Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocket252
I am old enough to remember my parents taking us to Edmonton in the late 60s when the Tegler building was around as well as the old Eaton’s store where we had lunch in the cafeteria.
When I moved to Edmonton for University/NAIT in the late 70s and 80s there was a lot of activity downtown. Restaurants, shopping bars etc but personally the opening of WEM and the building of City Center Mall killed downtown.
As for trying to bring back downtown, security and safety are number 1. That allows businesses to bring in good shopping and the people will follow.
I never felt fear walking around downtown in the old days.
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Unfortunately I think we're in a place where the perception of this matters more than reality. I think advocacy groups are genuinely trying to address concerns, it also creates a bias in the discussion that I don't think is helping. If every time a lot of people hear about downtown it's reporting about how *insert whatever group* is asking for money because people are too scared to come downtown, it continues to reinforce the idea that downtown is scary.
Not denying there are challenges, but I actually found it significaly better over this last summer, having passed through downtown many times in the late evening. There are a few areas that are generally have a decent amount of activity - at least substantially more than I think most people would expect based on what you hear on the news. I think is this also exacerbated because unfortunately a "scary" downtown (and transit) is politically advantageous for some.
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