Downtown Calgary's Mean Streets

"Walk around [downtown] Calgary -- dare to abandon your car -- in order to appreciate how mean the streets have become. The city is defined by urban parsimony.

Instead of parks or courtyards designed to allow people to bask in the big Alberta sun, there is a formidable system of one-way streets and towers that come down hard to the edge of the street. It's no wonder only 30,000 people call centre city their home. Since the 1960s, the above-ground system of walkways that connects buildings in the downtown has further undermined the basic fact that any dynamic city requires foot traffic at street level.

...The centre city communities accounted for almost half of all personal and property crimes in Calgary, compared with 23 per cent of Toronto's total crimes that are committed in its downtown. In an oil-rich city like Calgary with a young population of highly educated, hard-working engineers, there isn't a lot of time or interest for those who are left behind. There were 2,597 homeless people enumerated in 2004 by the city-sponsored count of homeless persons. Sweeping the homeless into shelters -- there are 43 such facilities in the downtown -- is hardly the answer.

In boom time, the tendency is for Calgary to go on automatic pilot and build towers. In order to accommodate a flood of people wanting to work and live in the downtown, the projection is for more than 100 30-storey condominium towers and about 20 new 30-storey office towers by 2025. But too many towers will further depersonalize the city centre. Without credible alternatives to the suburbs, such as low-scale dev elopments animated by new public space, cafés andretail, Calgary's downtown will die a slow, heart-stopping death."