America is the way it is for the specific reason that they bought into the highway/decentralized model in the 50s and white-flight and suburbanization has really desolated most of their central areas.
For many of them, they can only hope for a few larger companies to have a handful of buildings in their downtowns and a stadium to draw people back into the core from their suburban desolation.
Calgary is a bit different because we didn't boom until the 70's when that phase of urban planning was no-longer so much in vogue. Our downtown is cool but the 70s boom didn't allow for enough residential (and the resulting shops to service that hypothetical population) so it's still desolate after 5PM and on weekends.
Last edited by Hack&Lube; 04-07-2014 at 02:39 PM.
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