Comment by pixelgeek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pixelgeek | Hacker News Reader

> Calgary is now searching for ways to fix a problem that has left the city’s downtown – which already had a reputation as a lifeless collection of skyscrapers filled with people who clear out at the end of every workday

The situation isn't unique to Calgary. It is the same in a lot of other urban centres (like Oakland) where there was no development focus on anything other than head offices and high rises.

Compare Calgary to Vancouver (I live in C and spent 20+ years in V) where there was some effort to make the downtown a more livable space. I think the downtown here in Calgary is ghastly. Loud. Ugly. Who would want to spend any time in it?

I used to walk around downtown Vancouver all the time. Never do that here.

For decades the governments running Calgary, and Alberta, have not really given a shit about anyone other than large businesses (and their campaign funding) and those businesses have done what they normally do and moved elsewhere once things got tough or they got a better deal.

And, as usual, taxpayers and residents are left with the remains once the party is over and businesses have moved on.

In this case the city has an unliveable downtown filled with skyscrapers no-one wants to move into.

Having lived in all those places as well and others. I think Oakland has some very unique problems that Calgary doesn't. Namely that it has historically had a high crime rate (I was in a conference called and watched a drive by with about 15 shots fired off in midday - granted this is 4 years ago but still).

Calgary has a lifeless core and the worst urban sprawl in america but it's also because Calgary is wicked cold - the plus 15 (an above ground network walking between office buildings throughout the core for cold winter days) takes a lot of the foot traffic off the streets making it tough for street level businesses and the quality of produce/food is pretty bleak in Alberta unless you love beef and beets.

Vancouver never gets cold so you can literally walk there all year around and has a vibrant food scene and has geographical constraints limiting outward development.

Im not defending Calgarys lack of vision and innovation but they are dealing with completely different market dynamics (boom and bust) and environment.

In terms of tax payers, Alberta has the lowest tax across the country, not sure how much of it really falls on the tax payers but I'm curious about that.

All in all agree with most of your points, just expanding some of the thoughts.

The crime rate is definitely a issue and one I wasn't familiar with. I was staying in a hotel just off downtown once and the area looked like the set of a zombie flick after 6pm.

> Im not defending Calgarys lack of vision and innovation but they are dealing with completely different market dynamics (boom and bust) and environment.

They are but at no point has anyone ever tried to address those problems. It was working and the money was coming in so people were happy.

Nothing that Calgary and Alberta is going through now is novel or unforeseen. The boom-bust cycle. The dreadful downtown. People could see the fan and the giant pile of shit but no-one thought it was worth planning for it

> All in all agree with most of your points, just expanding some of the thoughts.

Thanks for helping the discussion along :-)

Montreal has even more brutal cold, yet has a bustling downtown worth walking around -- because it was designed for people.

Another anecdote to refute your point: LA has the best weather in the world, but a completely dead downtown that most people avoid.

Montreal is definitely not colder than Calgary. More precipitation, so snowier in the winter, but not colder.

But it's humid cold! Hence more brutal.

You're right that the actual temperatures are pretty similar.

Following what @jonahrd mentions, the combination of the humidity and the temperature are a killer.

Actually San Francisco has the best weather in the world (very subjective). Agree, there are many other factors at play. Montreal is a very old city though - it was built before industrialization (ie go see the old port).

I'd say that dead downtowns after hours are more the norm than the exception in a lot of cities. Indeed, I can think of cities that do have a fair bit happening overall and their financial districts and similar are still pretty dead once people go home. For example, no one would probably say Boston didn't have a lot happening after 5 but the actual financial district is pretty empty.

We'll see what happens given the dynamics of a lot of office work going forward. Most people don't want to live in a city apartment per se. They want to live somewhere with easy access to entertainment, restaurants, etc. If there's nowhere to walk to, there's little reason to live somewhere walkable.

Am I incorrect in thinking Vancouver’s downtown is still extremely low density relative to Calgary’s downtown? And I understand it was only fairly recently that Calgary approved residential / multi-use zoning units core?

Vancouver is far more dense, google an arial image of each to compare. There are suburbs of Vancouver with density equal to Calgary it looks like.

As @katbyte mentions, Vancouver downtown is very dense.

The city had a very progressive urban planning department until about 2007 or so and it shows.

I am not as familiar with the downtown as it exists now but the downtown was, when I lived there, very different than almost any downtown I have been in in North America with the possible exception of San Fran.

Downtown LA has its own (serious) problems, but one of its real successes is the transition over the past 20 years towards having greater integration of local communities, amenities, and nightlife. In the 90s it was a ghost town after 7pm, and now most neighborhoods have a bustling dining and entertainment scene that supports diverse local and small businesses.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com