[David A]

"For downtown to be successful, it's going to need more people living right in the heart of it"

Here we are, 40 years later, and we're still trying to get this part right

This is because we keep on trying to address the symptoms and not the fundamental problems. Downtown needs to be more desirable to attract people.

That means more good paying corporate office jobs nearby downtown, more retail and not a half empty mall, safe streets, not a dumping ground for the provinces social problems.

When we fix these three things more people will want to live downtown.

 

[Munanyo]

@David A hit the nail on the head.

The city needs to start attracting more corporate offices back to the core. Get businesses and retail to want to take a shot at setting up shop (with grants etc.) and make the core more aesthetically pleasing (hurry up Jasper Ave revitalization).

I had friends from Toronto visit me here in August. They were pretty shocked how desolate and gross our downtown was and expected there to be much more to see and do.

 

[David A]

@David A hit the nail on the head.

The city needs to start attracting more corporate offices back to the core. Get businesses and retail to want to take a shot at setting up shop (with grants etc.) and make the core more aesthetically pleasing (hurry up Jasper Ave revitalization).

I had friends from Toronto visit me here in August. They were pretty shocked how desolate and gross our downtown was and expected there to be much more to see and do.

I went to Toronto recently and there were things I liked about it and some I did not, but overall it works well. Eaton Centre is an example of a vibrant downtown mall and there is plenty of other retail too.

And its not just Toronto, but similarly in Vancouver and Calgary too. Edmonton has to realize that attracting big projects to industrial areas outside the city, while helpful isn't going to do much if anything for downtown and stop just focusing on that for economic development.

 

[erudyk_29]

Calgary has kind of cornered the market for big time offices in Alberta. Most of the big companies in the Province are oil firms who base their head offices out of CGY. Edmonton does have a couple big office job creators like Stantec, the Provincial and Municipal government and some medium sized companies like Bioware. We're never going to get the same level of large coporate interest and investment as Calgary just as a consequence of history. As a result I think Edmonton should focus on more medium sized tech companies like Bioware, as well as encouraging smaller scale firms and startups to move their operations from suburban centres to downtown.