south Alberta history vignettes

[Thorin]

Okay, so, I saw the BBQ invitation but had to decline because I'll be in Strathmore again.  Thinking about Strathmore reminded me of the strange canal going through town, which made me do some googling.  I found out the canal is part of the Western Irrigation District, which after a couple more googles led me to this page: http://www.wid.net/media.html.  Said page has a bunch of vignette videos on it, the first two of which I found the most interesting:

http://youtu.be/ULBD-I5aruk (about the Bow River and it's basin)

http://youtu.be/WHsw96zy5RU (about how southern Alberta was settled due to irrigation)

[Darren Dirt]

That's amazing and very impressive!












That you actually remember the journey you took to stumble upon something cool on the internet!? 

[Mr. Analog]

Usually I'm pretty good at remembering linkages, unless I was surfing late at night and left tabs open and then wonder what the hell I was doing to get to some places.

[Thorin]

That's amazing and very impressive!

That you actually remember the journey you took to stumble upon something cool on the internet!? 

Thanks, wasn't that hard as it only took about 15 minutes to get from A to C.

I really liked finding out about how southern Alberta suddenly got settled a hundred years ago, too, which is what that second video talks about.  Hard to imagine that all that farmland east of Calgary, back in 1910 it was all just prairies, no farms.

[Mr. Analog]

Alberta is an interesting place, it's basically only existed for 100 years, which is a really short period of time.

I also quite like going to different parts and looking at the architecture, each town and city has certain phases you can tell they went through by the buildings.

I find Edmonton especially interesting, lots of growth in the 20s, 40s, 60s and 80s.

It seems to be on a kind of 20 year cycle of building

[Thorin]

Kind of like there's a boom and bust cycle to its economy?

This is why it's so surprising that the arena's going to get built now, because we're in the bust cycle of the economy.

[Darren Dirt]

Kind of like there's a boom and bust cycle to its economy?

This is why it's so surprising that the arena's going to get built now, because we're in the bust cycle of the economy.

Some fortune-tellerseconomists think building stuff like the arena = will TRIGGER a boom cycle.

[Mr. Analog]

Kind of like there's a boom and bust cycle to its economy?

This is why it's so surprising that the arena's going to get built now, because we're in the bust cycle of the economy.

It's as if they're using somebody else's money to do it or something!

To be honest they could have just installed row seating in one of the smaller potholes...

[Thorin]

Seating in a pothole doesn't work because there isn't enough level parking nearby and about a third of the fans don't drive 4x4 pickups that could park up the side of the pothole.

I agree that suggesting building an arena there is going to magically spawn a whole slew of construction in the district seems like a giant leap of faith.  The money for the arena is supposed to get covered by an increase in property taxes from this new construction.  But wait, either there's extra tax on these particular properties, or else the funding is in reality coming from the same shared pot that everything else is paid out of.

Years and years ago (40+?), city planners said the northeast end would explode because of the planned LRT, and the city annexed land right out to Fort Saskatchewan.  Then for some reason a whole bunch of people started building in the Millwoods area.  This is a classic example of an educated guess turning out completely wrong.  Yes, there's lots of growth in the northeast now that the southeast is pretty much full, but according to city planners back then, there should be modestly dense residential (houses and smaller apartment buildings) all the way up to 295 ave while there should've been golf courses and farmland in the southeast Millwoods area.  It's not even close.

In the end I don't mind so much that the new arena will be built, although I doubt many of the claims of how it will revitalize downtown, I hate that it is taking away roads in downtown and making it harder to navigate by car, I hate that people keep complaining about downtown being dead but then do nothing about it being dirty, expensive, cramped, and concreted.

You know what?  If they really wanted that rink to be of use to all Edmontonians then they should make the ice surface available to any and all local groups that want to use it.  Run it 5:30am to 1:30am, hour-long slots with 15 minutes to zamboni inbetween, just like the community rinks, whenever it's not in use for the Oilers or Oil Kings or shows that are booked.  That would make most Edmontonians at least stop grumbling.  I mean, there are days and days where the ice just sits there sucking up electricity for the ice plant, where no one skates on it all day.

[Mr. Analog]

Actually when I think about it I think having the arena there may cause people to leave downtown, let's think about it:

(-) It will make driving downtown more stupid
(-) When games are on people NOT going to the game will avoid the area
(-) A flood of drunken idiots after the game is always a good idea downtown
(-) Property taxes and land value go up while non-hockey-related spending stays the same
(-) Crime

the thing that gets me is that people talk about the rink as an attraction but honestly other than for specific events requiring a rink or a stage I don't see it as something that people are going to go out of their way to experience very much.

If they really wanted people to come downtown make it cheap for businesses to set up shop, set some community standards and add a lot of cheap parking, get people coming downtown and the businesses will follow.

As it stands there's little to do, nowhere to park and not very safe downtown. So unless you work downtown there isn't a whole lot of reason to go there for kicks.

[Thorin]

Having more businesses downtown still doesn't move people in.  What they need is places for people to go and recreate, rather than concrete and ashphalt from building to building.  Imagine if every third block was a park, and every sixth block had a grocery store (that didn't charge an arm and a leg), and there were kid-safe streetcrossings and places for kids to play road hockey.  That would attract people.  Once the people live there, all kinds of retail business will spring up.

Making downtown actually livable won't happen, though.  It'll continue to be highrise office towers and highrise apartment towers that no one with kids will want to live in.  I know, there are lots of people without kids that could live downtown, but they don't, and why would they when there aren't enough basic recreational spaces nearby?

Unless we're talking here about trying to get people to come downtown and spend money, then return back to where they actually live.  In which case, there are people constantly complaining that this exact thing is happening when people who live in the bedroom communities come in and work and play in the city.

[Darren Dirt]

Actually when I think about it I think having the arena there may cause people to leave downtown, let's think about it:

(-) It will make driving downtown more stupid
(-) When games are on people NOT going to the game will avoid the area

At least north-bound CapilanoWG Drive is gonna be non-idiotic on Concert/Game Nights.

[Thorin]

Yeah, instead all of the downtown core is gonna be stupid as people try to find parking.

[Mr. Analog]

Exactly, I mean I remember in the 90s when they had all the one way turns downtown how even that killed motivation to actually go there and do stuff.

I think there is a conscious effort to increase density in this city, the sprawl is ridiculous, I'm just baffled at how things are being managed so far.

[Darren Dirt]

growing cities gotta grow...