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Newflyer - the biggest downfall in the 80's was NEP. Everyone in Calgary is still playing this "boom" cautiously, and even at that it is building at a frantic pace to keep up (example: look what its taken to finally get some new office space being built). Calgary is a much different city than it was in the 80s.
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While the NEP was blamed for the collapse.. the fact is the global price of oil collapsed and Calgary's economy could not cover the loss of this significant industry. There were construction sites which were halted .. thousands of unwanted houses left in the hands of banks, which were resold at a fraction of there previous values.
Calgary has allowed the oil industry to once again dominate the local economy.. and now its come to a critical point, where the levels of energy investment is slowly drying up, but the levels of real estate speculation is still running fast and hard. Opus is now constructing buildings before locking in significant leases, and then leasing them as they go, as a means to maximize profits.
There is now a long line of smaller energy companies who are now locked into expensive leases, who are getting desparate, because revenues have taken a big hit since last summer.. and expenses are flying through the roof. The fact is Calgary's hot economy has pushed up local inflationary pressures( as indicated by surpassing the NAIRU levels), while revenues have declined. Add to this the newly created pollution taxes and the elimintion of the very favorable tax shelter for energy trust companies and you have a very problematic situation for the oil dependant economy of Calgary.
Things are looking very similar to the 1980's for Calgary, including the soon to be annouced US recession and a sizable decline of oil prices. Anyone who bought a house during this bubble will be paying for it bigtime... can't say I didn't warn them.
Its going to be ugly.