[BASE]

A funny anecdote, I have heard from a few friends as we talk is many of them and others that have moved there and had that as a positive (maybe not a reason) for the city and with hopes of making use of the mountains and then as time passes they realized it's not something in reality they actually take advantage of with any greater frequency. All that is to say it is still something you need to be passionate or prioritize otherwise you won't use it.

 

[David A]

I've known lots of people who chose to stay here. One person I know was almost forced to transfer to Calgary for work by a large company, but stood his ground partly because he did not want to disrupt his family life. He won that battle and actually ended up getting promoted and making a lot more while continuing to work here. Ironically, he is now retired and actually spends a lot of time in the mountains, but still lives here and has never moved to Calgary and is not planning to ever.

Yes, it is closer to the mountains. So if you are an avid skier and that is a big part of you life it makes sense to live in a place closer to that. However, for most people the background is like wallpaper. Its nice, but often ignored and life is busy, so they may not actually get to the mountains that much more often even if they are closer. Of course, Canmore is a very different place than a bigger city and I suspect mostly attracts those who value the outdoors and proximity to the mountains over other things.

 

[Glenco]

A funny anecdote, I have heard from a few friends as we talk is many of them and others that have moved there and had that as a positive (maybe not a reason) for the city and with hopes of making use of the mountains and then as time passes they realized it's not something in reality they actually take advantage of with any greater frequency. All that is to say it is still something you need to be passionate or prioritize otherwise you won't use it.

I lived there for ten years and rarely visited the mountains. Didn’t even really appreciate them as a backdrop.

 

[roe_]

But even on that front... Not so long ago, the disparity in revenue (and GDP, household income, etc) was a lot smaller.
Edmonton proper has been attracting proportionally less investment, with most of the big ones being in the CMA, but adding little to zero revenue to the city itself.

As I said, most of us, in a way, do something to change things here. Just to name a few, Ian has dedicated a lot of time to the DBA in the past, Ken has a company which has employed people and generated economic benefit for many years (and saved historical buildings in the process), Dave was very active in the Bonnie Doon/Strathearn discussion over the ToD development, etc... As small as it is, I'm happy to say that I'll contribute by bringing my company's HQ here in May/June.

Call me delusional, if y'all want, but I do feel like somehow there's more that we can do, collectively. Not sure what, or how, but ffs, I dare you to find a group of people so passionate and full of great (albeit not always feasible) ideas than this. I'd sincerely LOVE to see someone from here on City Council, tbh (and we have a few that 100% have the profile for it).

But that's the thing, volunteering or starting a business won't directly impact the City's financial capacity. I suppose you can talk generally about "growing business", which might eventually cause more large commercial projects to get built, but if we're talking about city revenues now, that it isn't really going to do anything. If you really want to do something dramatic you would need to significantly grow Edmonton's tax base, like annexing large industrial projects currently in Strathcona county,

And as for the disparity in revenues between Edmonton and Calgary, it is not a recent development and Calgary has had considerably more revenue for quite some time.

 

[David A]

Edmonton and the surrounding region actually does quite well income wise compared to most major cities in this country. So, I think to focus too much on one city that is better off, primarily because of a historical concentration of head offices for the energy industry and some other fields, really misses putting things in perspective.

We have advantages and many positive things that some here tend to over look. I would encourage anyone who wants to start a business here or relocate here and make a contribution to our community to do so. Some of the largest most successful businesses here have started off small and grown because this was a good place for them to do so.

 

[Munanyo]

Didn't know where to post this, but this thread seems appropriate.

I have recently met a girl who moved from Toronto to Edmonton about a year and a half ago, and it was interesting hearing her perspective on Edmonton, and our DT, with comparisons with Toronto and Calgary (where she lived for a few months before getting a job here).

She misses the vibrancy and more people walking around the city, both here and in Calgary, compared to Toronto. Her comments around the perception of safety, especially due to homeless and drug addicts is that there's really no difference in the amount of these, but they're more visible in the Albertan cities, due to overall smaller amount of people on the streets.

She pointed out one thing that we complain here time and time again: upkeep, especially in Edmonton, is horrible. DT is not particularly ugly, but it's poorly maintained. The roads are horrible, sidewalks need more regular cleanup and maintenance, greenery needs to be better treated, etc...

Both Edmonton and Calgary suffer from having very poor advertising of entertainment options. Edmonton fares worst than Calgary on this, according to her comments, but fares better in terms of ACTUAL options. But it is hard, and annoying, having to dig through dozens upon dozens of small social media accounts to find the good (and frequent) stuff going on. None, obviously, have as many options as Toronto, and that gets frustrating, but the lack of advertising of what is there to do makes it all that much worse.

She sees A LOT of potential in the city. Good bones, nice places, good food scene, the River Valley, the amount of greenspace, in general.

She WANTS to want to stay here, and see the city come closer to it's true potential, but there seems to be a lack of actual movement towards improving the city, especially here.

Like her, I'll bet that a LOT of people coming from TO and Van feel somewhat the same. We know everything we need to do keep these people here and, honestly, I believe having them move can actually change the city for the better, if they start pressuring more, but those who are already here, and have connections with the city already, need to start this movement.

Overall I think that's a fair and honest observation, but the bolded sentence is something that always strikes a cord with me. I've always felt that Edmonton does a pretty poor job at maintenance of infrastructure and facilities and is a big reason why some feel downtown feels somewhat crummy. Downtown is a hodgepodge of nice and new streets and sidewalks, and sprinkled with a ton of blown out curbs, sidewalks that haven't been touched in 30 years and streets that make you think we're in Cleveland. I know, our weather and geographical location plays a huge role in that and its expensive as hell to maintain the upkeep, but sometimes I wish there were a more concerted effort to revitalize our streets, sidewalks and curbs. Edmonton has actually shown it can do this, just look at the neighbourhood renewal initiative, which I consider to be one of our most successful programs and initiatives in a long time.

There does seem to be an upbeat feeling in the air downtown lately though, that cannot be denied. I'm optimistic where we are headed but there's a lot to work and improve on and I think continuing to have an influx of folks move here from other provinces will motivate the city to make itself a more attractive option for young people to want to settle down here.

 

[thommyjo]

Overall I think that's a fair and honest observation, but the bolded sentence is something that always strikes a cord with me. I've always felt that Edmonton does a pretty poor job at maintenance of infrastructure and facilities and is a big reason why some feel downtown feels somewhat crummy. Downtown is a hodgepodge of nice and new streets and sidewalks, and sprinkled with a ton of blown out curbs, sidewalks that haven't been touched in 30 years and streets that make you think we're in Cleveland. I know, our weather and geographical location plays a huge role in that and its expensive as hell to maintain the upkeep, but sometimes I wish there were a more concerted effort to revitalize our streets, sidewalks and curbs. Edmonton has actually shown it can do this, just look at the neighbourhood renewal initiative, which I consider to be one of our most successful programs and initiatives in a long time.

There does seem to be an upbeat feeling in the air downtown lately though, that cannot be denied. I'm optimistic where we are headed but there's a lot to work and improve on and I think continuing to have an influx of folks move here from other provinces will motivate the city to make itself a more attractive option for young people to want to settle down here.

Oliver Neighborhood Renewal coming up shortly will be MASSIVE.

Does Downtown get included for neighborhood renewals, or is exclusively 1 off street projects? If it does, they should prioritize it after Oliver.

If not, then we need to rush a strategy to redo 103st and 104st asap. Approve and finish all of jasper ave, then likely tackle 105, 106, and 109st in the next decade.

 

[TAS]

Overall I think that's a fair and honest observation, but the bolded sentence is something that always strikes a cord with me. I've always felt that Edmonton does a pretty poor job at maintenance of infrastructure and facilities and is a big reason why some feel downtown feels somewhat crummy. Downtown is a hodgepodge of nice and new streets and sidewalks, and sprinkled with a ton of blown out curbs, sidewalks that haven't been touched in 30 years and streets that make you think we're in Cleveland. I know, our weather and geographical location plays a huge role in that and its expensive as hell to maintain the upkeep, but sometimes I wish there were a more concerted effort to revitalize our streets, sidewalks and curbs. Edmonton has actually shown it can do this, just look at the neighbourhood renewal initiative, which I consider to be one of our most successful programs and initiatives in a long time.

There does seem to be an upbeat feeling in the air downtown lately though, that cannot be denied. I'm optimistic where we are headed but there's a lot to work and improve on and I think continuing to have an influx of folks move here from other provinces will motivate the city to make itself a more attractive option for young people to want to settle down here.

The city, as we know, is pretty hard up for cash and can't keep up with our street maintenance as they would like to. Council is discussing OP12 soon and if you saw the report, one of the options to consider to save money is delay the neighbourhood renewal schedule. I don't think council will do that but the city is just putting all the options out there.

I hope our focus can really be on infill and existing lands - taking on more roads and infrastructure and services etc isn't sustainable.

They are getting resistance from development industry on that approach, but I'm not convinced by developers arguments.

 

[BASE]

The city, as we know, is pretty hard up for cash and can't keep up with our street maintenance as they would like to. Council is discussing OP12 soon and if you saw the report, one of the options to consider to save money is delay the neighbourhood renewal schedule. I don't think council will do that but the city is just putting all the options out there.

I hope our focus can really be on infill and existing lands - taking on more roads and infrastructure and services etc isn't sustainable.

They are getting resistance from development industry on that approach, but I'm not convinced by developers arguments.

I think the city has already met and exceeded their target of 25% new units being infill. The next target is 50% and not sure where things stand there but by the sounds of this we are doing great in this regard unless the argument is the bar was set too low. I think 25% given the costs & complexities with infill development sounds reasonable in my head.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-city-council-1.6432014

 

[occidentalcapital]

Lots of infill happening. 10, 15 years ago you wouldn't have believed Edmonton would be doing as much infill as it is doing today. Give it another 10 to 15 and who knows where it will go.

 

[David A]

Overall I think that's a fair and honest observation, but the bolded sentence is something that always strikes a cord with me. I've always felt that Edmonton does a pretty poor job at maintenance of infrastructure and facilities and is a big reason why some feel downtown feels somewhat crummy. Downtown is a hodgepodge of nice and new streets and sidewalks, and sprinkled with a ton of blown out curbs, sidewalks that haven't been touched in 30 years and streets that make you think we're in Cleveland. I know, our weather and geographical location plays a huge role in that and its expensive as hell to maintain the upkeep, but sometimes I wish there were a more concerted effort to revitalize our streets, sidewalks and curbs. Edmonton has actually shown it can do this, just look at the neighbourhood renewal initiative, which I consider to be one of our most successful programs and initiatives in a long time.

There does seem to be an upbeat feeling in the air downtown lately though, that cannot be denied. I'm optimistic where we are headed but there's a lot to work and improve on and I think continuing to have an influx of folks move here from other provinces will motivate the city to make itself a more attractive option for young people to want to settle down here.

Maybe the area of downtown I am in regularly is better, but I also noticed an effort this last summer to fix up potholes in the roads, more so than in many years past. I haven't noticed a lot of problems with sidewalks or curbs in the area.

I am frequently a critic of the city, but what I have noticed more in the last 5 years is that private space is not as well maintained downtown as in the past. There used to be much more effort to put in attractive flowers and plants and keep them up, but that has really fallen by the wayside recently. I feel that may be a big part why it looks more run down.

 

[Kosy123]

Edmonton sees record breaking migration to the city, job increases in professional and technical sectors: report

Edmonton saw an "electric" migration in 2023 spurred on by the city's stable economy and affordable housing which is attracting Canadians.

edmontonjournal.com

In its February 2024 report, Edmonton saw “record population growth” in 2023 which is largely attributed to 47,100 international newcomers — a 13,700 increase from 2022 which saw a high of 33,400. Interprovincial migration hit a record high of 18,700 people in 2023, compared to the 4,000-person average in 2002-2021.

Damn, that's a sizeable amount. One number that seems to be missing (and something that Edmonton actually does well) is intraprovincial migration, which I suspect will play a larger role as more people from YYC trek up here. Overall, 60,000+ in terms of migration is pretty good.

Just to update, I actually have access to the Conference Board of Canada's reports and Calgary's migration numbers aren't as ahead as some here might suggest (according to the stuff I'm seeing. There was definitely a big gap in 2022 (Calgary getting like 60,000+ and Edmonton 30,000+) but the gap in 2023 isn't large, with Calgary getting around 70,000+. Intraprovincial migration according to their data is around 4,000+ for Edmonton.

 

[IanO]

Folks are getting priced out of Calgary for sure and Edmonton is doing a better job at promoting reasons to be here; so that makes sense.

 

[TAS]

This is really bizarre and concerning.

Statistics Canada data updated in early January show Calgary went from having nearly 122,000 health-care and social assistance workers in January 2023 to about 101,000 in December.

The numbers are a stark contrast to Edmonton, which increased its number of health-care and social workers, going from about 108,100 to 124,400 workers.

Calgary lost more than 20,000 health-care, social assistance workers in 2023, says StatCan data

The numbers are a stark contrast to Edmonton, which added more than 16,000 people to its health-care and social assistance workforce in 2023

www.google.com

No answers or comments from anyone yet - the province, the Alberta Medical Association, Alberta Nurses etc.

 

[ChazYEG]

This is really bizarre and concerning.

Statistics Canada data updated in early January show Calgary went from having nearly 122,000 health-care and social assistance workers in January 2023 to about 101,000 in December.

The numbers are a stark contrast to Edmonton, which increased its number of health-care and social workers, going from about 108,100 to 124,400 workers.

Calgary lost more than 20,000 health-care, social assistance workers in 2023, says StatCan data

The numbers are a stark contrast to Edmonton, which added more than 16,000 people to its health-care and social assistance workforce in 2023

www.google.com

No answers or comments from anyone yet - the province, the Alberta Medical Association, Alberta Nurses etc.

Is it at all possible that some of this has to do with the province reallocating resources here due to the current situation? These numbers seem really dramatic.