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Calgary becoming the next Detroit: A look 10 years later.

Surrealplaces said:
It's not much different here, but also it's something we have been seeing with most cities. Industry moves out to areas with cheaper land, etc..
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Projects like the Amazon hub in Balzac, and De Havilland Field near Strathmore come to mind. But I think most of the workers in these places still live in Calgary.

Speaking of, something I don't know if people foresaw 10 years ago (or at least I didn't) is Vancouver running out of industrial land, and having to shift some of that footprint here.

CBBarnett said:
Detroit also then layered on the typical American city approach at the time - tear down functioning neighbourhoods to build giant expressways all throughout the city thanks to cheap federal loans. Being the car industry headquarters certainly didn't lead to much meaningful resistance. This had the same effects as elsewhere - remove economically productive areas to be highways, destabilize neighbourhoods along the way.
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Detroit does have an oversized proportion of its land dedicated to expressways (relatively lightly used ones, today). Not only did that destroy housing, but it destroyed the tax base. You can't collect property takes from a giant interchange.

Surrealplaces said:
The skilled labour , higher educated workforce is something that cities like Winnipeg, Windsor, Pittsburgh, St Louis etc.. didn't have.
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St. Louis and Detroit have large populations that have been an underclass for generations. That's going to translate to lower education levels and productivity for decades to come - America reaping what it sowed.
 
I know we like to slag on Edmonton but for a ~1.5 million metro I think they punch well above their weight. In the Canadian context, they are sort of left in the shadow of Calgary and Ottawa, both of which have a pretty big global profile/recognition for their size.

Edmonton reminds me of Adelaide, Australia - it just doesn't enjoy the global profile of similar size cities like Brisbane and Perth.
 
How? Edmonton has never stagnated or declined the way any rust belt city has (no Canadian city has in fact), I'm all for giving them a hard time, but this is just wrong lol.
 
Mountain Man said:
How? Edmonton has never stagnated or declined the way any rust belt city has (no Canadian city has in fact), I'm all for giving them a hard time, but this is just wrong lol.
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what? Edmonton never stagnated? every time i drive to Edmonton reminds me DTW... how many empty plazas... how depression that city is.... have you driven by 107 ave 111 ave? for me that city looks dead empty
 
Albertasaurus said:
I know we like to slag on Edmonton but for a ~1.5 million metro I think they punch well above their weight. In the Canadian context, they are sort of left in the shadow of Calgary and Ottawa, both of which have a pretty big global profile/recognition for their size.

Edmonton reminds me of Adelaide, Australia - it just doesn't enjoy the global profile of similar size cities like Brisbane and Perth.
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that city need to increase the density for sure.... Adelaide is better than EDM.... for me. EDM looks like Cleveland at least, may not be bad as DTW, for sure Calgary wont be like DTW. probably Denver
 
another point Calgary never become as DTW, cause states have more options for settlement, when auto industry is dead they move to other cities for resettlement .
in Canada where we could move to? TORONTO VANCOUVER? think about the living expense...if i could afford a house there, we wont be in YYC. which other big cities we could choose? (you could move to small city thought) yeah yeah. where do i take international flight? where do we have fun in smaller cities?
 
zzkwilliamcanada said:
that city need to increase the density for sure.... Adelaide is better than EDM.... for me. EDM looks like Cleveland at least, may not be bad as DTW, for sure Calgary wont be like DTW. probably Denver
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Well, when I compare Edmonton to what I would call "peer cities" in the US (which, considering the very generous definition of their metro areas, I consider places like Columbus, Indianapolis, Kansas City, etc) I feel like Edmonton absolutely thumps those cities. I have travelled to nearly all the big US cities, and found that most of them are, frankly, a mess with desolate downtowns characterized by huge swaths of parking lots, further hemmed in by the interstates.

Edmonton is in the unfortunate place of being the least known of Canada's 6 big cities, but I still don't think it's a bad place - certainly not anywhere near the planning disaster we see down there.
 
Mountain Man said:
I'd say both Calgary and Detroit are doing quite well these days!
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Detroit as a metro is still increasing in population, but even then still pales compared to our growth. From 2010-2020 Detroit’s metro grew by 100k, and Calgary grew by that in one year!
 
I think we’re doing just fine.
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And G7s
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And within North America, the gdp per capita Challenge is more stark.
1716742478366.png


The question is how to move not just upwards (we will as the recently arrived integrate more into the economy) but break out of the Canadian pack (much harder).
 
Well, I guess I was today years old when I learned that Calgary was larger than the Philadelphia and Barcelona metro areas, and as close in size to Montreal as to Edmonton. If the basic facts like population can't be sourced correctly, I'm not sure I have a lot of faith in that site's ability to source the much more nebulous GDP figures.

But I think the bigger point it that it's sort of meaningless to compare relatively small percentages in something as broad as GDP as if it's meaningful; Cities at a similar level of wealth can have the money hoarded by a few, or used by the many; it can be used to make the city better for everyone, better for a few, or worse for most. It can make the city better in the short run, or set it up for the long run. The biggest single-year bump in Calgary's GDP was probably caused by the 2013 floods, which created an amazing amount of economic activity -- I'm not sure that was the best way to make a better city with that amount of money!
 
ByeByeBaby said:
Well, I guess I was today years old when I learned that Calgary was larger than the Philadelphia and Barcelona metro areas, and as close in size to Montreal as to Edmonton. If the basic facts like population can't be sourced correctly, I'm not sure I have a lot of faith in that site's ability to source the much more nebulous GDP figures.

But I think the bigger point it that it's sort of meaningless to compare relatively small percentages in something as broad as GDP as if it's meaningful; Cities at a similar level of wealth can have the money hoarded by a few, or used by the many; it can be used to make the city better for everyone, better for a few, or worse for most. It can make the city better in the short run, or set it up for the long run. The biggest single-year bump in Calgary's GDP was probably caused by the 2013 floods, which created an amazing amount of economic activity -- I'm not sure that was the best way to make a better city with that amount of money!
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Applying universal metrics for built up urban area rather than incomparable national statistical standards does make for some different results, though it is apples to apples. In Philly’s case the surrounding counties have such a drop in density they missed the ‘contiguous’ urban area test. If the model had applied municipal boundaries rather than counties (the USA is weird), it would have done better.
 
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