[kermitology]

Originally Posted by pepper24

If any candidate for mayor repeats what you said, they get my vote. Well said.

The biggest issue in Calgary is unattainable, short-sided urban sprawl. I am sick of Calgary being modelled after car-loving cities like Houston with a sprawling area and a dead downtown. Calgary is still at a premature growth stage that needs to be modelled after world-class metropolitian cities in North America like New York, Chicago, Montreal and Vancouver to name a few. Cities where the heart is the downtown core. It's not too late to move away from the model of Houston, Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. Cities with dead downtowns, tons of unfriendly freeways, traffic and mainly suburban living.

Calgary's downtown has amazing potential. It has a large workforce and has the 3rd most commercial office space in North America (after New York and Chicago). It has all the vitals to be great such as the C-Train, shopping districts (17 Ave, 8th Avenue/TD Center), culture (Chinatown, Glenbow Musuem, Calgary Zoo), restaurants, sports venues (Saddledome, Stampede Park), bars/pubs, great parks (Prince's Island, Olympic Plaza) etc. City council needs to build off of this to attract more people after 5 pm. Enough people work downtown but more people need to live/play downtown. Besides more condo towers, we also need more urban developments like Garrison Woods.

Having answers to these issues is what will get my vote.

In my opinion, Calgary will always be a far cry from being a world class city until this type of thing is in place.