Quote:
Originally Posted by Knalus
I'm not saying that there should be no growth on the edge of the city - I think that a city like Calgary, of course there will be growth out there, too. It'll be vibrant, and a great place to live as well. But with the amount of growth that this city is currently seeing, there is room for more than just "build new schools on the edge of town". There is enough demand to have communities in the inner city use their schools.
At the end of the day, it's a lot to do about choice. I don't want the inner city schools to close, because I would like to use them. I want that choice. And if they will let me, it will be cheaper for them in the long run, then having to grow, and grow, and grow, and not take advantage of the infrastructure that is already in place and set up.
It's not a one-or-the-other situation. It almost never is. So why should one have to go away to support the other?
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Absolutely. (And Renfrew is also a great neighbourhood. I've spent many hours walking around it, and it's lovely). I would never say to shut down all of the inner city schools, as vibrant inner city neighbourhoods are very important. But there could be some consolidation of unnecessary buildings.
I'm talking more about a situation like Queen Elizabeth High School and Crescent Heights High School. They're very close to each other, old, and underutilized. Could one be closed and the building repurposed/redeveloped in a sensible way? Absolutely.
The biggest problem with underutilized inner city schools is their inefficiency. It costs nearly as much to run a 200 student school as a 600 student school in overhead. In that case I really think it makes sense to consolidate two schools into one and use the savings to improve the education our societies children receive.
In terms of the suburbs, the provincial gov't will only pay for a new school when the existing school infrastructure of a board is being utilized. So an underutilized school in the inner city is taking a neighbourhood school away from someone in the burbs. The inner city types like to rail that they overpay compared to usage for everything, but the old walkable schools they have cost more to operate per student than newer larger ones.