Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
Most impressed with Edmonton I must say!
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Yeah, I feel like the transformation is most stark in Edmonton between the late 2000s and now. Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and even now Montreal and Ottawa are achieving stratospheric growth, but, aside from Montreal, these cities were building on momentum from the previous decade that kicked into high gear in the '10s.
Edmonton was very different circa 2007. A lot sleepier, a lot more gap-y urbanism, and perhaps most importantly, something you can't see in the photos, the attitude and vibe is quite different. That's something I wouldn't even say you'd say for Montreal as much - yes certain areas have changed feel, but the city still overall is the cool big city, very bilingual, youthful, historic, triplex-heavy, and there's still a je ne sais quois about it, and a sense of importance that it had a decade ago because of its legacy of being the powerhouse of Canada previously.
Compared with Calgary, the growth, until the mid-'00s, was slower, such that Metro Calgary finally overtook Edmonton in the early '00s. The '90s were a lot nicer to Calgary than Edmonton. Downtown was pretty dead - there was Whyte Ave and nothing else. The calibre of city projects was a lot lower quality then too. This is something I suppose you could say for most Canadian cities, but most Canadian cities weren't building power centres and gated communities right downtown in the same way Edmonton was in the late '90s and '00s (which was at the time the only real new development the city's core was seeing).
The attitude in Edmonton is also a lot more optimistic. Maybe not Calgary-level, but the city has been shedding its parochial inferiority complex. Edmontonians are less down on their city, which is really interesting to see. A lot of people move to the city and actually enjoy it and want to stick down roots. Think about it - Edmonton went 21 years without building a new office tower downtown and then less than a decade later built the tallest building in the country outside of Toronto. It went 15 years without building any new LRT, and is now doing consecutive LRT expansions and new LRT lines without skipping a beat. Edmonton went from the South LRT extension to the Metro Line to the Valley Line Southeast and now is starting the Valley Line West.
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