community Finding Community in Lost Spaces

PLACES | SPACES | PEOPLE

VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 1 | 2011

City-Region StudieS CentRe

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Fort McMurray: Life in the Fishbowl

A new Approach to Zoning and Affordable Housing

Liverpool: european Capital of Culture 2008

A dynamic Rural-urban nexus: Rocky View County

Mapping a Brighter Future for Alberta’s young Children

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PuBLiSHeR Rob Shields, Director City-Region Studies Centre, University of Alberta

SenioR editoR Howie Phung

ASSoCiAte editoR Ondine Park

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CUrb MAGAZINE

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ARt diReCtoR John Smith, Artsmith

ContRiButing ARt editoR Yvonne Lee

CoPy editoR Karen Sherlock

City-Region StudieS CentReFaculty of Extension – Enterprise Square2-184, 10230 Jasper AvenueEdmonton, AB, CanadaT5J 4P6

Email: crsc@ualberta.caPhone: (780) 492-9957Fax: (780) 492-0627

www.crsc.ualberta.cawww.CurbMagazine.ca

disclaimer: The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the City-Region Studies Centre, Faculty of Extension or the University of Alberta.

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Letter from the Editor by Howie Phung

CuRB APPeAL Community by Rob Shields

Iqaluit, Nunavut: From Community to City and Back by Barret Weber

SuStAinABiLityA Movable Future by Dean Emir-Ahmet and Gordon Molnar

HouSingA New Approach to Zoning and Affordable Housing by Marcelo Figueira and Kenan Handzic

Finding Community in Lost Spaces by Michael Phair

Placemaking in Action by Christopher Dulaba

Fort McMurray: Life in the Fishbowl by Lisa Hirmer and Andrew Hunter, as DodoLab

A Dynamic Rural-Urban Nexus: Rocky View County by Harry H. Hiller and Jyoti Gondek

Liverpool: European Capital of Culture 2008 by Olivier Sykes

Home Is Where the Art Is: The Role of Culture in Community Revitalization by Myka Jones

Mapping a Brighter Future for Alberta’s Young Children by Olenka Melnyk

One chilly afternoon in April 2010,

I was one of 40 or so people who walked

through the back alleys of downtown

Edmonton looking for lost and forgotten

spaces. In contrast to the ultra-planned spaces of new suburban areas, the core of the city is rife with these derelict and wasted spots. We usually speed by them, disparaging them as eyesores and wishing somebody, somewhere would do something about the litter and graffiti. On that afternoon, our group of architects, planners, students and other interested citizens slowed down to imagine what those spaces could become with a bit of hard work and creativity. We chose to focus on an alley that runs parallel to Jasper Avenue from Beaver Hills Park to Enterprise Square, plus the small pocket park behind Sobey’s on 104th Street. As Michael Phair says in his article “Finding Community in Lost Spaces,” we were challenged to ask: what would you do with this space if the sky were the limit?

The ideas that sprang from that question were highly creative — and sometimes plain amusing. They included installing neon lights along the alley, running a waterfall down the side of a building, building a greenhouse coffee shop and a public stage, starting a mobile guerrilla garden in shopping carts, and inviting people to stick chewing gum on the walls to create a “bubble gum alley” like the one in Seattle. Thankfully (for hygienic reasons), this last idea got more laughter than traction. Although I was involved in generating ideas, I was more interested in the sense of community the exercise created within the group. As Rob Shields notes in Curb Appeal, “community” is difficult to define. Yet when we’re in the midst of one, we don’t need a definition to confirm its presence. On that April day, a community of like-minded people who care deeply about the city and share a desire to make it a better place began a process that has moved the revitalization of an alley from

conception to implementation. We are just one part of a growing grassroots community in the city that is taking action on various political, social, environmental and urban development issues. This fills me with hope.

We hope you enjoy this issue of Curb, which probes the many notions of community. If you would like to respond with your thoughts and impressions, please e-mail us at crsc@ualberta.ca.

In our next issue, we will turn our focus to all things rural. What can we learn from communities outside major cities? Where does “urban” end and “rural” begin? We hope that you, the reader, will help us address these and other related questions. As always, we welcome your contributions of articles and photos.

Letter from the Editor

Letter to the editorAs a student of city-region governance, I was pleased to have the opportunity to read Issue 2 of Curb magazine. I was puzzled, however, to discover that contributors apparently consider both Peterborough, Ontario, and Flagstaff County, Alberta, to be appropriate subjects for the magazine of the City-Region Studies Centre. In the case of Peterborough, the Ontario government includes it within the “Greater Golden Horseshoe,” the official territory of the Toronto city-region. Options for regional planning in Peterborough are constrained by the provisions of the provincial plan for the GGH.

Edmonton, Canada – Michael Lewcio

Howie Phung

If there can be city-regions within city-regions (Peterborough) or city-regions with no cities (Flagstaff), it becomes difficult to understand the focus of both the magazine and the centre. I appreciate that “city-region” is a fluid concept (maybe Toronto is really part of the New York city-region), but at a minimum I would contend that a city-region does not exist unless we can specify the city that is at its core. Andrew SanctonProfessor of Political ScienceUniversity of Western OntarioLondon, Canada

Howie Phung

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CIty-rEgIOn StUdIES CEntrE UNIvERSITY OF ALBERTA

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“thing” but different from a material object. It has to be invoked and performed, worked up through ritual and routines to be actualized. We look across a crowded meeting hall and say to ourselves, “Now the community is here.” And we’re perfectly correct, in a commonsensically, sociologically and philosophically. Something is happening, and it is “community.” We go away bearing the memory of the event and remind ourselves on new days that the community can come together again in the future.

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CoMMunity Iqaluit, Nunavut – Rob Shields

Community” is a vexing word for students of towns, cities

and society. It has both evocative power and imprecise meaning. Who hasn’t felt that they were part of some community or thought they witnessed a community activity? Yet what exactly is community? The definition has eluded experts. An extensive literature in the middle of the previous century grew up out of “community studies” of small towns and neighbourhoods, from ghettos to new suburbs to rural settlements. This research focused on power and the influence of both insiders and elites as well as the challenges of newcomers and foreign immigrants. This connection between towns and cities and immigration remains in the policy research of Canada’s Metropolis Project, now in its 15th year (http://canada.metropolis.net/).Communities in the form of language and ethnic arts associations have been addressed, but the focus is on immigrants rather than on places. As we discussed in the pervious issue of Curb, this reflects a tension between policy-making oriented around place versus policies oriented around individuals in particular strata or sectors of society.

Is a community anything more than a group? We tend to think of communities as place based, whether it’s a neighbourhood or a group rallying in a square. But other communities are more dispersed, including as professional groups, interest groups who meet up at conventions or virtual communities of social networks on Facebook. While Facebook calls these “friends,” they really represent a community whose members have widely varying degrees of shared interest and intimacy.

It has been claimed that the term “community” has been so overused it has become nearly meaningless — consider the idea of a “community of nations.” While some uses stretch the term, online virtual communities point out something important about all communities: they are intangible social facts, not material objects like a table, a building or even a large town square. It would be wrong to dismiss community and other “virtualities” as just abstractions, ideas that can be blown aside with a puff of the imagination. Instead, these virtualities are intangible goods, lived experiences and shared processes. So community is a real

“

Continued on page 13

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Goethe said, “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult.” But to make the world’s cities better places to live and work, we must put our sustainability thoughts, theories and knowledge into action. And we had better do it quickly.

Time is not money. In this case, time is an adversary. As the clock ticks, we draw closer to dramatic environmental consequences. To avoid that fate, we must draw on every area of urban planning knowledge — from transportation infrastructure to open space and the public realm, from economics to social and cultural infrastructure — and transform the knowledge into concrete actions that improve urban life.

The situation sounds dire, but there is hope. It lies in the many bold new planning and design models and tools that could serve as game changers in the quest for sustainability. Mobility, the way

we move around our cities and the world, offers a good example. While the potential is there, it’s critical to take a holistic approach. Each mobility solution must be examined for its individual and overall contribution, cost and environmental impact.

With that always in mind, here are six examples of cutting-edge solutions for sustainable urban mobility.

Integrate. Integrate. Integrate.

Isolation does not work. Transportation, urban planning, business, public services, energy and the food supply can no longer be considered separately. We must create integrated mobility systems to provide people with choice, flexibility and seamless connectivity, whether they are trekking to get milk, travelling between cities or accessing information virtually.

The MIT CityCar System (http://cities.media.mit.edu) reflects that approach. The stackable, electric two-seater car is designed to be part of a mobility-on-demand system, similar to Paris’s bike-hire scheme, Velib. The CityCars, which can fit three or four to one standard parking space, would be available for short-term hire at key transport hubs. MIT hopes to roll out a real-city version within several years. Future iterations of the CityCar could also be integrated with the urban energy supply system; stacks of parked cars could act as batteries that would “smooth” electricity demand, which would be met, ideally, by microgeneration such as solar roofs or small-scale wind turbines.

Pedalling Toward Social Fairness

Mobility affects all socio-economic strata, so mobility systems must work for rich and poor alike. Everyone must have equal access to goods, services and job opportunities.

A MoVABLe FutuRe

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dean emir-Ahmet and gordon Molnar

MIT CityCar System – William Lark, Jr.

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CIty-rEgIOn StUdIES CEntrE UNIvERSITY OF ALBERTA

Worldbike (http://worldbike.org) is an excellent example of this type of equitable solution. The international network of bicycle industry professionals offers affordable bike transportation as well as income opportunities for the poor, who often lack adequate access to transportation and therefore to schools, jobs, health clinics or markets. Worldbike features the Worldbike Cargo Bike, an open-source design that is shipped to small-scale manufacturing facilities or to skilled individuals in the developing world who can construct the bike locally.

Kicking Cars to the Curb

Current car-ownership growth rates are unsustainable. We need transportation alternatives and a paradigm shift: we need to design urban form and function for people rather than cars. To prevent further urban sprawl, we need to create neighbourhoods with infrastructure that serves local communities and dense developments — places where it is easy to walk and where people have easy access to key goods and services.

Vancouver’s downtown travel plan promotes this concept beautifully (http://www.driversofchange.com/slimcity/urban-mobility/integrated-planning.php). The system exemplifies a broad approach to accessibility and mobility, recognizing that most journeys involve multiple modes of transportation. The system was approached as a whole, and multiple design improvements included simple but systematically effective actions such as widening pedestrian crossings, providing new cycle lanes on major roads and putting cycle racks on buses, as well as technological improvements such as the Sky Train, an automated light mass rapid transit system.

Making IT Work

Information technology (IT) can greatly reduce the need for physical movement by enabling urban dwellers to access more services online. IT networks can also connect and co-ordinate cars and public transportation to reduce traffic congestion and accident rates.

A national U.S. initiative, IntelliDrive (http://www.smart-traveler.com/ intellidrive.html), demonstrates the value of IT incorporation. IntelliDrive enables networked, wireless, real-time communication among vehicles, infrastructure, drivers and passengers.

It improves safety through crash prevention while providing rich, real-time information about routes, traffic and optimum drive speeds. On a system level, real-time information from thousands of vehicles enables transportation managers to optimize system efficiency. Already, these technologies have been demonstrated in the state of Michigan and elsewhere.

Default and Battery

As oil becomes increasingly scarce, it gets more expensive. It also becomes a national security issue. Implementing more energy efficiency measures is only part of the answer. We must also shift to renewable, low-carbon fuel sources for vehicles. Answers are coming soon — answers like Better Place.

Better Place (www.betterplace.com), which is due to launch in Denmark and Israel in 2011, offers an ingenious way to address the long-standing knock against electric cars — battery life. Strategically located stations would allow electric car users who subscribe to the system to switch a used battery for a fully charged one in minutes, thus avoiding the hours of recharging usually needed during a long journey.

The Will of the People

People’s values, behaviour and preferences shape our future challenges and solutions. But inertia and the status quo are powerful forces. Governments must take the lead in promoting low-carbon, healthier urban lifestyles. Congestion pricing serves as a perfect example.

In 1975, Singapore instituted a system of user charges to prevent urban vehicle

congestion (http://www.worldstreets.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/density-with-out-tears-singapores-transportation-secrets/). The high-tech system charges motorists variable rates depending on the time of day and the day of the week they drive in the city’s urban core, charging

less for less congested times. Singapore’s experience has inspired similar systems in London, Oslo, Stockholm and Milan. Supported by strong public transport investment, congestion pricing works.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Our transportation systems will continue to evolve. The most effective solutions will provide the right balance to integrate infrastructure capital costs, operating and maintenance costs, user costs and environmental costs. The challenge will be to implement an adaptable transportation solution that considers broader societal and economic impacts. Only a holistic approach that incorporates the latest technology can help deliver those solutions.

This is not a job just for engineers, designers, politicians or scientists. Everyone involved in urban mobility can provide the framework to steer governments, industry and the general public in promoting a transportation evolution that maximizes net societal benefits.

The challenge for our governments is to engage society in this process, for change will be driven by people and the transportation modes they choose, which are linked to their lifestyle choices. It’s those choices — where they live, what they buy and other lifestyle decisions — that will drive society’s evolution toward sustainable transportation.

Dean Emir-Ahmet, PL (Eng), and Gordon Molnar, M ASc, PEng, create and implement urban mobility solutions as part of AECOM’s Edmonton-based Transportation Strategic Planning and Advisory Group.

Each mobility solution must be examined for its individual and overall contribution, cost and environmental impact.

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Cities across Canada are grappling with homelessness and a

shortage of affordable housing. The causes are multifaceted. The structure underlying the housing market, federal and provincial regulations about financing, how land is regulated and developed, the monetary policy and the distortions it creates in housing demand are all involved. Added to this are the wage gap of the working poor, the pulling back of the welfare state, the psychological factors faced by a significant portion of the homeless population and increasingly unaffordable rental and mortgaged housing.

Some prominent zoning initiatives aimed at addressing the challenge have come and gone over the decades, yet the problems remain.

In Canada, the most common approach to zoning is conventional Euclidian zoning, based on the separation of land uses and the application of rigid development standards. This approach creates a barrier to affordable housing. William Eggers stated in his research on performance-based zoning that separating land uses based on the negative impact they might have on adjacent developments has created social segregation, based on income, in the name of preserving property values. This framework distorts the goodwill of any planning process that encourages public input and participation; the discussions tend to focus on integrating new developments into an existing context, defined by the character and scale of the neighbourhood – namely, level of income – rather than on the potential outcomes, which can be both negative and positive. Members of individual communities organize too easily against rezoning applications that could satisfy the broader community’s need for a variety of affordable housing forms, especially in the more

mature areas of the city. In addition, rigid development standards that set minimum lot sizes, parcel coverage and setbacks, as well as maximum building height and density, contribute to lacklustre developments and, worse, social segregation.

Incentive zoning — which offers developers incentives in exchange for public benefits such as ensuring a given share of new construction is affordable for people with low to moderate incomes — becomes ineffective, as shown by the recent recession, trade-off it requires significant market demand to cope with the tradeoff between

affordable units and increased development rights in density, height, waived fees or such. Developers tend to include affordable housing units mostly as a means toward overly generous development rights. In response to a close cousin of the former, inclusionary zoning, CMHC notes that the building industry complains that any mandatory measures result in an unfair cost burden for developers.

Randal O’Toole found that zoning frameworks that focus on the built form, mixed-use and compact development, namely encompassing Smart Growth, have directly or indirectly resulted in social segregation based on leveraging building forms and intrinsic property values.

A new APPRoACH to Zoning And AFFoRdABLe HouSingMarcelo Figueira and Kenan Handzic

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Conventional zoning regulations make it too

cumbersome to be innovative and limit the city’s

ability to implement policies such as increasing

density and making housing more affordable.

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Buyers tend to pay premiums to live in areas with features that exceed common standards in the other parts of urban areas. Conventional zoning and regulatory systems, and alternatives based on these systems, are thus very inflexible and increase costs while generally stifling technical and design innovations.

Then there is performance-based zoning (PBZ); though it is not new, it is sparking new interest. Instead of conventional zoning’s obsession with what the existing neighbourhood looks like and its existing uses, PBZ focuses on a site’s physical characteristics. It also looks at a development’s impact off-site or in adjacent areas, both on the environment and on existing infrastructure. A proposed development is rated against a set of performance standards using a points-based system. Development goes ahead only if a plan meets a satisfactory rating, and that rating determines the acceptable development use. Examples of performance standards include compatibility with the neighbourhood, the capacity and potential of existing utilities, proximity to infrastructure, noise levels and so on, to use some examples suggested by the Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington.

Using this approach, a municipality or community can encourage affordable housing through the performance standards it sets. Developers can choose a combination of attributes that will make a project both affordable and of high quality. Market demand will spur a wider range of developments, housing types and design standards. Unnecessary minimum development standards that inflate costs could be scrapped, while building codes are retained to ensure people’s safety. The end result is greater creativity, flexibility, and land and cost efficiencies.

Australia and New Zealand have implemented PBZ methods nationally to increase the quality of residential development, as have isolated places in the United States. In Fort Collins, Colorado, for example, developers are allowed to use conventional zoning or PBZ in order to allow flexibility and more development potential. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has explored the effect of PBZ on housing as potentially promising. In some cases, certain characteristics or criteria of PBZ are used side by side with conventional zoning, including in Edmonton. But the method’s true potential lies in using it on a systemic basis to create a more flexible framework for development. Conventional zoning regulations make it too cumbersome to be

innovative and limit the city’s ability to implement policies such as increasing density and making housing more affordable.

PBZ would pose some challenges. It would require the planner to exercise more discretion during the approval process — but that could be addressed over time through education and workplace training. Issues concerning potential nuisances such as noise, environmental impacts or negative activity on adjacent uses, usually a major rationale for Euclidian zoning, might create a level of complexity but shouldn’t be a major issue when a development is held to certain minimum performance standards, such as confining any toxic uses to certain areas.

Despite the hurdles, transitioning toward performance-based zoning could go far in creating affordable housing for a variety of people, as well as more functional cities. Unlike outdated zoning systems, PBZ offers the flexibility to transform our urban areas into more vibrant, equitable, inclusive and diverse cities for all.

Marcelo Figueira, RPP, MCIP, is a planner with Parioplan in Edmonton. Kenan Handzic, RPP, MCIP is a planner with the City of Edmonton. He has previously worked on slum upgrading in Brazil.

Edmonton, Canada – Leah Bignell

Edmonton, Canada – Leah Bignell

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Michael Phair

Could transforming an alley in the heart of Edmonton help revitalize a neighbourhood? An innovative project that began with a handful of people asking, “What makes a great city?” is close to answering exactly that.

The alley in question is a two-block stretch half a block north of Jasper Avenue. It runs from Enterprise Square on 103rd Street to Beaver Hills House Park on 105th Street and includes the neglected park behind Sobey’s. The neighbouring 104th Street area has seen a tremendous renaissance in the past decade, with new and renovated buildings, many retail and commercial shops, an expanding outdoor market and a jump of more than 300 per cent in the number of residents. In a downtown that had been described as something of a ghost town when the workday was done, the neighbourhood is becoming a lively people place.

Hoping to add to that momentum, an innovative project is coming together that involves neighbourhood residents, local groups interested in urban spaces and design, business groups, community leagues, the University of Alberta, the

City of Edmonton and others. It’s called Reclaiming Lost Spaces.

People generally think of back alleys as the places for garbage and crime, but cities around the world are beginning to see their potential for development. In mixed-used areas such as the 104th Street neighbourhood, alleys can provide additional frontage for businesses — think cafes and small shops. This alley is narrow enough to create a pedestrian area, making it an ideal shopping spot and a natural extension of the weekend farmers’ market. Esthetically, the alley has tremendous potential: in addition to red brick walls, there are fire escapes and unique nooks and crannies to add character. And from a practical perspective, the size of the space makes it a doable project given limited resources and a volunteer “workforce.”

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The seed of Reclaiming Lost Spaces was planted by a presentation on Architecture, Design and Happiness at the University of Alberta’s inaugural Festival of Ideas in 2008. Three people who attended lamented afterward Edmonton’s lack of

attractiveness and decided to continue the conversation about appealing architecture and design. With a few others, they founded a small band of volunteers called Edmonton on the Edge to explore the challenging question: what makes a great city? The group included individuals from the U of A’s

City-Region Study Centre and External Relations, the City’s Edmonton Design Committee, ISL Engineering, M.A.D.E. in Edmonton (Media, Art and Design, Exposed in Edmonton Society) and the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues.

The goal of Edmonton on the Edge, or EOTE, is to bring together people from a variety of fields to examine, challenge and suggest what it takes to rejuvenate public spaces in a vibrant city. EOTE organizes

People generally think of back alleys as the places for garbage and crime, but cities around the world are beginning to see their potential for development.

Finding Community in Lost Spaces

Edmonton, Canada – Howie Phung

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Enterprise SquareUniversity of Alberta

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discussions and presentations involving nationally and internationally known architects, academics and landscape architects. These events have attracted diverse audiences of as many as 200 people who are committed to making Edmonton known visually for its design, attractiveness and beauty.

At the end of 2009 EOTE concluded that talking about what makes a great city was a good first step, but it was time for the next step — spearheading an actual project that would exemplify the organization’s goals. However, defining a project that both challenged the group to help create a “great city” and could be undertaken successfully given limited resources presented a challenge.

In January 2010 a framework was developed for a project that would redesign an urban space for community use. The framework set out a number of parameters: the project must gather the ideas and support of local residents and become “their project,” it must reclaim or reuse an existing space and be attractive, and it must be small enough to be doable. As a first step in engaging and gauging community interest, EOTE members led a walk through downtown Edmonton and challenged the two dozen participants — local residents, business owners and others — to identify “forgotten or lost spaces.” These are typically places of neglect, often full of litter and graffiti.

The group identified several lost spaces but after some discussion decided to consider only two: an underutilized parking lot on the northwest corner of 105th Street and 102nd Avenue and the alley and park in question. Since the city already had plans to convert the parking lot into a park, the obvious choice was to work on the alley and park. The next step was to find inspiration. This came in the form of a lecture by renowned Canadian landscape architect Greg Smallenberg, who provided examples of how “lost spaces” around the world have been successfully transformed. Examples included Boston’s Brattle Book Shop, which sells its wares in a vacant lot, and San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, which was transformed from a drug destination to a vibrant shopping area. With these case studies fresh in their minds, about 40 local designers and interested citizens

joined a design charette the following day. The participants were challenged to dream big and design the alley without limits.

Since then, the project has stretched to involve an even wider circle of participants.

After a committee of 30 volunteers had outlined goals for the alley’s transformation and sketched out possibilities, four U of A urban geography students jumped in. As a graded project for their course work, their task was to outline ways to develop a “sense of place” and research examples of the reuse of alleys in other parts of the world,

then develop a presentation both for their university class and the Reclaiming Lost Spaces working group.

Near the end of 2010, the project turned its focus to implementation — taking the thoughts, ideas and drawings and making them real. A few members of the group met in November with the city manager and received the commitment of city staff resources, to be led by the Planning Department and co-ordinating with the Transportation and Parks departments as needed. Next came the need to gauge community interest and support in the

Edmonton, Canada – Yvonne Lee

The alley revitalization project is made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Faculty of Extension’s Centenary Celebration.

It seems like just yesterday that Henry Marshall Tory, the first president of the University of Alberta, called for the creation of a Department of Extension to “carry the University to the people.” Soon enough, we were travelling to communities of rural Alberta, delivering lectures, showing slide shows and films, mobilizing knowledge, teaching new skills, generating advances in agricultural technologies, applying innovations in educational delivery and (most recently) moving downtown to Enterprise Square. Who would believe that Tory’s idea took flight nealy 100 years ago?

THIS calls for a celebration.

www.100yearsofextension.ca

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enliven the space as a precursor to the redevelopment. By the end of 2011, the goal is to have the project discussed at City Council.

By 2012, four years after the idea was planted and the concept nurtured by many supporters, this small, bleak space in Edmonton may blossom into an inviting addition to the city’s revived downtown.

For more information on this project and Edmonton on the Edge, visit www.eote.ca.

Michael Phair was recently associated with the University of Alberta. He was city councillor from 1992 to 2007.

of people to rest, relax and enjoy the pools and park.

The alley project in downtown Edmonton is truly placemaking in motion, both in process and in potential outcome. From its initial stages, the project involved those who live and work in the area to explore what the space could be to the community and what it should be. From an urban design standpoint, it is an example of taking a space originally intended for utilitarian purposes and reusing or reclaiming it, turning it into a corridor linking key spaces within that portion of the community, including 104th Street Promenade, Beaver Hills Park and Enterprise Square on 103rd Street.

This forgotten space is on its way to being transformed from an unidentifiable alley into a shared space for both people and vehicles that will contribute to the identity of that block and the downtown. That is placemaking in action.

Christopher Dulaba, RPP, MCIP, LEED Green Associate, is a planner/urban designer with Stantec Consulting in Edmonton.

There is a growing recognition among designers, architects, politicians and the general public of the importance of good urban design in our communities. It is rooted in the realization, after decades of the multiplication and amplification of suburbanization, that a utilitarian, car-centred approach to design has brought us built environments that are sterile, isolating and lacking in identity.

A huge factor in this growing public awareness is an unprecented ability to share ideas around the world via the Internet and other media. Conversations about urban design are no longer the domain of specialized professionals. People are seeing what’s being done in Stockholm or San Antonio or Calgary and asking: how can urban design do a better job of strengthening our communities to make them more enjoyable, more inspirational?

Urban design plays a crucial role in shaping our human environments and establishing the individuality of a place. Good urban design creates socially and economically healthy places that are both livable and attractive. It creates a sense of place, called “placemaking.”

Placemaking is about designing spaces for people. It is also about designing by

people. It’s a grassroots approach that relies heavily, from the beginning, on involving those who will live, work and play in that space to create a vision of what it should look like. From that vision come details of the design. Placemaking takes advantage of the assets, ideas and vision of a community and creates a healthy, safe and high-quality public realm (Project for Public Spaces, www.pps.org). The Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago describes placemaking as “both an overarching idea and a hands-on tool for improving a neighborhood, city or region.”

Developing a sense of place helps connect people to the place and to each other by creating a sense of identity. It can help cultivate a stronger appreciation for local culture, history and the environment. A sense of place is organic and subject to social, cultural, political and physical influences over time. Think of the Alberta Legislature Building. It has always been an important political institution for Edmonton and the province, but its surrounding environments have evolved over time, influencing how people interact with it. The decision in the 1970s to turn a busy road in front of the building into a people- friendly grand plaza connected to the downtown has turned a formal government structure into a space that draws hundreds

Placemaking in ActionChristopher Dulaba

Edmonton, Canada – Howie Phung

broader community. An open house in December brought out more than 60 people, who voiced strong support for the direction being suggested and, in several cases, offered to pitch in.

Work is expected to move forward quickly in 2011. The City of Edmonton Planning and Development Department has prepared a preliminary assessment of the space. Four committees have been formed to push ahead with the project: one is making sure the public, especially elected officials, are informed about the project; another is investigating possible funding sources; the third is pulling together designs from the design charette in the context of the Planning Department’s assessment; and the fourth is planning transitory arts events and installations for the coming summer, both as examples of what can happen in the alley and to

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These manifestations of community are not such marvels as the media would have us believe, but perhaps they are as simple as a habit that we don’t exercise enough or emphasize enough as important in schools and in our local political thinking.

If small towns and congregations have been the archetype of community for much of the history of North American settler society, we wonder about whether we can find community in larger towns and more complex cities. While community might be found in a neighbourhood centre, a religious event or a town hall meeting on a specific issue, what we encounter more often is the “urbanity” of these places. “Urban-ness” sets in when communities proliferate and we feel ourselves to be both insiders and outsiders at the same time. We are members of one or more organizations but not every network or group. This makes towns and cities always places of surprise, as we learn about what other groups are talking about and doing. Centres with multiple communities have both an economic and a cultural advantage of a kind of social multitasking. This increases the opportunities for innovation, but these places also face the challenge of co-ordinating action across these groups and of resolving conflicts among them. These often concern particular entitlements and claims, but at other times, groups strive to establish a direction for the town or city as a whole, sending resources in one direction and away from another, privileging not just one community but whole strata and sectors of the society. Truly urban centres are always characterized by debate and conflict. Success comes in maintaining a coherent direction without freezing a hierarchy of communities, which only drives those lower down the ladder to leave.

Rob Shields is Henry Marshall Tory Chair at the University of Alberta and the Director of the City-Region Studies Centre. His books include Ecologies of Affect, co-edited with Tonya Davidson and Ondine Park; and What Is a City? Rethinking the Urban after Hurricane Katrina, co-edited with Phil Steinberg.

What is now and was originally called Iqaluit — “place of many fish” in the Inuit language of Inuktitut — was from the 1940s until 1987 called Frobisher Bay. Iqaluit is three hours north of Ottawa by flight and, notoriously, like the entire Nunavut territory itself, has no roads that lead in or out. Iqaluit was officially declared a city in April 2001, after the formal creation of Nunavut as a new territory of Canada on April 1, 1999.

Iqaluit is a major regional centre of importance but has the smallest population of any capital city in Canada. According to the 2006 Census of Canada Iqaluit has a population of 6,184. It also has the highest non-Inuit population in Nunavut. Nunavut’s rapidly growing population in 2006 was 29,474, with approximately three-quarters being Inuit beneficiaries of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA) signed in 1993.

The origins of Iqaluit as a community date precisely to 1942, although the Hudson’s Bay Company operated a post several kilometres further up Frobisher Bay for 30 years prior to that. During the 1940s, the United States Air Force (USAF) built two airstrips as refuelling stations for planes en route to Europe during the Second World War. Once the Americans arrived, Inuit began to use the site to interact and trade with the military and to “recycle” the plentiful resources found in the local garbage dump.

iqALuit, nunAVut: From Community to City and BackBarret weber

Iqaluit, Nunavut – Rob Shields

Due to Canadian sovereignty pressures, the USAF left the site after the war but returned in the early 1950s as the Cold War once again made the site of key strategic importance. The Americans and Canadians began calling the site Frobisher Bay, and it was used until the early 1960s to house supplies and workers during construction of the DEW Line site several kilometres north of Frobisher Bay near Cumberland Sound. In 1987 the community changed the name to Iqaluit to reflect its Inuit origins.

Not only does Iqaluit have a diverse history but today it feels as diverse as any other capital city in Canada. The Inuit residents form several communities based on their hometowns elsewhere across the Canadian north. Quebeckers are a visible group with their “Carrefour” francophone community centre. Newfoundlanders, Ottawa-based federal civil servants on two-year appointments, and immigrants from China, the Philippines, Sudan and Somalia are all distinct communities in this small but multicultural city. Urban planners in Iqaluit struggle to have the city seen as a “good place to live” by its Inuit and non-Inuit inhabitants, but with so many cultures and much turn over, recognizing and building community is a challenge.

Barret Weber is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Alberta. His dissertation investigates the politics of the rise of Nunavut as a sub-national territory of Canada.

CoMMunityContinued from page 5

13

Fort McMurray: Life in the FishbowlLisa Hirmer and andrew Hunter, as DodoLab

It’s early one Saturday morning in

Fort McMurray, late October 2010. A steady line of vehicles pulls into a vast parking lot that fans out in front of the new Suncor Community Leisure Centre, and the snow- dusted lot starts quickly filling up as workers unpack equipment for hockey or curling games and parents lead young children to swimming lessons. Freshly planted saplings dot the many traffic islands, their branches bare but for large colourful tags fluttering in the cold wind. The tags read, “This place is labelled as,” followed by different words and images on each tag – most saying things like “Fort McMoney,” “Fort McCrack” and “Big Oil.” But when a gust of wind flips over a tag and reveals its reverse side, the message reads, “But this place is also:” and alternative ideas about Fort McMurray are expressed, including many positive qualities like “good community,” “multicultural” and “expanding.”

The tags are a temporary installation expressing the ideas of a group of local high school students who had worked with the creative collective DodoLab earlier in the week. It was part of a larger project by DodoLab exploring life and community in Fort McMurray. The project was commissioned by the University of Alberta as part of the Unwrap the Research Conference.

With this project DodoLab wanted to find out more about the Fort McMurray and Wood Buffalo region, particularly about how it is perceived from within the community and from outside it. We wanted to explore the perceptions, and the misperceptions, of a place caught in a seemingly unbridled surge of development fuelled by a controversial industry — a place that always seems to be under the critical gaze of outsiders, as though trapped in a fishbowl.

Fort McMurray is, of course, a complicated situation. Shortly after we arrive to start the project, the local news announces that another wave of migratory birds has been killed by

landing in a toxic tailings pond. At the same time, new debates circulate on national news channels about whether or not Fort McMurray oil is more ethical than overseas oil. Ethical oil? Dirty oil? Who decides? Who defines? Who profits? Who loses? It is easy to visualize the connection between the oilsands and the people living and working in the midst of them, but in truth we all bear responsibility for the consequences of what is happening in Fort McMurray — it is our reliance on petroleum-based products that drives the industry.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Inside the leisure centre another installation of smaller tags, hung on rows of string, echoes the messages on the tags outside. “How is this place labelled, and what else is it?” we ask those passing by, inviting them to pause for a moment to talk with us and fill out a tag with their perceptions of Fort McMurray. Many of these participants linger after adding their tag to the installation so they can read the tags left by others.

As the strings accumulate more and more tags, we draw more attention. “Why are you here?” we are asked repeatedly in tones that reflect both open curiosity and, occasionally, a challenge. Mostly it is asked with a welcoming eagerness, a notable desire to have conversations about life and community in Fort McMurray. We hear many candid stories and thoughtful views, expressing both pride and concern. We are left with the sense that Fort McMurray is more than a workers’ settlement, that it is trying to transition into a rooted community while struggling with its rapid growth. From a few passersby we get questions and lectures, the implication often being that if we are not from Fort McMurray and don’t live there, our engagement with the place is less valid. Our response is that we are here to listen and talk, not condemn, and that we think there is value in looking at a place from the perspective of a stranger. This usually opens up the conversation.

In Fort McMurray, the local and the global seem to be deeply intertwined. Most people in the community are from elsewhere. The investments in — and, hence, the primary decisions about — what is happening are not determined locally. What is happening at the extraction sites up the highway is driven by the choices we in the wider world are making, and it affects the global community.

It is difficult to talk about community life in Fort McMurray without opening up these larger debates and questions; serious issues operating at a global scale pervade everyday life here. Though many people we encounter in the tagging project speak favourably about Fort McMurray, particularly in regard to their quotidian life — the plethora of programs for young children, the spirit of the community, the opportunities for newcomers, the possibility of making a better life — people are equally willing to point out the grim realities that are a consequence of the rapidly growing industry that brought most of them here, including environmental degradation, serious drug abuse problems, acute housing shortages and a focus on profit above all else.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Back at the DodoLab base in the leisure centre, a large screen shows messages arriving via digital feed from another, older one-industry boom town. “Strong companies don’t make strong communities.” “Make 100-year decisions and become burdened by difficult questions.” “Find a community identity beyond one industry.” The messages are being sent by the artist group BrokenCityLab of Windsor, Ontario, a city trying to recover from a collapse rooted in its former reliance on a single industry. We set up the connection to initiate dialogue between the two cities, hoping that by connecting with a community at the other end of a boom, we can start a conversation with the participants of the tagging project about what is possible, and what is inevitable, here in Fort McMurray.

14 CIty-rEgIOn StUdIES CEntrE UNIvERSITY OF ALBERTA

“Possibility” is a word that comes up over and over again during the project, on the tags and in conversation. It seems to be a fitting word as it implies a situation where change can happen rapidly and easily. The rate of change in Fort McMurray is undoubtedly accelerated. The possibility of getting ahead quickly with a well-paying job is a common narrative here. But so are stories revealing the possibility of falling quickly downward. A well-spoken man looking for housing at a drop-in centre tells us that not too long ago, he had a good job as a pipefitter at one of the big sites, but hasty spending during plush times and high housing costs left him with little savings when he lost his job, and he found himself homeless in a

matter of months. Another young patron of the drop-in centre tells us how his incredible knowledge of East Coast wildlife slipped away shortly after his family moved to Fort McMurray in search of a better life and he got caught in a cycle of drug abuse. It is as though the lack of friction that allows things to move forward so quickly here means that there is also little traction to stop a downfall — a pattern that, if the history of other boom towns repeats itself here, will play out on larger scales as well.

Lisa Hirmer and Andrew Hunter are the principals of DodoLab, a creative collective and project based out of Waterloo Architecture Cambridge and supported by the Musagetes Foundation.

We are left with the sense that Fort

McMurray is more than a workers’

settlement, that it is trying to transi-

tion into a rooted community while

struggling with its rapid growth.

Unwrap the Research ConferenceUnwrap the Research was a first-of-its-kind effort to gather researchers studying social issues in the Wood Buffalo region. It brought together more than 80 people from inside and outside the region at a conference October 22-24, 2010, at the Suncor Community Leisure Centre at MacDonald Island Park in Fort McMurray. The event had two interrelated goals: to give researchers the opportunity to learn from each other’s work and to give local residents the opportunity to learn about and respond to research results. The tag line, Exploring Life in the Fishbowl, captured the idea that even as the region is “under the gaze” of the outside world, local and external researchers are exploring the social context in the region in a great variety of ways.

Unwrap the Research was a first step in creating conversation around social research in the region. Bringing research back to the community was a helpful experience for researchers and was also symbolically important for members of the community. What became clear through the discussions was the need for more opportunities and tools for researchers to effectively communicate the relevance and usefulness of their work to non-specialist and local audiences.

Conference participants generated three key ideas for next steps:

• organizeasecondresearch-focusedeventwithamoreopenformat,

• lookintothedevelopmentofafieldschooltosupportresearchand research collaborations in Fort McMurray and Wood Buffalo, and

• developanonline,accessibledatabaseofresearchdoneinand around the region.

More details, including an archive of presentations and abstracts, can be found on the conference website at www.unwraptheresearch.ca.

The conference was sponsored by Suncor Energy Foundation, the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, the Alberta Rural Development Network, Keyano College, the University of Alberta – Faculty of Extension, and the University of Alberta – Faculty of Arts. It involved the joint effort of individuals from the University of Alberta (Sara Dorow, Maryanne Wynne, Angela Angell, Kira Hunt, Rob Shields and Howie Phung), Keyano College (Russell Thomas and Renee Summers), the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (Terri Vallance), the Redpoll Centre (Ed Kamps), and the Fort McMurray Health Promotions Centre (Daven Seebarran) along with a number of local volunteers. Also contracted to collaborate on the event was DodoLab.

Fort McMurray, Canada – Kira Hunt

Fort McMurray, Canada – Howie Phung

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Our societal preoccupation with growing city populations has largely overlooked how the geographical expansion of cities has affected existing rural communities surrounding these growth poles. Nowhere is this more clear than in the Calgary metropolitan region, where Calgary experienced Canada’s highest percentage growth of any major city between 1996 and 2006, pushing its population past 1 million residents. This population milestone brought repeated attention to the transformation of the inner core and expanding suburbs. What has received much less attention is how the area around the city limits has experienced new pressures. Rocky View County, which surrounds the city on three sides (north, east and west), has been strongly impact-ed by the growth of the City of Calgary.

With an area roughly the size of Prince Edward Island, Rocky View County is an intriguing mix of land uses and population types. Originally an agricultural region

composed of small towns, farms and ranches (some of which continue to exist), the existing communities have experienced major intrusions largely due to spillover effects from urban growth. Rocky View is unique in that it is not urban itself but is deeply affected by urbanization on its borders. In addition to the city of Calgary, the county envelops the Town of Cochrane, with a population of 15,000, and the City of Airdrie, which doubled its population to 40,000 between 2000 and 2010. Thus, it is not just Calgary itself that is growing, but other urban spaces in the metro region are also experiencing rapid growth.

Rocky View County has been labelled “rural” by default because the larger communities in the region are autonomous urban entities. Does this label of “rural” realistically apply to all parts of the county? On the one hand, it contains two provincial parks — Big Hill Springs and Bragg Creek. It has fourteen hamlets, such as Balzac, Conrich and Langdon. It also has some natural gas processing plants, which stand

as sentinels on the prairie, figuratively replacing the grain elevators of yesteryear. On the other hand, Rocky View County has at least four prestigious country residential areas — Elbow Valley, Bearspaw, Artist View Park and Springbank — where large, custom-built homes and high incomes are typical. Most of these residents are commuters into the city of Calgary, along with the residents of the growing communities of Cochrane and Airdrie. The county’s population of 35,000, then, is a mixture of rural residents with agricultural interests and urbanites seeking alternative residential locations to city living.

Two major transportation arteries also run through the county. The Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1) runs east-west through Calgary, and the Queen Elizabeth Highway (Highway 2) runs north-south to Edmonton. These arteries serve as major commuting routes, but they also contribute to developmental pressures. Along Highway 1 to the west of Calgary

A Dynamic Rural-Urban Nexus:

rocky View County

Harry H. Hiller and Jyoti Gondek

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is an amusement park, Calaway Park, essentially serving recreation purposes for big-city residents. Further west, Bragg Creek, with its forests and unique village atmosphere, has also become a leisure and recreation destination for Calgarians. The new CrossIron Mills shopping and entertainment complex is situated on what was once agricultural land, virtually at the junction of high-speed Highway 2 and the new Stoney Trail ring road. A free-standing retail power centre on adjacent land, called CrossIron Commons, with megastores such as Costco and Lowe’s and further planned developments, is visibly creating an emergent edge city with its own highway access interchange.

Rocky View’s previous function as rural or agricultural space is being transformed radically by this new form of “shopper-tainment,” which draws primarily from urban areas. A vivid example of this new dual role is the huge Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World store, which has become a tourist attraction in its own right with elaborate displays of wildlife and wilderness

pursuits. Blending first-in-Alberta stores such as Tommy Bahama with outlet concepts such as Coach, CrossIron Mills drew over 7 million visitors in its first year of operation. The end result is that the busy Edmonton-Calgary corridor, which runs through Rocky View County, is increasingly being densified through new commercial operations between Calgary and Airdrie, and residential communities apparently will soon follow.

Another illustration of the urban invasion of Rocky View County is a suburb-style cottage community recently created to provide seasonal secondary homes for residents of the metro region as an alternative to city living, primarily for summer use. Cottage Club began offering lots in 2009 for a gated recreation community now under construction that has introduced a new kind of owner who is not a permanent resident.

Rocky View County, then, is a rapidly changing jurisdiction with a diverse constituency. While at one time it may have been appropriate to speak of it as a rural community, that designation is being continuously contested by urban pressures. Calgary is the third-largest city in Canada in total population, at least partially because it has no autonomous cities directly on its borders; autonomous municipalities such as Bowness and Forest Lawn were amalgamated into the city long ago. In contrast, Edmonton, with a smaller city population, has communities like St. Albert, Fort Saskatchewan and Spruce Grove, with significant populations that are part of the census metropolitan area (CMA) but with little or no rural space between them. Rocky View County

is unique in that it is facing the intrusions of urban form, culture and people in a manner that creates considerable confusion and uncertainty for long-time residents.

The future of Rocky View County is now the focus of much debate, and we are launching a research project at the University of Calgary to assist in understanding the issues involved. The dilemma of the rural-urban nexus is best

represented by the polarity between those who support new development as either inevitable or as a means of generating additional tax revenue, and those who want to retain the idyllic country heritage of the county based on nostalgia or an imagined vision of what the rural lifestyle should entail. How Rocky View chooses to respond to these conflicting pressures is a question of keen public interest.

Dr. Harry H. Hiller is professor of urban sociology at the University of Calgary and the author of Second Promised Land: Migration to Alberta and the Transformation of Canadian Society. Jyoti Gondek is a PhD student at the University of Calgary and a consultant on urban projects.

A Dynamic Rural-Urban Nexus:

rocky View County

Rocky View County, then, is a rapidly changing jurisdiction with a diverse constituency. While at one time it may have been appropriate to speak of it as a rural community, that designation is being continuously contested by urban pressures.

Cochrane, Canada – Howie Phung

Calgary, Canada – D’Arcy Norman

17

In June 2003 Liverpool was announced

as “European Capital of Culture 2008,”

triggering scenes of almost hysterical rejoicing in the city’s town hall and a wave of exultant media coverage lasting many weeks. The title was perceived as a vindication — the rehabilitation of a place maligned in 1980s English popular consciousness as a “self-pity city” in terminal decline. The prize conferred a far more positive status, the culmination of a generation-long urban transformation, from riot-torn political pariah to exemplary “post-industrial” city.

Some saw such jubilation as an excessive, almost embarrassing overreaction to the title, founded in 1985, which allows two EU countries each year to nominate a city as “European Capital of Culture” (ECoC). Yet the prize was said to have generated an estimated three billion euros of value for its holders between 1995 and 2004. To understand ECoC’s significance for Liverpool, it is useful to consider how it punctuates a narrative of decline, fall and recovery in urban regeneration, in the context of a city that soared as “Europe’s Manhattan” at the 20th century’s opening, only to skirt the abyss of “Europe’s Detroit” near its close.

YEStErdAY, ALL MY trOubLES SEEMEd SO FAr AwAY

The previous century for Liverpool, a city with medieval roots but really an upstart child of 18th-century slave trading, encompassed radical readjustments in role and status. It started on the upswing as the greatest

imperial seaport on Earth, hosting more foreign embassies and consulates than London, an energetic Edwardian Shanghai or Singapore, Europe’s gateway to the New World. It almost ended in collapse, but the new millennial story suggests renaissance, the only U.K. city represented at China’s 2010 World Expo.

wAr IS OvEr

Slaughter in Flanders during First World War and the “hungry ‘30s” clipped the liver bird’s wings as a true world city, but its dynamism survived the Second World War’s blitzkrieg and Battle of the Atlantic, when Liverpool anchored the convoy lifeline from North America. The postwar decades were a time for progressives, with bold modernization plans to address problems such as substandard housing. The city self-imposed all the archetypal planning disasters of the time, but the period unquestionably bore witness to a surge in civic self-confidence.

Liverpool in the 1960s experienced cultural pre-eminence as the Beatles’ birthplace and British beat generation’s spiritual home. Poet Allen Ginsberg called it “the centre of human consciousness.” Two new cathedrals arose from a skyline of cranes and towers; a new underground railway, airport runway and container port were built. Yet Liverpool’s swing masked more fundamental weaknesses, which destabilize development to this day. U.K. trade was shifting from New World countries to western Europe, leaving Liverpool on the “wrong side” of England. Victorian docks were too small, and container

LiVErPooL: EuroPEan CaPitaLoF CuLturE 2008olivier Sykes and Jonathan Brown

facilities became mechanized, decimating employment. Misguided housing clearance saw much of Liverpool’s working population shipped beyond the city limits, tearing up social networks and dissipating urban density.

ALL thIngS MuSt PASS

By the 1980s, joblessness, civic mismanagement and demolition blight contributed to impressions that Liverpool was the neo-liberal era’s “beaten city.” Economic decline was manifest in decaying buildings, queues of jobless seeking welfare payments and outbreaks of intense civil unrest. The core population sank to half its 1930s peak. Liverpool exemplified Margaret Thatcher’s view of “the enemy within,” joining the miners and militant union establishment as threats to be defeated with the full might and spite of the British state. Some 47 city councillors were jailed for setting a town hall budget that refused cuts imposed from Whitehall, and public services were often crippled by strikes and walkouts. Two decades after Sgt. Pepper, Liverpool was no longer a byword for cultural vitality. The 1.3 million inhabitants of metropolitan Merseyside were instead the nation’s butt of jokes emphasizing poverty and imagined criminality rather than attributes such as heritage or cultural creativity.

Yet even in these dark times, the lights never quite went out. Public servants in schools and hospitals were inspired to fight for social justice, the university continued to grow and the arts scene found an irresistibly

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cutting critical edge. Church leaders united to overcome sectarian tensions. Both football clubs (Liverpool and Everton) enjoyed wild success. A political champion was found in Thatcher’s environment minister, Michael Heseltine. Refusing to see a great city slide off the edge, he set up a well-funded Development Corporation to reclaim miles of empty docklands.

whEn I gEt tO thE bOttOM, I gO bACk tO thE tOP OF thE SLIdE

In the 1990s Liverpool’s tide began to turn. Public investments like the Tate Gallery of Modern Art had repositioned its outlook for a post-industrial era. A grassroots enterprise economy of taxi drivers, home improvement firms and hairdressers took up some employment slack left by fleeing big capital. Liverpool’s government-sponsored Housing Action Trust tackled troublesome 1960s estate environments, removing 54 tower blocks. The River Mersey, western Europe’s most polluted watercourse, was cleaned up. Students flocked to enjoy the city’s charismatic nightlife.

The sobering realization that Merseyside’s economy was eligible for the highest level of E.U. regional policy support, having fallen beneath 75 per cent of average per capita GDP, provided the stimulus for transformation. From 1996, $2 billion Cdn in E.U. structural funding restored investor confidence.

So when the U.K. government announced a competition to select a city to put forward as European Capital of Culture for 2008,

Liverpool was the first of nine to declare its intention to bid. To the surprise of many, it succeeded.

wE hOPE YOu wILL EnJOY thE ShOw

Liverpool’s proposal for ECoC centred on celebrating global links, promising “the World in One City.” Liverpool 08 coincided with other significant events, notably a UNESCO designation in 2004 as a World Heritage Site and the 800th anniversary in 2007 of Liverpool’s founding Royal Charter.

Alongside vigorous physical development, Liverpool 08 saw a varied cultural program. Organizers claimed to have hosted 7,000 events, seeking to balance local and international culture, mixing “popular” and “high” taste. Highlights included returning Liverpudlian conductor Sir Simon Rattle’s Berlin Philharmonic, Paul McCartney playing Anfield stadium and La Princesse, a 15- metre mechanical spider watched by half a million spectators. Several impressive facilities were added or thoroughly renewed for 2008, including a 10,000-seat arena. Hotel bed spaces doubled and 10 million extra visits to the city were claimed, with an economic boost of approximately £750 million. The city’s national retail ranking leaped from 15th to 5th.

rEvOLutIOn?

Yet the title failed to comprehensively engage deeper issues; whether it could realistically have been expected to do so is perhaps a moot point. Notwithstanding transformative change in the centre, Liverpool’s city-region remains a place of extreme spatial inequality. Some 70 per cent of the core is within England’s worst 10 per cent of deprived areas, and much of the inner city and outer estates count among the worst one per cent. Healthy-life expectancy varies by 30 years, as wealthy suburbs coexist with areas of persistent poverty. Capital of Culture was accused of diverting attention and resources from needy locations to subsidize glamour projects in the glitzy central area. One of the greatest ironies of ECoC year was a relapse to mass housing clearance across the Victorian inner suburbs. High-profile campaigns coalesced to oppose demolitions, notably to “save the Welsh Streets,” whose 500 homes include the birthplace of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

COME tOgEthEr

In broad terms, the 2000s in Liverpool illustrate how rapidly transformation can occur when conditions at different levels come together to generate momentum and capacity for change. The successful hosting of designations like ECoC can spur investor confidence and civic energy, drawing a line under earlier depictions of failure to punctuate more positive narrative trajectories. However, without ongoing commitments to deepen interconnections and extend full civic participation, there is a danger of the halo wearing of, or, perhaps worse, perpetuating a self-satisfied glow that shades out acute socio-economic issues.

Regeneration in this decade will be conceived and carried out in a very different context. The U.K.’s coalition government advocates “localism” and civic entrepreneurship, on the one hand, while enacting significant cuts in budgets on the other. Expensive top-down renewal programs themselves appear obsolete in an era of financial and housing shortage. An age of austerity has dawned, and Liverpool’s high dependency on public employment and regeneration funding will necessitate further reinvention. The test will be whether it continues to face its challenges creatively or chooses to rest on hard-won laurels of European approbation. The long-term benefits of ECoC to a city with deep histories of both deprivation and innovation thus remain uncertain.

Olivier Sykes is a lecturer in European spatial planning in the Department of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool, UK.

Jonathan Brown was a truck driver prior to completing a planning master’s at the Department of Civic Design. He is a director of Manchester-based environmental design co-operative URBED.

In broad terms, the 2000s in

Liverpool illustrate how rapidly

transformation can occur when

conditions at different levels come

together to generate momentum

and capacity for change.

Liverpool, United Kingdom – Elena Romera

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HoME iS WHErE tHE art iS: The Role of Culture in Community RevitalizationMyka Jones

Edmonton, Canada – Mack Male

Growing up in Blue Ridge, Alberta, I was immersed in the stories of my grandparents, parents, great-aunts and uncles, friends and neighbours. As much as my community existed in the physical places and people of the present, it was equally manifested through its collective past. Having since moved away, I find it exists almost purely in memory for me now; in fact, whenever I go back to visit, it begins to feel less real. Every new store, house and traffic light takes it farther from what it once was. I do not long for that particular time, but I do often find myself craving the richness, connectedness and sense of belonging I felt in it.

This yearning returned recently as I began settling in to Edmonton and contemplated buying my first home. I experienced a strong desire to connect, belong and thrive. I was looking for a place where I could contentedly spend a bit of my life.

As I hunted for a house, my modest budget took me to areas I might otherwise never have considered — areas, like the Alberta Avenue neighbourhood, that friends cautioned me against, asking, “Aren’t you worried about the hookers and gangs?” While friends’ concerns were not entirely unfounded, most who balked at Alberta

Avenue hadn’t set foot in the area in over five years. Today the neighbourhood from 115th Avenue to 122nd Avenue and from Northlands to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology exhibits a distinct sense of localized pride, character, neighbourliness, affordable world cuisine and artistic activity. These are attributes many of my peers actively seek out while visiting other major cities, yet few have approached their own backyard with the same sense of adventure and admiration. That’s not to say the area is without troubles. It has drifted into decline throughout the decades, falling victim to crime and neglect — and the effects are visible. Yet

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HoME iS WHErE tHE art iS: The Role of Culture in Community Revitalization

changes carried forward by residents, businesses and city government, stemming from the 2005 Alberta Avenue Revitalization Initiative, are promising. Improved sidewalks and streets, new businesses and updated storefronts, and a variety of new festivals are part of the transformation, which has been noticed not only by residents but by the federal body that recognizes advances in public policy and management: the Institute of Public Administration in Canada awarded the Alberta Avenue Revitalization Initiative a bronze medal in its 2009 Municipal Leadership category.

And while the physical and infrastructural upgrades are impressive, it’s like the old saying goes: it’s what’s inside that counts. It’s the relationships, the interactions, the general feeling of well-being one derives in a particular place that turn a neighbourhood into a resilient network. Councillor Tony Caterina, in the 2009 year-end review of the Alberta Avenue Revitalization, put it this way: “We [the city] put up the money, but because of the buy-in by the community, there are events and programs and new families moving in. Without that, we would have had more trees and nicer sidewalks, and that would have been it.”

Grassroots arts and culture have played a huge role in Alberta Avenue’s emotional regeneration. I got a clear picture of this during a brief internship with the Edmonton Arts Council this past summer, during which I explored the dynamics of cultural activity in the area. The project initially created a simple tally of the area’s cultural assets. There are many types of cultural assets, including human, social, economic or environmental, though the project focused mainly on arts-related assets. It was clear that the concentration of bakeries and eateries, arts centres, churches, theatres, dance studios, libraries and bookstores, instrument retailers and community leagues were together creating something quite special.

The project also conducted a survey, gathering information from over 230 Edmontonians, including 54 cultural workers living in the Alberta Avenue area — people who create, perform, teach or work with art, whether visual art, music, film, television, books, magazines or other

cultural industries. Survey results were then explored through interviews with cultural workers, business owners and residents in the target area.

The research found that cultural workers were moving in, setting up shop and becoming engaged in their community. Those living in the Alberta Avenue area gave some hints as to why.

• The cost of housing was the single most important factor when deciding to move to Alberta Avenue (87 per cent of cultural workers owned their homes).

• Four out of five had office and/or studio space in their residences, used primarily to facilitate their artistic practice.

• Over half conducted business related to their artistic practice in the Alberta Avenue area.

• Over 75 per cent volunteered in their spare time, nearly all in arts and culture

In the Alberta Avenue community, those involved in creative vocations are capitalizing on the opportunity to build equity, practise their professions and share them in a supportive, stimulating environment. I call it “opportunity meets elbow grease,” and I sincerely hope the momentum continues. The sense of ownership and collaboration has no doubt taken time and energy to cultivate, but it is palpable.

As Alberta Avenue demonstrates, community cannot exist without effort. The area also shows how the integration of culture facilitates urban revival, an idea that has received widespread attention in

recent years. The deliberate cultivation of cultural resources can help rebuild communities by enriching social networks and connections, a process commended

for its long-term vision and effects. It is a delicate process, balancing strategic plans and policies with the self-organized efforts of local players to cultivate an ecology that supports local values, ideas and aspirations.

One clear lesson from Alberta Avenue’s rebirth is that community planning and policy work can, and should, engage a broader, more diverse set of players than it often does. In this way, good urban spaces will come to identify, represent and reflect the diversity of their users. It’s exciting to think of the potential for more of Edmonton’s neighbourhoods to develop in this way. We can be sure that no two would take the same form — that being the ultimate goal and point.

In the end, although I decided not to buy a home and settle in Edmonton, I now know what I need in the future to make any place not just a community but my community.

Myka Jones is a community organizer, designer and visual artist living in Yellowknife, N.W.T. She has worked locally and internationally on a range of cross-cultural initiatives and public-awareness projects, focusing on the development of arts, cultural and tourism sectors.

One clear lesson from Alberta Avenue’s rebirth is that community planning and policy work can, and should, engage a broader, more diverse set of players than it often does.

Edmonton, Canada – Veronica Drozd

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Cohesive communities and family-

friendly local planning are integral to

children’s healthy development early in life.

Recent studies show that children’s early environments shape the structure of the brain during a period of critical development (from birth to about age five). This has far-reaching implications for their futures, from how well they’ll do in school and at work, to their health, relationships and sense of well-being.

“The brain is extremely malleable during the early years,” notes Dr. Susan Lynch, director of the Early Child Development Mapping Project (ECMap), based at the University of Alberta. “The environments in which children learn and grow — and these include the community as well as the immediate family — have an enormous impact on early development. Planners, working in partnership with communities, have an instrumental role to play in creating positive environments that support healthy development.”

ECMap is working with data and information collected on early childhood development across Alberta and on the socio-economic and community factors that may affect development. The development of

kindergarten children is assessed using a unique population-based measurement tool called the Early Development Instrument, or EDI. The EDI was created by the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. ECMap is also compiling socio-economic data using 2006 and later, 2011 census information from Statistics Canada. The third research component involves information about community characteristics and resources, including parks, libraries, recreational facilities, daycares and informal family supports which is being collected with input from communities themselves.

The information is mapped to create community and provincial profiles of early development. These maps, along with detailed reports, will be shared with community members, school authorities, parents, service providers, policy-makers and planners. The objectives are to

• document the developmental health of young children throughout the province,

• help identify gaps and strengths in communities and services, and

• promote evidence-based planning that is responsive to local circumstances and needs.

ECMap is led by the Community-University Partnership for the Study of Children, Youth and Families (CUP) at the U of A’s Faculty of Extension. It is funded by Alberta Education as part of the provincial government’s $25 million Early Child Development Mapping Initiative. The initiative, officially launched in April 2010, puts Alberta in step with other provinces, including B.C., Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and P.E.I., which have similar projects in place.

Even a cursory glance at statistics makes it clear why it is important to track early childhood development (ECD). More than 27 per cent of Canadian children experience developmental difficulties by the time they reach kindergarten. More than one in four struggle to perform basic age-appropriate tasks, such as holding a pencil or crayon, climbing stairs independently, getting along with other children on the playground or following simple instructions.

Early developmental difficulties predispose children to lifelong learning and behavioural problems, addictions, delinquency and a host of health issues, including obesity, coronary disease and Type 2 diabetes. The economic and social costs of tolerating such

MAPPING A BRigHteR FutuRe FOR ALBERTA’S young CHiLdRenolenka Melnyk

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Edmonton, Alberta - Ed Kaiser

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CIty-rEgIOn StUdIES CEntrE UNIvERSITY OF ALBERTA

unnecessarily high rates of developmental vulnerability are enormous. A recent UNICEF report points out that Canada ranks at the bottom of industrialized nations in its support for early childhood education and care. The implementation of ECMap in Alberta and ECD mapping initiatives in other provinces is clearly a step in the right direction.

In its research methodology, ECMap has adopted the population-based mapping approach first used by the University of British Columbia’s Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) from 2000 to 2004 to record early childhood development information in the province. Community or social mapping is now being widely used in population-based studies. Dr. Carl Amrhein, provost and vice-president academic at the U of A, says social mapping has democratized research and local planning and policy-making since the 1980s. Amrhein, who holds a PhD in geography, was involved in a number of groundbreaking population health studies in Ontario while teaching at the University of Toronto and heading U of T’s geography department.

“It’s been a very liberating and empowering trend,” he says. “The advent of readily accessible computer mapping tools and the availability of small-area data, including the wealth of socio- demographic information released by Stats Canada, means that communities can now do their own research and make powerful presentations to argue their case. My view as a planner is that it’s a terrific development because it’s levelled the playing field and can lead to better policies.”

Social mapping lends itself naturally to tracking patterns in early childhood development because of the huge influence of a child’s environment upon early development. Social and

economic circumstances are big factors in development. Children who grow up in impoverished families and neighbourhoods, for example, are more likely to experience developmental difficulties. But research also shows that communities can buffer the negative impact of poverty and other social disadvantages if they’re cohesive and strong and provide high-quality, accessible programs and services.

A 2005 pilot study in Edmonton, as well as ECD mapping projects in Canada and elsewhere, have recorded unexpected findings — with children doing well in some poor neighbourhoods and less well in some affluent neighbourhoods, and with varying results in comparable communities. Gathering information on the multiple environmental factors that relate to development can provide important insights into local trends and outcomes. Using maps to convey this complex information makes it easily accessible and understandable to lay audiences, including

the communities where children live. Communities can, when motivated, make a significant difference to developmental outcomes.

ECD mapping projects elsewhere have spurred communities to take action. One example is Revelstoke, a small Rocky Mountain community that has consistently recorded the lowest early childhood development vulnerability results in B.C. (15.5 per cent in 2009–10 as compared to a provincial average of more than 30 per cent). Another example, on the other side of the globe, is Mirrabooka, an impoverished suburb in Western Australia with a large population of Aboriginals and refugees, which is turning around a high developmental vulnerability rate (54 per cent in 2003). What these disparate communities have in common is a strong sense of community engagement, service providers who are willing to work together, and planners who use EDI and other ECD research results to inform local planning.

Community development has been a fundamental component of ECMap’s work from the beginning, says Lynch. ECMap community development co-ordinators are working with communities across Alberta to help them interpret research findings and build coalitions to support local ECD. “The downstream effect of good planning and community engagement on creating positive early environments for young children is huge,” she says.

Olenka Melnyk is the communications co-ordinator for the Early Child Development Mapping Project.

Planners, working in partnership with

communities, have an instrumental role to

play in creating positive environments that

support healthy development.

Submit an Article or PhotoCurb welcomes articles and photos on governance, infrastructure, sustainability, public spaces and other issues faced by city-regions. We also welcome articles with a rural theme for our next issue in autumn 2011. Articles are typically short, about 1,000 words, but longer articles may also be considered for the features section. Photos should be high resolution (8-10 MB, RAW files preferred). For more information visit CurbMagazine.ca

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