The Heart of the City: getting people downtown
Pop-quiz, hotshots. Well, more like a thought exercise, really. I want you to close your eyes and think of the cities you have lived in. Or have visited. What’s the first memory of that place that comes to mind?
For me, when I think of Edmonton, I think of hot summer afternoons, sitting on my friend’s doorstep in Old Strathcona and watching the crowds wander past on the way to the Fringe. In Halifax, it’s of walking down to the waterfront on the way to the market early on a Saturday, to beat the crowds to the bakery with the really good croissants.
For me, all of my first urban impressions contain two things: streets and people. And I’m willing to bet it’s the same for a lot of you. Streets and sidewalks are the backbone of our city’s and the are also the place that we come in contact with the most important aspect of a city: the people.
We’re social creatures and we’re wired to be attracted to places where other people are. That’s where the excitement is. And we crave it.
I’ve been thinking of this after reading Mack Male’’s post on the population in downtown Edmonton. He backs up with data something that a lot of us thought for a long time – there’s a lot of people who work downtown but live in other parts of the city. (I’m one of those guilty majority, although I still live right outside the core.)
The point that Mack makes is an important one – we can’t just rely on people working downtown. Because they will leave at the end of the day and even a busy place will become dead 12 hours of the day. We need people to live and play there as well for a downtown to be truly vibrant.
On that point, there are few general things to keep in mind when it comes to drawing people to the downtown:
One big project isn’t going to do it
There’s a lot of talk about using an arena district to revitalize Edmonton’s downtown. And while we’ve got mixed feelings on the idea, it’s important to point out that it’s not going to solve the problem by itself. Edmonton’s downtown didn’t start spiraling down overnight, nor did it slip away because of one reason. So it’s wrong to think that we can fix it over night. It will be a long process, full of a lot of small steps. One entertainment district or revitalization project isn’t going to fix things.
The task of bringing people to the downtown is going to be a long and painful one and is not going to be turned around in a couple years, But it’s a worthwhile goal.
Getting in on the ground floor
Ground floor retail is prime real estate because it drives in a lot of foot traffic. While that’s good for business, it’s also quite good for the area. People walking by look in to windows and like when they see busy places – shoppers in stores and people eating in restaurants. It’s the same thing with patios and outdoor eating areas. They add a sense of life and business that pulls draws people, becoming in a way an extension of the sidewalk itself.
If we want to increase the number of people, we need to encourage ground floor retails and shops on the ground, leaving offices and other places that don’t rely on drop-ins on the higher floors. The city has made some steps in that direction, with some areas demanding a certain percentage of ground-floor retail. But more could be done.
Residential vs. Retail
While retail is part of the mix, there’s a real danger if we only focus retail. As Mack points out, you want people in the downtown at all times of the day to make a really vibrant downtown. And the only way to achieve that is to get people to live downtown.
It’s a chicken and the egg thing: the more people who live downtown will attract more life, and people want to live where the life is. But there are still things that can be done. Encouraging higher-density development is one of the more straight-forward ways to encourage people to move downtown. Buy opening up more space for people to live, you drive down the costs of living in the city’s core. It is a slow start, but things will start snowballing. It will attract more people wanting to live downtown, which in return will mean more desire to build new high-density buildings.
Creating neighbours
It’s not only important to get people living downtown. You also need to keep them there. There will always be a certain part of the population that will be a bit more transient – mostly young and single, they’ll out in a few years. Maybe to a different city, maybe to a different part of Edmonton. While that is an unavoidable fact, there still are a lot of people who find a place they like and want to stick with it.
These are the people who become part of a neighborhood, part of a community. And having that community has all kinds of benefits. It breeds a connection with the area that becomes a draw in of itself. Once people become invested in their communities, they pay attention. They work to keep it clean and keep it safe. Make it a decent place to live. More effectively than any city program would. The best way to create that connection is by allowing people to get involved, give them a say in shaping their community. In making it a unique place within Edmonton to live.
Of course, these are just a couple of broad strokes, and there are many more that can be discussed.
But that’s all for right now. Next week, I’ll take a closer look at an important part of that equation: keeping families in our city’s core.
Until then.
Photo of downtown Edmonton by Channing McRae from the Charrette Photo Pool. Submit your photo today!
A really key factor in this is making sure there are different kinds of housing options available downtown. There’s a ton of 1-2 bedroom units, but not much in the way of 3 bedrooms (even in Oliver) which makes it harder for families. And while I’m totally cool with raising kids in an apartment, other people want at least a bit of a backyard and we don’t have any brownstone/townhouse type property in our core. Without more diverse housing options downtown we won’t be able to attract more diverse residents in the area.
Marilyn (tricotmiss), brownstone/townhouse properties would be fantastic addition to downtown Edmonton…sigh, if only!
If we keep giving people the option of huge homes in the suburbs, and then make it easy for them to park their car everywhere they go, they’re unfortunately going to keep doing that. The ignorant masses require guidance from people who actually understand what makes a community. (Too harsh?)
I blame urban sprawl (my go-to scapegoat) and compare this to budgetting your money. If you have an unlimited income, you have nothing stopping you from doing whatever the heck you want with nary a care. It requires more intelligence to work with a small income in a smart way, and the same goes for urban planning. Any monkey with a pencil, protractor, and graph paper can design a city with unlimited space. It’s the cities that are forced to work with limited space that do things correctly, IMO (I feel it’s necessary to tag “IMO” on here as a sort of absolving statement, should I begin to face the wrath of the soccer moms and dads)
People are the key ingredient in making a downtown that’s livable and active 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You can have all the nice shiny office towers and as many head offices you want, but that doesn’t make it a great downtown.
[...] The Charrette » Blog Archive » The Heart of the City: getting people downtown [...]
Croissants. Really.
Hilary: Yes, too harsh. Those who live in newer parts of town aren’t ignorant and it’s rude (IMO…) to say that. What’s ignorant is painting all those who’ve chosen to live there with a single “soccer mom” brush, and to assume there is no “community” on the edges of town.
We’re not going to create density in this city by prohibiting people from buying and living in large houses on the edges of Edmonton (not suburbs – in Edmonton, we need a different word as most of our core “mature neighbourhoods” are very much suburban in feel). Housing choices are among the most personal decisions we (families) make. We each have different priority rankings and financial capacities. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this; we will always struggle since we do not have the geographic impediments (NYC, Hong Kong) or medieval history (most European capitals) to make such dense living either a physical need or historical tradition. And there’s nothing ignorant or base about those who want a big house and a yard.
Nor is it impossible to have community in these new areas; community is built through connections, and while it’s easier to make those connections in a dense and pedestrian-friendly part of town, connections happen all over the place – church, school, sports. Frankly, I’ve seen more people interacting with the street and with their neighbours on a Sunday in Summerside than I have in my own central neighbourhood, where getting 10 people out to a community lleague AGM is an accomplishment.
What we should be focusing on is subtly changing the priorities. We need to increase choice and advertise the hell out of it, so people who think lawns are only available on the edges know they can come into the core. We need to keep choice in our transportation networks, both in terms of better transit AND good road links, but with a definite focus away from single-occupant vehicles. We need to make sure the planners are asking much tougher questions about the need for new housing on stale neighbourhood forms. We need to invigorate schools in the central neighbourhoods and change the belief that new schools are somehow better than fixing the ones we have. And finally we have to work on the levers that do matter – money. The one thing that a lot of people are ignorant about (and I’m using the word in the strict dictionary definition of “unknowing” as opposed to the pejorative) is the hidden subsidy that sprawl receives. If new houses on the edge of the city were priced so that capital and operating costs of servicing were accurately captured, the market would align with the pro-densification lobby in a real hurry. A balanced approach is necessary to avoid tipping Edge-montonians in the direction of our regional neighbours — we can’t afford to lose the tax base.
(By the way, on the need for a compact form for Edmonton I am in total agreement, and I’m guessing you believe a lot of the same things about changing priorities. But I get frustrated when I read “better than thou” comments and generalizations about those who may not yet be on the densification bandwagon, and can’t undestand the prevailing view that this switch is going to take any less than a full generation plus the threat of peak oil to manifest in Edmonton.)
I think people should live nearest to where they work. I am utterly confused why people choose to live as far away from work as possible in Edmonton. If you work downtown, its just logical to live downtown since you will be spending most of your week at your place of work. But instead people opt to commute from all four corners of the grid – which only lengthens their work day and heightens stress levels. I work downtown and live downtown. I’m not orginally from Edmonton, but I can say that Edmonton has one of the nicest and quietest downtowns in Canada (shocking, i know). I find it much cheaper to live downtown than in suburbs because you don’t have to drive places and its pro pedestrian/cyclist. And tricotmiss has a great point – more 3 (even 4) bedroom apartments/condos need to be built to accomodate those who have/want a family (or simply more space). Since the cost of owning a home is ridiculous these days for a first time buyer, its actually more financially sound for some to rent and invest the savings in other equities. We as a society need to step away from the “we must all own houses and lawns” lifestyle. It’s simply not sustainable. It’s too bad the only thing that truly matters is that undeveloped land is cheaper to develop than existing land. Perhaps a greenbelt is one solution to curb the sprawl?
The Charrette Photo Pool
The latest photos added to the Charrette Photo Pool:Want to add yours to the mix? Submit your best shots to the photo pool today!
The Charrette on Twitter
Upcoming Events
League Blogs
Edmonton Blogs
What We’ve Said
What You’ve Said
Tags
Recent Posts
Most Commented
Recent Comments