LONDON (May 28) – Vancouver may offer London a useful model for citizen engagement, as was suggested here yesterday. But Calgary is a far better model of the kind of city London could become, says Darren Chapman, one of the regular subscribers to The McLeod Report.

Mr. Chapman, a teacher in the business department as Fanshawe College, was born and raised in Calgary in the 1960s. Back then, it was a town with aspirations and a population of about 400,000 – about where London is today. Fifty years later Calgary’s population is about 1.1 million.

Calgary and London, Mr. Chapman pointed out by email in response to yesterday’s column, have very similar layouts. Both have railways running through the middle, essentially dissecting the north and south parts equally. Calgary has two rivers, the Bow and the Elbow, which join near the centre, not unlike the Forks of the Thames just west of our downtown.

Calgary has the Stampede and Exhibition grounds just east of the downtown which, Mr. Chapman says, are the focus of many cultural events. We have the Western Fair grounds just east of downtown, home of the slots and many cultural events.

“Calgary had a downtown that was diverse and which almost died due to the urban sprawl to the suburbs (hmmm, that sounds familiar), but which was saved by a novel approach to accommodate citizens in the winter by building elevated walksways that cross intersections and link downtown buildings to one another,” Mr. Chapman says. 
 
“Calgary also invested in transportation and movement of its citizenry in a variety of ways – bike paths and river walkways well before they became vogue in the 2000's; ring roads that brought the traffic arriving from the east TransCanada Highway through the city and later around the city in a logical way; investment of causeways and traffic interchanges that could be expanded easily as the city expanded. 

“The first LRT (light rail transit) line in the early '80's has now grown to reach the four corners of the city. Calgary also invested in a major international airport close to the city, unlike Edmonton whose investment in an airport outside of an area of easy convenience has strangled the city's growth.” 
 
All of that is easily within London’s reach if we were so inclined. But wait, there’s more – and in Mr. Chapman’s view this is what makes Calgary special and worth our consideration.

“Most important, and in my estimation the soul of what makes the Calgary the way it is, is the philosophy of ‘communities’ within the city.  You see, Calgary is a city of smaller districts, essentially the neighbourhoods of the city. People refer to where they live by the name of the community, not by ‘near Western’ or ‘Baseline and Wharncliffe’.

“What makes them neighbourhoods vs. physical locations is that within each district they have a community centre – usually ice pads (pleasure and hockey), a building that is accessible for functions and maybe sports. Everyone within the community contributes to the community centre function by buying community memberships (around $50 a year) that allows members to participate or sponsor the community teams. 

“Children play for the community team and as such, the children and parents grow up together and get to know each other as neighbours, rather than parents of kids.  They play summer and winter sports together – some may be on the competitive teams, some on the house league teams.  For other families that may not be involved with sports, there are bridge clubs, kids and teen clubs, social clubs, senior clubs and recreation – anything that brings the community together. In essence, they support each other and the physical facilities provide the infrastructure for that support.  London could learn from this approach.”

Yes London could.