Calgary has interesting sprawl !!! (apartment complexes, crime, homes)

[sweat209]

Calgary is realy bad for sprawl

From what I understand one of the reasons Calgary has very bad sprawl is it is on the prairies there is lots of land to sprawl out too !! If Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal were located in the prairies it would have bad sprawl just like Calgary .There is lots of land in Calgary so sprawl is not a problem.In fact Calgary can be 9 times bigger and still lots of land to sprawl out too .

The land value is dirt cheap in Calgary !!! This makes it even more sprawl !!!

But what is strange why is the city so much into sprawl yet the homes are so close to each other ? It almost if land value is dirt cheap for city but not the developers or the city is being subsidised by the government or Automakers !!

City sprawl
Calgary - Google Maps

Calgary - Google Maps

Homes close together
Calgary - Google Maps


Calgary, AB, Canada - Google Maps


Calgary, AB, Canada - Google Maps

[ajau]

The land isn't cheap in Calgary, hence the closed in homes. The reason the city sprawls is because of NIMBY politics. Increasing density is almost an impossibility in local politics but sprawls isn't considered a political "third rail."

The city sprawls because the majority of folks in this city demand detached housing. Most folks who move to Calgary, and most folks moved here or their parents did, moved here from small towns... This is a city with relatively few commercial strips or bar/restaurant districts for reason. People here go to be early and wake up early and live the suburban lifestyle for the most part. Big city style density is seen as quality of life negative. Having a backyard is cultural seen as necessary for some reason. This is a city that does not embrace urbanism but instead embraced surburban living and outdoor lifestyle.

The city sprawls because in reality it is an overgrown small town with small town values yet has a big city economy.

[sweat209]

Originally Posted by ajau

The land isn't cheap in Calgary, hence the closed in homes. The reason the city sprawls is because of NIMBY politics. Increasing density is almost an impossibility in local politics but sprawls isn't considered a political "third rail."

The city sprawls because the majority of folks in this city demand detached housing. Most folks who move to Calgary, and most folks moved here or their parents did, moved here from small towns... This is a city with relatively few commercial strips or bar/restaurant districts for reason. People here go to be early and wake up early and live the suburban lifestyle for the most part. Big city style density is seen as quality of life negative. Having a backyard is cultural seen as necessary for some reason. This is a city that does not embrace urbanism but instead embraced surburban living and outdoor lifestyle.

The city sprawls because in reality it is an overgrown small town with small town values yet has a big city economy.

Most of the density of buildings in Calgary is like most cities in Canada and the US post ww2 . But the city density is very much sprawl.


Here is two pictures of suburb in Toronto.







Here is post ww2 area in a suburb of Phoenix,
Google Maps


Here is a suburb in Las Vegas
Google Maps


The difference the side walk is at the street and the bilding closer to the road.And the road is smaller.

[ExtremeMan8]

Yes I have noticed that too. The ring road will be useless soon.

[afici0nad0]

Calgary city planner suggests hitchhiking to ease traffic congestion

Every once in a while someone is caught driving in a high-occupancy vehicle lane with an inflatable doll sitting in the passenger seat, or executing some other tricky maneuver to avoid congested highways lanes without going through the effort of actually carpooling.

We all hate traffic, but if you are going to avoid it, do it the right way. Pick up a stranger.

The National Post reports that Calgary’s new city planner believes the answer to city gridlock is hitchhiking. Not “dusty jacket, stick-and-bindle” hitchhiking, but a system of semi-organized spontaneous carpools.

The habit is known as “slugging” and it is common in some U.S. cities, specifically Washington, D.C. Drivers pick up passengers going in the same direction and their filled cars afford them the right to commute in the faster carpool lane. Those passengers, meantime, get a free ride.

Win, win.

Rollin Stanley, Calgary’s city planner, told the Post:

It’s a perfect example of a grassroots solution. There’s not all this bureaucratic overhead trying to regulate it. It’s just people trying to solve a problem and solve it in a way that’s so efficient.

It is a better plan than building extra traffic lanes. A better plan than costly, complicated transit lines. Slugging is a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” kind of idea that should play well with all sides of the transit argument.

If not for a couple of obvious and immediate concerns.

There's a reason why hitchhiking is no longer a common practice in Canada, and it is not because all the damn hippies grew up and got jobs.

There has been one too many movies made about hitchhiking axe murderers, one too many bedtime stories about the bad things that happen when you get into a car with a stranger.

For better or worse, we are a more cautious community than 30 years ago. More litigious, too, which raises the second obvious concern.

If city officials are out there promoting the practice of slugging, who is to blame when something goes wrong?

City transit systems hire only well-trained drivers. Passengers are monitored and inappropriate behaviour is punished. If the government has any hand in organizing a slugging system, suddenly there would be checks and balances to be met. Safety checks, registration forms. The whole system would collapse under the weight of the red tape.

David LeBlanc, a slugging expert who wrote an etiquette guide for slugs, told the Post that the only way the system works is with an absence of government oversight.

This is the same guy who suggests that "conversations of religion, politics, or sex" should not be held between slug and driver, so it's worth considering his opinion on the matter.

As for the threat of crime, that may be a bit overstated.

In 2011, Pacific Standard Magazine did an extensive feature on slugging in the District of Columbia -- the largest in North America.

Of the significant points of note, the article mentions that there was not a single known incident of violence or crime in the first three decades. A local radio station later reported that a former army sergeant was found guilty of striking a slugger who had threatened to report him for dangerous driving.

One incident in 30 years is a pretty reasonable record, comparable if not better to many Canadian public transit systems.

Perhaps slugging networks would work in Calgary or other Canadian cities suffering from traffic congestion. But they would have to be spearheaded by citizens, not just city planners.

Some start pulling up their bootstraps on this.

Calgary city planner suggests hitchhiking to ease traffic congestion | Daily Brew - Yahoo! News Canada

[afici0nad0]

calgary sprawl is no different than toronto, only difference is geography. toronto is land locked to the south with lake ontario, other than that, you'll see sprawl west/north/east bound.

same with vancouver. land locked to the south (US border), north (mountains), west (water), so you'll see significant sprawl eastbound.

[Rids78]

Calgary sprawls because they let it and traditionally the apartment complexes haven't sold well to single buyers.

Things will transform over the next 20-30 years as the older homes start getting replaced by in-fills. The overall density will increase especially in the north part of the city from the river to about 40th Ave N.

[thedwightguy]

Calgary is the only American city outside the continental United States!
I was out to the Cochrane area dropping some material in a housing subdivision and all the high school students coming back from break were white! Every single one. I haven't seen "white flight" to the burbs since high school in L.A.

[Rids78]

Keep in mind you were in Cochrane.

[BIMBAM]

Originally Posted by thedwightguy

Calgary is the only American city outside the continental United States!
I was out to the Cochrane area dropping some material in a housing subdivision and all the high school students coming back from break were white! Every single one. I haven't seen "white flight" to the burbs since high school in L.A.

White flight happened because there were black inner city people to flee from. Alberta was almost 100% white and aboriginal its whole history until the last few decades. What you saw wasn't white flight, it was just a community that hasn't seen very much immigration.