Calgary 'hoods: Beltline

                                **photo taken from the Wikipedia article on Beltline, Calgary**


The minor recession of 2009 aside, Calgary is a city that continues to grow. Many of it's neighborhoods have been gentrified in the past 10 years (and often not for the better). 

The Beltline is the largest of the downtown neighborhoods in Calgary.  It runs east to west from about Macleod Trail to 14th St SW & the downtown rail way tracks to 17th Ave SW.  The area has a mixed bag of residents.  There are those living in upscale condo's or heritage homes, and, at the other end of the spectrum, those living in run down apartments or houses.  In some situations, these residents could very well be next door neighbors (as odd as that sounds).  It is one of the last remaining areas of urban Calgary that has not been gentrified & overrun by yoga shops & martini bars. 

It's arguable, but the west side of the Beltline would probably be considered the "nicer" side.  A walk down the street and you'll generally find well kept buildings, larger trees & a relatively quiet area (at least relative in the sense it's 1 km from downtown).  The east side is a bit rougher around the edges.  Street prostitution is common on 12th-15th Ave SW once you get east of 4th Street.  There are noticeably more homeless & those who are destitute.  The Mustard Seed, a non profit organization dedicated to providing "basic human services" is in the East Beltline as are other places designed to help the poor & addicted. 

What type of business is found here?  Well everything from swank, upscale restaurants & martini bars to dingy, hole in the wall pizza places & liquor stores. 

Beltline is one of the last urban areas of Calgary that has not been gentrified.  Mission, Kensington, Marda Loop..have all been overrun by upscale martini bars & yoga studios.  The Beltline has not.  It's a place that still has some "grit" to the streets & it is a neighborhood with soul.  Sadly, in a city awash in oil wealth & with a penchant to be "upscale" I suspect it's days are numbered.  Each year you see more upscale condo's and less plain old 3 story walk ups.  Many of those that exist are no longer rentals but have been converted to condo's. 

In Calgary there is often talk of how we do not hold on to the past....how we level everything that is old and replace it with something new.  What we never talk about is how our urban streets continue to be gentrified & turned into the equivalent of Queen Street in Toronto.   Once vibrant & cool, these neighborhoods are now overrun by hipsters & wanna be artsy types who are likely to be seen sipping an over-priced latte while doing whatever on their Macbook.   As much as they don't want to believe it, it has very little to do with being creative & individualistic & more about assimilating and fitting in.  

You cannot design or build a cool neighborhood.  It's a collection of people and business who have a vested interest in the area that goes beyond profit.  Anyways, I'll shut up now.