I've been up all night re-writing a paper that I originally finished writing a week ago.
I didn't like the original copy, so I decided to re-write it last night. All night.
In other news... don't like the city you live in? Build another one!
New city rising
Highrise, pedestrian-friendly urban community planned for Strathcona County
Susan Ruttan, The Edmonton Journal
EDMONTON - A new city with highrise apartments and pedestrian-friendly streets is going to be built in Strathcona County.
The city will be built from scratch on farmland west of Highway 21 and north of the Yellowhead Highway. It could eventually grow to 200,000 people, said Cynthia Cvik, the county's long-range planning co-ordinator.
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6 comments:
Interesting. I've often thought how good it would be to be able to "do it all over again". That is, remake Edmonton, Calgary, or other major cities knowing what we know now as far as urban planning. Couldn't do it... Prohibitively expensive and logistically impossible.
A new city would be a slice of that idea. Only downside (as I see it from the article) is that the city will be plunked own on prime agricultural land. I guess no one wants to build in a swamp... or a desert. Perhaps the topsoil could be transplanted to other areas. They do this with housing developments, why not the entire new city?
The plan itself may have some merits, but the distance from Edmonton is still a problem. A planned, urban commuter suburb is still a commuter suburb.
As a person who lives in Sherwood Park, I'm a little frightened by this idea. This seems to me likely to exacerbate the regional problems, problems that have been made worse by municipal politicians in Sherwood Park who can't see that failing to contribute meaningfully to regional sustainability is the best guarantee that their municipality will be amalgamated against its will in the future.
I really wish we had a "highrise, pedestrian friendly urban community" in Edmonton itself. Seems silly to outsource it to the middle of nowhere (okay, it's somewhere: prime agricultural land).
Cathy Olesen seems like quite the dictator. If she wants to run a city, she should either carve the hamlet of Sherwood Park out of the county and incorporate it, or move to Edmonton and run for mayor. The utter lack of meaningful regional planning in the Edmonton area is getting embarrassing. Every Chief Elected Official treats their municipality as their own little fiefdom, and cry foul whenever Edmonton suggests more central coordination, and yet Sherwood Park and St. Albert are happy to leech off city services. And Strathcona County wants to put all of the major industrial - and now, residential - development within their borders, so they get the tax revenue. None of this makes any sense.
The province needs to step in and end the insanity. Either that, or the city should cut off surrounding municipalities from the regional water network and see how much they enjoy building their own water treatment plants. A $5/day toll for cars coming in on Messier Trail and the Sherwood Park Freeway might work, too.
I agree--it's time to get tough with the irresponsible suburbanite mentality.
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