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Perfect strangers
Val Fortney, Calgary Herald
Published: Monday, June 11, 2007
Edmonton -
It is a city in the midst of an economic boom, with all the good and bad that entails.
Its population, with a footprint bigger than Toronto or Chicago, has now hit the million mark. Jobs are everywhere and people are flocking from all over the country to capitalize on the prosperity. Housing prices are in the stratosphere, homelessness and urban crime is a growing problem and a shortage of service workers means you can't get a decent cup of coffee to save your life. Oh, and everybody's ticked off about all the potholes.
Ask a random sampling of Calgarians, and they'll variously describe Edmonton as the capital of our province, the city with North America's largest shopping mall and cold winters without the respite of Chinooks. It's a government town, a blue-collar town, a cultural, festival-rich town; and it's a place a few folks in Cowtown love to loathe.
Other than these famed characteristics and a few outmoded stereotypes, how well do we know our urban neighbours to the north? This writer, for one, confesses to a woeful ignorance of the place that once served as a major stopping point on the way to the Klondike Gold Rush.
So I welcomed the opportunity to spend a few days exploring the city's nooks and crannies - watching a play in the famed Old Strathcona theatre district, enjoying a stroll through the verdant North Saskatchewan River valley that bisects the city and dining in a handful of its more popular restaurants.
To get to the heart of the Edmontonian character, though, such short-term casual observance must be aided by those who know and love it best, leaders in the community whose work has helped to shape and inform the city's distinct, albeit hard-to-undercover, true character.
So, what's the first lesson you learn when talking to an Edmontonian about what makes his or her city a great place to live?
Don't dare utter such Calgary-style terms as "world-class." Unless, of course, you want to be greeted with a raised eyebrow or a sarcastic chuckle.
"People here aren't really big on boasting," says Holger Peterson as he cuts into a salmon filet at Il Portico, a downtown dining spot that not long ago received a rave review in the New York Times. Yes, that New York Times.
"The longtime Edmontonians I know like to keep the city, and its great qualities, a secret."
Peterson has lived here since 1958, when he arrived at age eight with his German immigrant parents. He's worked with the radio station CKUA since the 1960s and in 1976 launched his own very successful roots music record label, Stony Plains Records.
The well-travelled Peterson could have based his business anywhere. But he chose Edmonton.
"I just never felt motivated to leave," he says with a shrug of his shoulders.
When prodded, he does eventually begin to articulate what's so special about his city.
"The size works for me, and the river valley is beautiful," says the man who became a Member of the Order of Canada in 2003 for his groundbreaking work on the country's music scene.
"We have cuisine, culture, touring artists - we're not lacking in anything."
Peterson's reticence about waxing euphoric over his city's virtues, I soon discover, is a trait common amongst even the proudest citizens.
Knowing this made interviewing Stewart Lemoine about why he loves this town a much less painful experience than it could have been.
The prolific playwright/director/producer and mainstay of the city's theatre scene sits in a coffee shop looking out on to Whyte Avenue, the funky inner-city strip filled with boutique hotels, chic restaurants and eclectic shops.
"We've been labelled a cultural capital, by someone," says the longtime Edmontonian with a quiet sigh as he refers to his home's designation as Festival City.
"It's nice to have that acknowledged, but no one really knows what that means."
Lemoine, though, is the first to say there's no better place for an artist to live and ply his craft. "It's all about the freedom; I live here because I want to produce plays for myself," he says.
"This city has a great talent pool, and our audience here is incredible."
Lemoine readily admits that Edmonton lacks a clear identity that you can wrap up in a tidy promotional package, but dismisses that as a non-issue.
"People come here and say we're unpretentious because the place is unremarkable," says Lemoine, who in a rare moment of hyperbole likens the river valley to New York's Central Park.
"But we don't worry about our status - we're too busy thinking about other things."
When an Edmontonian does lapse into a brief moment of boastfulness, it's usually about the river valley and the winding North Saskatchewan that weaves its way through the city and its environs.
For Vivian Manasc, it's more than an asset: it's the key symbol of the city's very essence.
"The river valley makes this city so livable," says one of the principals of Manasc-Isaac Architects, a company renowned for its work in sustainable design.
"You can live in the most affluent or the most modest neighbourhood, and still be close to the river valley."
Manasc, a native of Montreal, came to Edmonton in the 1970s and was quickly hooked. "It was boom time, then and now, and so much of what we do is driven by growth," she says.
This isn't to say she doesn't see room for improvement in her city. Like Calgary, she says, Edmonton has an unfortunate history of not respecting its historical buildings; its downtown, she adds, has too many vacant lots and not enough "walkability"; attention to good public architecture hasn't been a priority; and urban sprawl is just as big an issue here as it is in Calgary.
But things are improving. "Urban design in Edmonton has finally got some political backing," she says, noting Mayor Stephen Mandel has put a much-needed focus on this and other urban issues.
Mandel is indeed thinking about a lot of things besides Edmonton's lack of a clear brand. "Throw on a cowboy hat, and that's Calgary," says the city's mayor of three years.
"Edmonton has struggled for years, but we're getting more confident with our identity."
Mandel sees Calgary and Edmonton as being two very different, but complementary, cities. "One of the real dilemmas of this province is that both Calgary and Edmonton have inferiority complexes," he says as he relaxes in his palatial city hall office.
"We're competitive with one another, and that's unhealthy. What we need to do is work together now, to build a great province."
He acknowledges that the two cities share many of the same boom time challenges - public transportation is one of his big concerns - but there are some that are unique to Edmonton. For instance, the population of one million is derived from what's known as the Alberta Capital Region, which consists of Edmonton proper along with 23 surrounding, sometimes warring, municipalities.
"You'll be having the same challenges we're having in this now, in about 10 years, with places like Airdrie and Okotoks," he says of the often-frustrating experience of trying to build consensus.
He's quick to point to Edmonton assets like its wealth of educational institutions in the city's core, its cultural offerings and its leadership in the life sciences field.
"We're a city of the future, with a great cultural scene," says Mandel, in this columnist's first encounter with anything remotely resembling Edmonton-style boosterism.
Rachel Notley is another typical understated Edmontonian, but admits she's been an ambassador for her hometown while living in other major Canadian cities.
"There are low expectations from people outside of Edmonton about our city," says the politician set to replace Raj Pannu as the New Democrat standard-bearer for Edmonton-Strathcona.
"Edmonton is the pleasant surprise."
Along with her city's more diverse political landscape - "if Edmonton were a city state, we would have had three different governments in the last 20 years" - the native Edmontonian loves its down-to-earth collective character.
"I think it's because so many here still have strong rural roots," says the lawyer daughter of the late ND politician Grant Notley over lunch at Caf Select, an Edmonton dining institution. "That brings with it a lack of pretense."
Lack of pretense, indeed. We Calgarians have a lot in common with this other urban Alberta centre. We share many of the same challenges, and, for the most part, we fiercely love our cities.
Just don't expect our northerly neighbours to shout their love from the rooftops.
It's just not the Edmonton way.
vfortney@theherald.canwest.com
© Calgary Herald 2007