52 Reasons to Love Edmonton
By Jennifer Fong, Edmonton Journal June 26, 2010
This isn’t a tourist’s guide to Edmonton. You will not find this list in Fodor’s.
This is an Edmontonian’s Edmonton — a selection of little things that can easily be taken for granted. They’re the silver lining in our winter clouds, the bunnies in our backyards, and the sights, smells and tastes of our favourite spots. They’re the moments that make us feel lucky we found this place.
And every week until July, we’ll highlight one more awesome thing about Edmonton you may never have noticed.
You can keep up with the series here in the LifeStyle section, on Facebook at face-book. com/edmontonjournal, or at edmontonjournal. com/52reasons, where you’ll also find an interactive map of the reasons so far, and have a chance to comment on our choices.
E-mail ideas to: jfong@thejournal.canwest.com.
REASON 51: THE ABILITY TO AFFECT CHANGE
There are a lot of cranes in our city. Cranes downtown. Cranes at the university. Cranes, everywhere.
They aren’t just cranes, but a sign our skyline can still be redrawn. They’re towering symbols of growth, expansion and change, which we see plenty of here in our city of just over 100 years old.
Compared with most major North American cities, Edmonton is very young — Toronto, for example, is 176 years old; Vancouver, 124; Chicago is 173. Our youth, though, has advantages.
More so here than anywhere else, Edmontonians get to have a say in our city’s legacy, because it hasn’t been written yet. The expanding LRT, a new arena, our reputation as a hub for arts and culture — all of these are things on the verge, seedlings waiting to be shaped by all of us.
“I think Edmonton is such a malleable city,” says Christy Morin, a leading instigator of change in Edmonton as part of Arts on the Ave, a non-profit that has been working to revitalize 118th Avenue.
“It is an experiential, very open environment to create,” she says. “There’s so much potential to be realized.”
That potential isn’t just a pipe dream, either. Edmonton, as it’s often described, is a big city with a small-town heart. People care and they want to get involved. Our active roster of 150 community leagues isn’t just a list made for show, after all, and letters to the editor actually get read (just ask fans of PBS Detroit, who got the channel back on their Shaw lineup earlier this month after complaints were published in The Journal).
Citizens rally around our local independents at farmers’ markets and events like dining week Fork Fest. And on Alberta Avenue, crime appears to be decreasing, according to neighbourhood statistics on the Edmonton Police Service website.
“It’s definitely,” says Morin, “a friendly environment” — for people, for change, for cranes.
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