Quote:
Originally Posted by Barnes
I would argue that there is no city in the world where there is a tonne of off business hours activity in the 'commerce' (skyscrapper canyon) areas of downtowns.
Stephen Ave, 17th, Mission in Calgary
St Catherines, St Lawrence, Crescent in Montreal
Byward Market Ottawa...
and so on. The areas where people tend to play are more in the lo/mid-rise multi-use districts. Places where there are nice things. Like bridges.
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Yes, people in Calgary confuse "downtown" with "central business district" ALL business districts are dead after work hours - Manhattan, London, Toronto - it doesn't matter.
It's always the mixed use doughnut immediately around the CBD that is usually the most vibrant. Calgary does have some very vibrant areas around the core, but certainly the overall vitality of the overall "downtown" needs to be improved. This will happen with more residents, cultural facilities, improved retail strips and so forth. Once areas like Eau Claire, East Village and Beltline reach their potential, no one will complain about a 'dead' downtown anymore.
Keep in mind that Calgary is only a city of a million - the same population that greater Vancouver was in 1971. Vancouver's downtown didn't really start urbanizing until the early 90s after expo 86. by the time it had a population well over 1.5 million. Calgary is sort of at that same stage that Vancouver was in the early 90s. Lots of condo development and just at the cusp of having that critical mass as a city to get large amounts of urban development downtown. Calgary's downtown is also far more business oriented than Vancouver's. I really do believe that with the very aggressive development plans that are in place in districts like Eau Claire, Beltline and East Village that Calgary's downtown will have a similar amount of urbanity and vitality that Vancouver's has now. As it stands our downtown is way, way ahead of where Vancouver's was when they had the population we have now.
The Caveat to that though is that Calgary needs to make very intential investments to make downtown living much more attractive - this means new parks, rejuvinated streetscapes, more cultural, commercial and recreational amenities, and yes, things like new pedestrian bridges to connect the downtown with its surroundings better.