"Eighty per cent of Canadians live in urban regions, and unless we recognize that the health of a city, its well being, is vital to our way of life, Canada will never realize its full potential." -- Christoper Hume
What do you think makes a city livable? This is a question that was asked for an upcoming segment on CBC-TV's The Nature of Things. City of Calgary planners David Down, Thom Mahler and Sonny Tomic were interviewed as part of this six city exploration into the make-up of urban living in Canada.
Premiering on: Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 8 pm on CBC-TV...repeating on: Thursday, February 12 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld.
Living City: A Critical Guide...about the show
What's wrong with Canada's cities? What's right? Award-winning urban affairs columnist Christopher Hume takes a cross-country journey to explore sustainability, viability and livability of Canada's population centres.
Hume, a provocative urban critic and columnist for the Toronto Star, highlights the projects and passionate people who will shape urban life in Canada in the coming decade. But, travelling by train from Halifax to Vancouver, Hume also gives the viewer a firsthand look at what's wrong--Canada's aging infrastructure, failing mass transportation and overall lack of political will.
I agree with C. Hume's comment: "CALGARY NEEDS A LOT OF WORK"!
Let's stop delaying and get on with it! We should make it easier for the proper development to occur and at a faster rate in the centre city. I believe that once the centre city is revitalized it will be a shining example of success to Calgary's suburbs and these outer areas will want to copy the centre city's success.
I also have to say that it's too bad C. Hume didn't mention that the Via Rail train he was traveling in doesn't actually stop in Calgary because service stopped 19 years ago and the city doesn't even have a public station that I'm aware of. I think this situation is outrageous for a modern city of Calgary's size because it forces residents to move in cars or planes when leaving the city. There must be more options!
I have talked to Via Rail about this and they cite low customer demand. I think the city of Calgary should step up here and help bring back the trans-canada rail service.
Posted by: Mark | February 07, 2009 at 09:35 AM
I thought Thom, Sonny and David did a nice job representing Calgary in the piece - despite the short airtime.
His basic thesis was that Calgary has "ambitions plans but a lot of work to do, so he'll reserve judgment until it's fully realized".
I think that is basically the right asssessment for Calgary at this point in its history. A very young work in progress.
Although the many cranes behind him in the short maybe should have promped a response of clearly lots is happening to move in the right direction, but generally I thought his assessment wasn't too bad.
The comment of "that's it?" when responding to Calgary's centre city population caught me a bit. Considering Vancouver is the model of downtown livability and has 85 000 people living downtown and a metropolitan population twice the size - "37 000-40 000" in comparison isn't very far out of proportion. Toronto, a city of 5.5 million has a "downtown" population of about 140, 000. I think his perception of a 'low' population is because Calgary's downtown isn't so visibly residential compared to Vancouver and has quite a bit of vacant land as he points out. Whereas Vancouver is packed in and dominated by condos. It's a bit of a perception difference. That's not to say that Calgary shouldn't at least double or triple it's centre city though. It definitely needs to.
Posted by: Josh | February 06, 2009 at 01:10 PM