Quote:
Originally Posted by 93JC
There are plenty of buildings not connected to the +15 network that have "cold, uninviting" street faces.
I see where you're coming from but I don't believe they're as intertwined as you would lead others to believe. I work in a building on the fringes of the West End with no +15 connection and in my experience the street life here is far less 'vibrant' than a few blocks to the east, despite the fact those buildings are connected to the +15 system.
How do you even define "street life"? What makes one street's 'life' more 'vibrant' than another?
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I'm not saying that the +15 is 100% responsible for the poor pedestrian realm in downtown Calgary, but it is a significant factor. Another factor is the fact that hardly anyone lives downtown so there isn't the critical mass of pedestrians outside of business hours to support lots of business. As a result of these factors (and the fact that everyone wants to drive here), many buildings have a very cold and uninviting street presence.
The reason the street life is so bad in the West end is they didn't put very much retail in the base of all those new Condo towers, and the retail that is there doesn't attract people to that area, as such it's about as exciting as a typical suburb.
As Mr. Cosmopolitan stated, there are basically 2 kinds of street vibrancy, business and recreation are my categories. Business vibrancy is a lot of office workers and suits out on the streets during the day, going into stores and restaurants. The problem with this type of street life is that the office workers all get in their SUVs and drive back to their suburb at days end, so a lot of the businesses they frequent during the day, close at 6 and on weekends leaving downtown a ghost town. The second type of street life is recreational, streets like 17th, 4th, Kensington, 10th etc. all have people out during the day, in the evening and on weekends. This is the preferred type of vibrancy as it creates destination streets that people will travel to just to visit.
How it relates to the +15 system is that if it is in enclosed skywalks above the street, then people can't see it and don't know it's there. As such retail in the +15 system will never be more than something that services the office workers during the day, while it may be convenient on cold or rainy days, it will keep the streets below from ever becoming more than they currently are.
That's my take on it anyway.