To most of the world, Calgary is perceived as a conservative, corporate cowtown and no matter how much we try to tell them in reality we are a creative, contemporary, cosmopolitan city, the outdated perception is difficult to change.

When it comes to attracting talent to Calgary, we are told their perception of Calgary is a remote city, in the middle of the cold Canadian prairies, without any major attractions, unless you want to leave town and enjoy mountain recreational activities.

I remember Harry Hiller, urban sociologist professor at the University of Calgary telling me a few years ago that when he took students to New York city on an urban study trip a tour wholesaler once said, “Calgary has nothing to appeal to tourists, other than the Stampede Calgary. It has no nightlife, no attractions, no must-see cultural activities. If Calgary had just one must-see attraction or must do activity, it would make all the difference. All the city has is a group of low grade and/or seasonal attractions like Glenbow, Calaway Park and Heritage Park.” Ouch!

Attracting tourists and young talent to Calgary is pretty much the same thing, as they both want to be in a place with a diversity of fun things to see and do.

If we want to change the world’s perception of Calgary, we must experiment with some innovative, rather than imitative ideas. We must take more risks to create places that are fun - less corporate and more bohemian, maybe even be a bit crazy.

Perhaps our new mantra should be: “Let’s make Calgary crazy!”

Crazy Idea? Why not convert top floor of downtown parkade into a summer beer garden like Klunkenkranich in Berlin.

Crazy Idea? The recently created High Park on the top of the Centre City Parkade would be a perfect place to have a beer garden in the summer.

Crazy Idea? Imagine if The Core was a shopping centre by day and a night cub by night in the winter.

Design City

Like many cities around the world, Calgary has tried to repeat the success of Bilboa or Dubai’s in becoming known around the world as design city with fun (some might say wacky) new architecture structures by big name international architects.

Over the past few years the public and private sectors have spent billions trying to improve Calgary’s international image by engaging some of the world’s top architects and artists to create unique buildings and public art – The Bow, Telus Sky, National Music Centre and Peace Bridge and Wonderland. But do we have a “must see” building or piece of public art. Snohetta’s (based in Oslo) design of the new Central Library has been widely praised around the world, but has it changed the perception of Calgary nationally or internationally. Perhaps with few design nerds, but probably not with the average tourist or meandering millennial.

Crazy Idea? Convert empty downtown lobbies and office spaces into bohemian brew pubs like Cold Garden in Inglewood.

Missed Opportunities

Back in 2004, Calgary had the world’s attention with the Red Mile’s nightly impromptu street parties during the Calgary Flames’ playoff run. But after the playoffs, we didn’t seize the opportunity to brand the City as the home of the “Red Mile” and program 17th Avenue as the place for Calgarians to celebrate not only our city’s accomplishments, but other major sports events.

In the mid ‘80s, the new Performing Art Centre was supposed to put Calgary on the map as a major cultural city. Prior to that, Eastern Canadians, especially Montrealers, would often joke “Calgary has no culture.” The hope was the new concert hall and theatre spaces, combined with the new Olympic Plaza, Glenbow Museum and Stephen Avenue pedestrian mall, would become a nationally recognized arts district to match Montreal’s Quartier des spectacles. Unfortunately it didn’t happen. However, we are hoping that by investing $500+ million in Arts Commons and Glenbow upgrades, perhaps we can still create a vibrant downtown cultural district.

But just in case that doesn’t work, we are also investing a billion dollars to create a year-round sports and entertainment district at Stampede Park with a new arena and convention centre, each with eye-catching contemporary designs. It is based on the success of similar sports and entertainment districts in Columbus, Edmonton, Cleveland, St. Louis and Philadelphia.

Crazy idea? Let’s convert Eau Claire Market into one big Food Hall/Brew Pub. Calgary must be the only city in the world with a river promenade that doesn’t have a couple of brew pubs. Eau Claire Market was a huge missed opportunity.

Crazy Idea? Convert old downtown Central Library into cheap artists’ and designers’ studio spaces.

They don’t believe us

We can tell the world till we are blue in the face we have great music festivals like SLED Island, Calgary International Folk Festival or Country Thunder, but the world isn’t listening. We can brand 9th Avenue as the Music Mile that includes a major national music museum, but is it isn’t a “must-see, must-do” experience like Memphis’ Beale Street or Nashville’s Broadway.

Or we can brag about having some amazing pedestrian streets, with boutiques, independent cafes, cocktail bars and summer patios – 17th Ave, Kensington, Inglewood, historic Stephen Avenue, 4th Street in Mission or the Design District in Beltline – but they haven’t captured the international attention like Vancouver’s Robson Street or Gastown.

San Antonio’s River Walk is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the North America.

Yes we have amazing rivers and 1,000+ km of pathways, but our Bow River Promenade hasn’t achieved the international status of San Antonio’s River Walk.

In San Antonio there are hundreds cafes, clubs patios and hotels right on the banks of the river?

Yes Calgary is the most liveable city in North America, but mostly because we are good or average in all of the parameters (safety, housing, health, schools, parks, mobility, affordability etc.) without any weaknesses. In fact the one area we excel at is being the cleanest cities in the world, but when it comes to urban vitality a little grittiness is probably a good thing.

While we can tell the world Calgary has some amazing urban neighbourhoods – Beltline, Bridgeland, East Village, Inglewood, Kensington and Mission - but they never appear on the annual top 100 hipster neighbourhoods in the world. Yes Inglewood and Kensington have been ranked as one of Canada’s top neighbourhoods in the past, but this was by the Canadian Institute of Planners, who look at a neighbourhood with a very different lens than a young programmer.

We need some creative ideas to make Calgary a unique urban place to “live, work and play.” Calgary has to start thinking innovatively and not imitatively.

Crazy Idea? More quaint cafes, beer gardens, food truck spots like this right on the Bow River from Edworthy Park to the Zoo, on both sides of the river.

Crazy Idea? Create cheap grass beaches along the river where you can sit and enjoy a beer with friends, like this one in Berlin. Frankfurt also has green beaches along its river in the City Centre.

Big Crazy Idea: Plus 15 Walkaway Enhancements

Given we are a winter city, we should embrace the +15 system as our unique urban design element. It could it be our equivalent of New York’s High Line i.e. a public park built on a historic elevated freight rail that weaves its way through the buildings of Manhattan’s West Side.

Could we convert it from a corporate walkway with food courts and services into a funky indoor/outdoor entertainment district with cafes, nightclubs, sports bars, speakeasies, cocktail lounges, restaurants, live music venues, second floor outdoor patios, pop-up art galleries, makers studios and fashion boutiques. The +15 would be a great place for noisy nightlife given there are few residents to complain.

We could convert some of the empty office space into cool event spaces linked to the +15 fun zone.

Link: NYC’s High Line vs YYC’s +15 Walkway

Big Crazy Idea: W.R. Castell Library becomes Arts & Entertainment Hub

Calgary’s downtown needs to become less corporate and more bohemian. Perhaps a good place to start would be with the W.R. Castell Library. Rather than sell it to a developer to create an upscale hotel or condo, the city could turn it into a funky art hub full of artists and fashion designer studios, performance and rehearsal spaces, architectural and design studios, live music venues, nightclubs, huge used bookstore (Fair’s Fair Books). Something like cSPACE at King Edward School, but less formal, more like the NVRLND space in Ramsay or the old Arts Central space that was where Telus Sky is now.

If this was Berlin, the young creatives would have already taken over the space and converted it with their sweat equity into an arts incubator – building code be damned. Let’s just give it to the arts community and see what happens. It would be a great addition to the Olympic Plaza Cultural District’s revival.

If not the old library, perhaps an obsolete office building, or the old Greyhound Bus Terminal.

I shared this idea with my nephew (from Calgary) a young coder/programmer by day and electronic music composer by evenings and weekends now living in Berlin. He responded with, “I loved the crazy idea! I remember in residence in my first year, the opening day parties. Every floor was its own ecosystem and going through the stairwell to another floor was like entering another universe. Still have never had an experience quite like that, is quite exciting - almost a feeling of endless choice and so many things to see. I think in Berlin we have a nightclub that has five floors in an old apartment building, and you wander through all these rooms (they knocked out a bunch of walls, but there are still a lot of small rooms connected). I think it's a cool idea.”

Last Word

Yes, we need to think outside the “office” tower, we need to come up with some uniquely Calgary crazy ideas. If you have any send them my way!

Sometimes it is the strange and simple ideas that make the biggest changes. When I was in Berlin it seemed the young coders/musicians that I was hanging out with were mostly interested in Berlin’s cheap rent, cheap beer, relaxed drinking laws and laidback culture, not the designer buildings, the shiny new residential towers or the designer pedestrian streets. It seemed the gritter the better and the more graffiti the more things were happening.

Would the province grant downtown Calgary more relaxed drinking laws and maybe even some relax some of the building code laws, to give it a competitive advantage as an entertainment district?

Perhaps we have been going about this the wrong way, what is needed to make our downtown a vibrant place is experimenting with crazy ideas, not master plans and multi-million dollar renovations.