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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

Surrealplaces said:
Not really an urban development thing, but this recent photo of the skyline shows how much the core has grown over the past few years. How many buildings in this pic are from the last 10 years?
Click to expand...
I count 36 high rises either built or u/c in the ;last 10 years. Imagine if we could repeat that over the next 10 years.
 
Meikkhaell said:
Hey guys, random question ...
Anyone know when they're going to update the skyscraper models in Google Maps satellite view? If ever?
As it stands now, Brookfield Place is a pit, the EV is next to empty, Telus Sky is non-existant, City Centre is like a third of the way built, etc.

Was looking at New York and different places too, to see if it's just us who haven't gotten a model update recently. But it looks like they haven't either.
I thought I heard something about them not updating models anymore ... no clue if that's true but that would be a shame.
Click to expand...

Great question! I have also wondered this frequently in the last couple months.
 
I did an analysis of the Centre City using 2016 census tract data. The boundaries for this area are the Bow River, the Elbow River, 17 Avenue and 14 Street SW. It also includes the Mission neighbourhood, but not Cliff Bungalow. That's just the way the census tracts are shaped.

2016 population: 41,800 (11.0% 5-year growth)
2011 population: 37,645

Top 5 immigrant groups:
China
India
Philippines
Iran
UK

Hong Kong and Ethiopia are also strongly represented, relative to their presence elsewhere in Calgary, but didn't make the top 5
 
So that population is basically Downtown (EV, Chinatown, Eau Claire, West end, and commercial core), Beltline and Mission?

42K is pretty good all considered. I believe it would have been in the low 30's back in 2006.
 
It's kinda weird to think, but is that population really much different compared to what that particular geographic area might have been like 80 years ago?
 
kora said:
I did an analysis of the Centre City using 2016 census tract data. The boundaries for this area are the Bow River, the Elbow River, 17 Avenue and 14 Street SW. It also includes the Mission neighbourhood, but not Cliff Bungalow. That's just the way the census tracts are shaped.

2016 population: 41,800 (11.0% 5-year growth)
2011 population: 37,645

Top 5 immigrant groups:
China
India
Philippines
Iran
UK

Hong Kong and Ethiopia are also strongly represented, relative to their presence elsewhere in Calgary, but didn't make the top 5
Click to expand...


That works out to a population density of 9 289/km2 (the region being a total of 4.5 km2). Not bad, considering that 0.4 km2 of the Beltline is the Stampede wasteland. With the Stampede excluded, the true density comes out to 10 195/km2.
 
Always_Biking said:
So that population is basically Downtown (EV, Chinatown, Eau Claire, West end, and commercial core), Beltline and Mission?

42K is pretty good all considered. I believe it would have been in the low 30's back in 2006.
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see how much the population can swing in the city centre if apartment rental vacancy rates drop as the economy recovers. For much of the past 15 years vacancy has been below 5%, often pushing closer to full occupancy (~1%) during particularly crazy parts of the boom. It now sits closer to 7%, likely higher in certain parts of the core. Due to the density of rentals, the city centre population can swing significantly & quickly just by shifts in the vacancy rate.
 
Oddball said:
It's kinda weird to think, but is that population really much different compared to what that particular geographic area might have been like 80 years ago?
Click to expand...

It might have even been higher 80 years ago due to family sizes being much larger and a far smaller land base taken up by non-residential uses. A surprisingly high percentage - if not the outright majority of land - is take up by parking lots, road right of ways, the Stampede parking crater and the office core. All of these things were minor / much smaller 80 years ago. Victoria Park East for example, still has yet to pass it's previous population peak of ~3,200 residents in 1968 despite a few 40 storey condo towers being added in the past decade.

It would be a really interesting exercise to evaluate how much land uses have changed over the past 80 years in the centre city. I think it would shock a lot of people to see just how much of our city centre is still taken up by roads and parking, especially compared to what used to be here.
 
For the Metro Ford site, I think they just did some renovations to the dealership there, so I wouldn't count on anything happening on that site for quite some time. Too bad, that land is far too valuable to have a dealership there.
 
Sad to think so many North American cities had higher populations in city centres years back. That said, it's good to see the population of core areas slowly ramping up again. Hopefully this trend continues
 
Dealerships are required to renovate to keep their franchise, so I wouldn't take that as an indication either way. The rumour that they want to stay on site should be taken as a signal of learning from the experience of others moving way out of to the ring road and struggling to keep traffic up.
 
That's really good numbers for the city centre. If we can add another 8-10K and push the population over 50K it would be a sizable population to anchor the area going forward.
Interesting also that the top three groups of new immigrants are Chinese, Indian, and Filipino. I notice that when I'm downtown on weekends or after hours, people from those three groups are very noticeable in and around the CBD. They've literally changed the feel of downtown for the better.
kora said:
I did an analysis of the Centre City using 2016 census tract data. The boundaries for this area are the Bow River, the Elbow River, 17 Avenue and 14 Street SW. It also includes the Mission neighbourhood, but not Cliff Bungalow. That's just the way the census tracts are shaped.

2016 population: 41,800 (11.0% 5-year growth)
2011 population: 37,645

Top 5 immigrant groups:
China
India
Philippines
Iran
UK

Hong Kong and Ethiopia are also strongly represented, relative to their presence elsewhere in Calgary, but didn't make the top 5
Click to expand...
 
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