The Olympics left a great legacy in the Nordic Centre, which is free to use(except xc-skiing) for everyone in the town. I'm going to guess the gondola won't be free, and lets face it, a Casino doesn't appeal to most of the people who live in and have moved to Canmore for the mountains and outdoor activities. I think the difference here is that the Nordic Centre is a public good, whereas this development is private, and again, the town has been burned in the past by these sorts of developments. They also say they want it built all at once, which is not the gradual growth that was seen in Canmore over the years after the Olympics.
In grade 12 we did a Social Studies project on Canmore growth, I've got a VCR tape of our project somewhere...would be interesting to see exactly what we had to say then. I remember driving around filming the town's first million dollar home, and how things were changing so fast. There was a predicted population growth chart, I believe up to 2025. I wonder how closely it matches up.
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