Quote:
Originally Posted by kool maudit
I'll be blunt: I have never visited Edmonton, but photos and Street View have always made it appear the ugliest and most utilitarian of Canada's major cities. I have explored neighbourhoods like Oliver and downtown, and in terms of finding a good street, I have always come up empty-handed (I can sometimes find a good block).
That said, urbanism has a human element and the buildings are just the frame to scenes of human movement and dynamism. In this way, I bet there are a lot of places in Edmonton that would strike me, in person, as "this shouldn't work but it does". I have been to places in Miami, for instance, that are like this.
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As a life-long Edmontonian, I’ll say it’s a city that doesn't photograph well — least of all in streetview — but it does have some places that work in-person. Oliver’s the big one I think. Looking at it, it’s this weird — and at times downright ugly —mix of pre-war Foursquares and ‘50s walkups, and contemporary towers, yet it’s actually a really nice community to walk through. It might not be the best urban neighbourhood in Canada — it could be denser, a little less run-down in spots, have more businesses inside the community and away from Jasper Avenue, etc. — yet it’s decent, and lively in its own way. But my opinion may be coloured as someone less-traveled.
Having said all that though, I agree with everything you’ve said. Edmonton’s biggest weakness is its lack of urban cohesion. We have blocks or stretches of blocks that almost work, but nothing more (perhaps with the exception of Whyte). As ue mentioned, there’s places like 104th, a great urban street that just isn’t as lively as it ought to be, or places like 124th, which is nice enough but has plenty of gaps in it. What’s more pressing to me though is how we can have a stretch of historic buildings or smaller-scale storefronts that just give way to downright inhospitable stretches the next block over.
My mind’s always drawn to the 97th Street area. Along Jasper you have
this great collection of Edwardian buildings — by Edmonton-standards it could really be something special — but twist your head forty-five degrees and you’re met with the hulking mass that is Canada Place.
Or down 97th itself. Again, great pre-war buildings, but turn around in any direction and you’re met with the ass-end of the Provincial Law Courts, an old C.N.R. underpass, and the Brownlee Building.
Most of our ills can be explained away due to the history of Alberta’s booms and busts (as much of a cop-out as that may be). Prior to the Great War the city was blooming into something beautiful, and we developed a surprisingly dense downtown core for a city of our size. But then a real-estate bust came in 1913, then the Great War, then an exodus of 20,000 people, then the Great Depression, then the Second World War. Edmonton’s population stagnated and the number of major buildings erected between 1914 and 1939 could probably be counted on two hands. It’s not hyperbole to say the Edmonton of the early 1940s was a time-capsule.
Anyways, all this is to say that when oil was discovered in ‘47 there was a rush to modernize the entire city. Most looked at the forty-year-old core and decided it needed ‘updating’ and update it they did until the late ‘80s when the next major bust came around. In its wake it left dozens of demolished heritage buildings, undeveloped lots, monolithic towers, and nothing in between. Some thirty-plus years on we’re still dealing with its effects.
There has been progress in recent years, of course, but that mid-century clear-cutting of the downtown core will always plague us. It’s sad to me, but at this point the best downtown Edmonton could really hope to be in terms of a defined urban-form (and we’re talking decades of work out here) is something more akin to Yaletown in Vancouver. Maybe not in style, but in spirit. Something that’s been built from nothing, and while it’s something urban, decent to look at, and maintains a sliver of its past and character, is something that’s still overall pretty soulless and plain, if that makes any sense?
I’ll end my ramble here.
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