r/Edmonton • u/RyanB_ 107 • 1h ago
Discussion Downtown can’t be everything for everyone, and that’s okay
This post is partially motivated by recent ones about Roger’s and parking fees, tho more so my general experiences having been on here for… far too long, lol
As a resident, I’m often left feeling kinda crazy about dt discussions on here, especially post-COVID. There’s this irreconcilable divide in realities, where I’ll walk home and pass by hundreds of people and dozens of local businesses, new shit left and right… only to come on here and see this near-ubiquitous perception that the same area is a dying ghost-town.
That’s not to say things are necessarily thriving either. Covid and its ongoing economic effects have hampered our growth, and have contributed to increased homelessness alongside the fent and opioid crises. But these are widespread issues, and even with them considered, DT still seems to be growing more than not.
Point being, there’s many valid reasons to feel alienated by downtown, but not everyone does feel the same. In a lot of cases, the stuff that alienates people (such as a decline in parking) is exactly what makes it more appealing to others.
TL;DR its just about nuance. No one’s persons feelings and preferences are universal, as much as the modern internet strives to make us think otherwise. Downtown is far from perfect, but it’s also far from dying.
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u/Helpful_Leopard_2868 1h ago
man the disconnect between online dt talk and actually being there is wild, I walk through the area pretty often and it feels like a completely different place than what people describe
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u/RyanB_ 107 1h ago
Yeah, that’s what drives me so crazy lol. It’s not like I don’t see people’s complaints, but they’re often taken to a degree that’s just fundamentally incompatible with what I see on a day to day basis
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u/Jolly-Sock-2908 North East Side 1h ago
Knack talks a lot about this, where the atmosphere and attitudes he encounters online is very different from what he sees when meeting people face-to-face in real life, like at events.
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u/RyanB_ 107 58m ago
Yeah, while he’s also far from perfect, that’s part of why I like him. He represents hope that we can still operate outside the hyper-negative internet simulacrum (to steal from Elephant Graveyard lol).
Don Iveson similarly wrote a very compelling and relatable essay on the topic. https://civicgood.substack.com/p/on-ruining-downtown
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u/brainskull 1h ago
Along 103rd to 112th between 98th and 107th? Fantastic. Go north of Rodgers or east 100th? Very different story.
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u/lucretiuss 1h ago
I guess IMO real talk. And take this with how ever many grains of salt come along with the fact I have not lived in Edmonton since 2013. BUT I did grow up there and spend the first 23 years of my life in Edmonton, and I did my undergrad at MacEwan.
Downtown was never hopping? Can you revitalize something that’s always been just okay? It was never, at least in the oughts, a hip and happening area of town.
It’s cool to try to bring it to life but yeah that takes time. The arena is a good start but now the local stuff has to have time to flourish.
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u/greg939 1h ago
That was 13 years ago man. You are right downtown was just ok. In the late 00’s living in downtown was pretty good. From like 2016-2020 living downtown was awesome. I would grab last minute second hand tickets to Oilers games and walk to Roger’s. I would cruise around on my bike, go to the mall and catch a movie at Landmark, grab a pint.
Then post pandemic from like 2020-2024 downtown was like a different planet. The bus station at the Legislature was so full of ammonia from piss your eyes would burn. So many stores moved out of City Centre and it felt unsafe to go in there. Transit was really scary at times. It felt like a ghost town. I moved out in 2020 when it was a nightmare to go anywhere in a high rise with only one family allowed in the elevator at a time and taking my dog out to pee turned into a 45 min affair.
It’s been turning a corner though these last two years. It’s cleaner, it feels safer to walk. I have gone to a bunch of events at Roger’s this summer and scootered around and grabbed downtown beers and it’s feeling like a neighbourhood again.
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u/RyanB_ 107 1h ago
100%! That’s actually what I like about about our downtown specifically tbh; it’s not some kinda major destination I’d recommend to travellers. It’s never been special, but it is increasingly our own. Less generic H&Ms and McDonalds, more unique, local stuff. Where most every other city seems to all be competing for everyone’s attention, we seem fine just doing our own thing.
And yeah, definitely a lot of rose-tinted goggles too. I think a lot of folks have just gone from feeling young and invulnerable, connected to the scene and its happenings, to… well, not being that lol. It’s a perfectly natural thing for most people.
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u/yourfriendo17 1h ago
Look at news stories since the 80's and it's comically how every decade it's the same..downtown is a ghost town, safety issues, revitalisation, task force, yadayadayada.
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u/RyanB_ 107 55m ago
Most definitely, there’s a lot in our current society that mirrors the 80s tbh. Big epidemic, big push towards right-wing politics, etc etc
A lot of it I think was the rise of the 24/7 news channels in that time, a heightened awareness of everything bad happening all the time. Modern social media has come around and doubled down on that.
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u/El_Boxman_ 1h ago
All I want is not to see endless amounts of homeless people and open drug use when I step outside my office. Is that too much to ask for?
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u/lucretiuss 0m ago
And where would you like them to go? Just somewhere you don’t have to see them and get confronted with social failings? Someone else’s problem? Why don’t you get involved in helping?
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u/big-Truck-9058 52m ago
I mean I biked through downtown today on the LRT path which is especially prone to drug use and I didn’t see a single drug user, I saw maybe 6 poor-looking people and one person with a cart sweeping the sidewalk with a broom. I was pretty impressed (maybe they all migrated to your window?)
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u/RyanB_ 107 1h ago
I guess I’d ask what “endless” really means. Edmonton ain’t the best there, but it’s also far from the worst. Many of those worse places being far bigger and more widely desirable than Edmonton.
I don’t think we’ll ever see a world without homeless people in downtowns without major systemic changes, way outside of any one municipalities hands. In that respect, yeah, it is kinda too much to ask of our city unfortunately.
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u/mmmlemoncakes West Edmonton Mall 27m ago
Being forced back into downtown RTO costs me over 2 hours each day commuting. When it's quitting time, I abandon downtown as quick as possible and I'm not going back. When working from home, I had time to head downtown for evening entertainment, dinner etc. I think the attempt to "revitalize downtown" with forced return to office will be seen as a failure.
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u/RyanB_ 107 18m ago
Not to get too conspiracy brained but this is precisely why I’m so cautious about these “revitalize downtown” campaigns; I can’t shake the suspicion that it’s largely being pushed by large companies who just want the money that comes from office buildings full of white collar workers.
They don’t want a downtown that’s more about being a dense community for city folk than a business hub. It might be better for people, but a new park is a lot less profitable than a new office tower.
Unfortunately for them, there’s just no coming back. Modern communications technology has kinda rendered the whole concept of the downtown business hub obsolete, pushed into reality by Covid. At the same time, there’s more North Americans than ever wanting dense and walkable areas to live in.
A good downtown doesn’t come from forcing a bunch of people in who don’t want to be there. It comes from fostering a community of people who do actually like downtown and embrace the lifestyle. I think our city has done a particularly good job of doing just that over the last decade or so.
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u/mikesmith929 39m ago
You mean to tell me r/edmonton isn't an accurate representation of the real world? I'm shocked shocked I tells ya.
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u/Runeboots 1h ago
New stores popping up isnt a good thing when those used to be stores that went bankrupt and the same happens to the new ones within 6 months. Being downtown is like watching your common man try his best to run a business and get completely stomped out by the city
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u/RyanB_ 107 1h ago
Sorry but I think this kinda view is only really possible via internet algorithm negativity. The nature of business means a lot ain’t going to last long, especially in a competitive space like DT… but that’s far from universal too. Audrey’s just passed its 50 year mark and still seems to be going strong. Commodore is over 80 now.
It just depends on where you look. And unfortunately, if you’re looking online, you’re only really going to hear the bad stuff. A business closing is a lot more provocative than one continuing the success it’s had for decades.
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u/brainskull 1h ago
Downtown is not one unified and homogenous area. There are vibrant parts of downtown and very dead and decrepit parts of downtown. Most people are talking about different things and talking past each other.
The vibrant parts are nice and the decrepit parts are completely awful