 1000 industries and 1000 tourist attractions.
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