Recent content by CBBarnett

A highly functional, affordable and properly located pig receiving some well-earned lipstick. I'd take this beef-castle over a shiny, sexy tower located next to a freeway interchange in the burbs any day of the week.

At some point we have to pay for society and it's basic functions of government, healthcare, education and infrastructure (among other things). Sales tax is the most obvious and easy to implement tool that solves a ton of our problems. Breaking the province's cognitive dissonance of believing...

Great points and very true. I like to complain but we shouldn't lose sight on some serious assets we can put to work if we are smart about it.

The Husky/Cenovus merger really lays bare the collapsing strategy that made Canada's oil and gas sector so advantageous: inefficiency. Calgary as the primary benefactor, duplicate head offices of a bunch of mid/large-sized firms works super great when times are good - high commodity prices hide...

As usual, I am more upset by the bizarre setback/lawn setup that is drawn in there than the building itself. Why must an urban-format, 6 storey building have useless front lawns that raise operating costs and undermine pedestrian access, all for no reason? Barf, as they say.

Further to my point - without a rich provincial government looking for votes, this province's smaller municipalities are in real, and sometimes existential, trouble. This is true all over the country, but made all the worse from decades of stringing places along with expensive infrastructure...

Mission will never be done until the Holy Cross Centre get's redeveloped. It alone is about 20% of the neighbourhood, smack in the middle of it with decaying towers fronting onto large surface parking lots. It still has some health care and affiliated services run out of it, but it's designed...

It's a good question - and it's certainly not a universal "everyone is thriving" reality. Definitely some buildings and market sectors are crushed right now, but many are reasonably okay as well. When we say that urban neighbourhoods are thriving a key point is that 2019 urban neighbourhoods...

I think this is also largely a testament to Calgary's inner city being the only market that offers a notably urban lifestyle in the prairies (Edmonton being a smaller but notable alternative). This is often the first stop for anyone looking for a big city in this part of the continent (either by...

Some rural municipalities will be absolutely slammed by this plan as property taxes are their only form of revenue the province allows them to collect and now the province is forcing them to collect from only a smaller tax base. Removing these properties from the tax base without much lead time...

I of course totally agree. If the assumption is that the pedestrian realm will be improved through physically adjacent redevelopment, while the vehicular realm is under no such conditional investment plan - you will never create a good public realm. Piecemeal, inconsistent, decades apart (and...

Yeah I think this is a fair point and all digital retail and corporate approaches are valid options - but even substituting ACAD ( AUA now I think?) is that major change. Take 1,000 - 1,500 18 - 24 year olds and have them spend their time directly in the core rather than the NW. That's a *huge*...

A few thoughts on how to fix the CBD. Most importantly, we need to fully and whole-heartedly acknowledge what the CBD is - an urban place at the centre of the city that holds physical, economic and cultural significance to the wider city, region and ultimately our image to the country and world...

I don't know if one currently exists, but I put my Public Realm Catelogue in one of the folders. Go ahead and make one and I'd contribute for sure!

I looked into this a bit and counted parking stalls nearby, I probably missed some. I only counted online parking spots so missed all condos, residential, dedicated stalls and on-street. This is all I could find within a block or so, including underground and surface parking. Guess how many...