Infrastructurist
New Member
"mega city" is interesting
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Calgary's Downtown Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Alex_YYC
- Start date
"mega city" is interesting
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Megacities are typically >10 million people aren't they? Toronto may be close, but we aren't lol.
Beltline_B
Senior Member
The new name for Oliver is Wîhkwêntôwin. The closest comparison would be the Beltline, but a junior version of the Beltline. It's directly connected to downtown, but not as well connected to downtown Edmonton as the Beltline is to downtown Calgary, and most of its density is in a long east-west line along the river valley.
Edmonton has potential, but you could really say the same for Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Kelowna or any other city really. Some cities realize that potential and some don't.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
My money, is on Kelowna. I think they're poised, geography for Kelowna is both a benefit and a negative though.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Kelowna is actively realizing it's potential, that city is probably building more highrises than any other city on that list (except Calgary of course). Things are slowing down there though, which is likely a good thing.
trtcttc
Senior Member
While the development is nice, it's only taken place because of skyrocketing home values and extreme cost of living/homelessness issues. It's not really clear to me if that should be the ideal outcome.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
It's more than that though, Kelowna has very limited space for growth with the mountains, lake and the agriculture land reserve (ALR), so they are already at a point where they need to build up.
Infrastructurist
New Member
Funny you guys mentioned Kelowna I live there currently. This image is of One Water Street from my bedroom right now. Just behind this they’re supposed to be doubling the amount of towers here to make this really cool complex
developkelowna.ca
The Vintage at Waterscapes in Kelowna, BC. Updates, Prices, Reviews.
The Vintage at Waterscapes is a high-rise condos development by Ledingham McAllister. This project consists of 4 towers, with heights ranging from 26 to 36 storeys, located at 1070 Ellis St, Kelowna, BC. The Vintage at Waterscapes will have a total of 1141 units.
developkelowna.ca
Personally I'm not a fan of Kelowna, it's kind of a weird place IMO. It can't decide what it wants to be, and it has a few drawbacks.
- It's not a diverse city in terms of types of people. It's like a city of two types of people. Older rich people, or younger people in the service industry barely getting by.
- The drug scene, homelessness and crime is worse than Calgary on a per capita basis.
- 5-6 months of the year is very gray, and winters dull and dead. Summers are nice, but the extreme, being packed with people and traffic.
- Another thing I don't like is it feels like a one huge suburb, with development spread all over the place, and is extremely unwalkable. Probably the least walkable city in Canada.
There are towers going up, but they have that towers on the park feel. It's possible it could come together someday, but the lack of diverse demographics will delay it a while.
- It's not a diverse city in terms of types of people. It's like a city of two types of people. Older rich people, or younger people in the service industry barely getting by.
- The drug scene, homelessness and crime is worse than Calgary on a per capita basis.
- 5-6 months of the year is very gray, and winters dull and dead. Summers are nice, but the extreme, being packed with people and traffic.
- Another thing I don't like is it feels like a one huge suburb, with development spread all over the place, and is extremely unwalkable. Probably the least walkable city in Canada.
There are towers going up, but they have that towers on the park feel. It's possible it could come together someday, but the lack of diverse demographics will delay it a while.
Infrastructurist
New Member
This is my exact opinion as well. I’m moving out of here in about a month and this was the first place I moved to after Calgary (3-4 years). Since I’ve come it’s definitely gotten better (especially with urban density) and I have really high hopes for it, but I would never move back here LOL
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Kelowna's downtown area is starting to feel proper urban finally, I love it when they close big chunks of Bernard and make it a pedestrian mall in the summer. The rest of the city is fairly spread out and disconnected, but that's largely the geography, hard to have a contiguous city with mountains and ALR breaking it up. Curious what the future holds for Kelowna, they are too big already for the space they are in, but growth is only going to accelerate.
Red Star
Active Member
This. Plus, I find the traffic to be horrible in Kelowna.
Over the summer, I was driving from Summerland to Vernon and when I reached West Kelowna it was bumper to bumper until about Rutland. It was also around 10am or so I thought the morning rush would be over.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Naturally you think it would urbanize near the downtown. An advantage it has is it is flat so it would make alternate modes like biking pretty realistic to implement.
There's a grid beyond Richter to the east. I wonder what the area is zoned?
Mountain Man
Senior Member
The pushback to urbanize the SFH areas east of downtown will be fierce in Kelowna, especially with the value of those houses. There is the area north of Prospera Place that used to house the mill that is going to be rezoned to support highrises, so there is a land supply for the near to medium future for redevelopment.
It's getting better, but I think the issue is it has grown so fast. To me, despite having some highrises, the downtown doesn't feel like a place with a metro population of 250K. Then again Calgary was kind of in the same boat, growing so quickly over decades that the downtown vibrancy didn't feel like a city of a million and change. Downtown Calgary has been catching up over the past decade or so, and has shown great progress, but it took some time.