What makes a city beautiful?
Today I don’t want to talk about the stock markets crashing around the world, or the credit crisis or bailouts….lets have a break. Tomorrow the monthly stats go up and we can all get back into the debate.
Comment on our city. What would make it more beautiful? More attractive to young families, more enjoyable to live in?
Many people think the climate in Edmonton will always prevent it from being a great city. I disagree…. I think one of the major things that is holding us back is our "tear it down and build something cheap on top" mentality.
Paris, New York, London, Prague, just to name a few, are all gorgeous cities in cold climates.
The reason I got on this topic is that
I was saddened (but not surprised) to learn today that yet another historic building in Edmonton is going to be torn down. I may be the only person in Edmonton who cares about this, perhaps because I come from a place that takes care of its history – my parents live in a home built in 1840, and that’s young for the neighbourhood – and takes steps to preserve it. My dad spent the entire summer last year removing mortar that was covering the original stone exterior of their home – it looks great!
My hometown – Dundas, Ontario – gives historic designations to beautiful, old buildings (hopefully my parent’s home soon too!). Having a historic designation plaque on your home actually increases its value, even though it limits the renovations you can do to your home. Basically, you can’t significantly alter the outside appearance of a historically designated home without approval. Can you imagine that system here? I think there would be a major revolt, yet it works beautifully and increases property values elsewhere.
The main street that runs through Dundas is bustling with shops and tourists (on the left is a shot I took during a parade there). The historic buildings house retail spaces with apartments above. Numerous films and TV shows have been shot there since the street can look 100 years old with almost no effort.
To me, keeping part of our historic buildings is part of what makes a city beautiful. On top of that, interesting new architecture, landmarks, trees, and beautiful public spaces – parks with art, not just utilitarian structures – make a city beautiful. Look at Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, even Calgary – all these cities have preserved some of their heritage, have added beautiful art, have lots of trees (except Calgary), have interesting architecture, and they are beautiful cities.
When I think of Edmonton, there are two beautiful things that come to mind – the river valley and the legislature. The rest of it (for the most part) is boring. We have the oldest and ugliest stadium in the NHL. The new condos that go up are cookie cutter and boring. The art in public places is not pretty, it is big and modern…but its not beautiful. The only original architecture ideas we seem to be able to come up with are pyramids. Why can’t we build some new condos that would beautify our skyline – like these on the right going up in Toronto, they look cool! Sure, we have the second or third largest mall in the world, but it’s also got to be one of the ugliest malls in the world!
You can do amazing things with old buildings. One of my favourites is BCE Place in Toronto (below) – they built right around old buildings, creating "Toronto’s oldest intact streetscape" indoors, protected by a huge solarium. It’s really cool!
It seems to me that the attitude here is that it is generally easier and cheaper to replace something, than to repair or restore it. What is missing is the intrinsic value a beautiful building possesses – it can’t be calculated by penny pushers so therefore it has no value. We have a gorgeous character home for sale on University avenue right now, and all the feedback is that the basement ceilings are too low. The house is 100 years old – of course the basement ceilings are low! It also has the cleanest basement, in the best condition of any 100 year old home I’ve ever seen!
Don’t get me wrong, I love Edmonton. I think it is a city that has HUGE potential. But every time I see another building bulldozed, rather than improved or modernized we lose a bit of that potential and it hurts our city.
Old IS beautiful!
Agreed: I’m from Winnipeg originally, and here in Edmonton you simply don’t see anything like the ‘Peg’s Exchange District.
Edmonton didn’t have the kind of money that Winnipeg did.
True though, Edmonton has not been very good at preserving old buildings.
I had a numbers of friends who lived at the Arlington in my student days. It was fun to visit but it obviously need a lot of work. While I don’t care for the owner, I can imagine it would be very expensive to rebuild within the remaining shell- vs. starting over. Doubt that 500 grand would make much of a dent.
Amen. This is a sad turn of events. I wish Edmonton would value its architectural history more, too.
Agree. I live in Melbourne Australia but my wives family live in Edmonton. Melbourne wouldn’t be half as old as Edmonton but the city has mostly kept all of its old buildings. Developers have to front the cost of developing inside the old shells. Guess what – they are more than happy to because they get a better price. Aesthetically old buildings look a 1000 times better than a new building. This increases values for everyone in the city and ensures there is a real character in the city. By the way my wife and i are thinking of moving to Edmonton – can anyone give me a web adres that makes it easy to look for houses and locations?
Having lived in Ancaster (next to Dundas) and also Guelph, I heartily agree with you Sara. There’s a pride there in the appearance of the community, and a real sense of history, and that’s reflected in the approach to heritage preservation. It’s about preserving and reinvigorating commercial buildings in the core (from the mid 1850s), protecting and maintaining the character of significant heritage residences, or even just preserving the last few examples of particular architectural styles. I don’t think Edmonton really has that pride in its past.
Stuart said: “…can anyone give me a web adres that makes it easy to look for houses and locations?”
Hey Stuart try these (hopefully I don’t get slapped for this)
http://www.realtor.ca/
Easiest thing to do is to take the postal codes provided on any ads and head over to http://maps.google.com/. From that point just copy/paste the postal code into the address field and you’ll get the idea.
If you’ve never lived in Edmonton before, I would avoid this area like the plague: 112 ave north to 130 ave and 30 st west to 132st. Some will disagree with me of course saying its a reviving neighbourhood with character and mature neighbourhoods. There is a movement to improve this area and its reputation for high crime etc, but I have a few friends that started their home ownership there over the years and it hasn’t really changed.
Overall however leverage your relations in Edmonton to help you choose a great home.
Having spent summers in Halifax, Montreal, and Ottawa as a kid and growing up in Toronto for most of my life. Being around old buildings was a daily thing that you really don’t even notice until it’s gone.
Then I came out to Edmonton and almost fell over from the ugliness that was Alberta. Long story short, I have yet used the word “quality” in any reference to Alberta (until now I guess).
Even if they started now they would have to start building homes that can last say even 50 years. I doubt most of the stuff going up today would last 50 years IMO.
No one gives a crap about the long term in this province. Make money as fast as you can and bail out when it all comes crashing down.
Too bad, so sad, see you back in Toronto for the party. Go Leafs Go.
Go Leafs Go?!?! Aren’t they making plans to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the LAST TIME WE WON THE CUP! Man I love it when the center of the world shows up to talk.
***Comment edited. I appreciate your apology Ian but I still think it was inappropriate and so have removed part of your comment. Sara.***
That being said I do agree, Edmonton really isn’t a nice place for architecture. No doubt about it. The problem I think is two-fold. It’s a young city, and brick and stone are not readily available. Stone has to be trucked very long distances at great cost and the infrastructure to build with brick never developed. As for all these nicer cities like T-dot, Montreal (love it) and Winnipeg, while historic areas are wonderful to look at, the sprawl out there looks an aweful lot like the sprawl here.
The Jane Creba comment was way out of line and I apologize. She was a young girl, with her future ahead of her cut down by a senseless act of violence that could have happened on any Canadian city street. Anyway, I apologize.
I agree, historic buildings should not be torn down. I am aware of at least one case (in Glenora), where the community lobbied and successfully prevented a heritage building from being replaced. Perhaps they could look at lobbying city council.
“Go Leafs Go?!?! Aren’t they making plans to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the LAST TIME WE WON THE CUP! Man I love it when the center of the world shows up to talk.”
They won’t be flipping cars and burning the “the center of the world” down, but people live in Toronto.
I don’t buy the whole “stone and brick is too $$$”. If they wanted to build quality homes and buildings they could have. But if you keep your costs down and charge a premium, you make more money. Again IMO it’s a case of money hungry contractors here for a quick wham bam, then run for the hills.
sincerely,
the center of the world
aka, the only city that matters.
Sara;
Then why don’t you go back? I love my city, I’m proud of it. You obviously aren’t. Nobody told you that you HAVE to live here, and I sure as heck am not impressed that you, the author of the “EDMONTON real estate blog” is bad mouthing our community.
Go back to where you came from and let someone who loves our city speak on our behalf.
- Steve
****Steve, obviously you didn’t read the whole article. Sara.***
Steve,
I am a born and raised Edmontonian and I am extremely proud of our city. I don’t share your opinion though. I don’t think we should demolish all of our old buildings and heritage. Where should I go? Isn’t Edmonton tolerant enough for some constructive critiscm…
I am a Realtor in Edmonton.
Sara, I agree with this Steve person. What you are saying is:
“Sure you have a nice personality and I don’t mean to be insulting but you’re ugly.”
Location is a part of the homes we sell; and you’re insulting our location and community.
Keep it up. It helps my business for you to talk the way you do about Edmonton, which is my favorite city in the world.
***That’s not what I’m saying at all. I love this city too, I say it right in the post. Every city has areas that can be improved – in Toronto it’d be the traffic. I am merely making a suggestion to improve our city. Sara.***
Stop living in the past. What makes Alberta great is that we’re not afraid to move on to the future and look forward. Half of the city’s downtown should be torn down.
Until recently I worked in the cultural resource management sector (handling historic buidlings and such in Edmonton) and it is just sad how easily things are cast aside. Unless there is a big name associated with the landmark, the government doesn’t care. Even then, if there is enough money to be had they don’t. Just take the Hotel MacDonald as an example. It has become an iconic symbol of the view of downtown and they were actually going to tear it down in the late 80s! The government approved the demolition and it was private interest groups lobbying for its revival that saved it. Now, it is considered one of the nicest places in the city to have a wedding and they do more weddings a year than any other venue in Edmonton.
Mordecai Richler said it best, “Edmonton will be a beautiful city once they have it unpacked.”