What’s the actual solution for downtown?
I came from Vancouver, where the apocalypse of the downtown Eastside is essentially large enough that it just becomes its own thing. As such, you can just enjoy the rest of downtown because all of that behaviour and detritus knows where it can go to exist. Sure, it spills out into other parts, but by and large it remains somewhat self-contained.
Downtown Edmonton, for me, feels like an end of the world movie. Empty. People just aimlessly walking around, devoid of any sort of “vibe” (let’s subtract the Oilers from the conversation).
We live on the southside of the river, and took the kids on the LRT to go check out the library downtown. What a beautiful building, but holy crap, it felt like I was walking through a day-use homeless shelter. I couldn’t find a single pocket where I had a nice “ah”, at peace situation to just sit down and chill. Guys literally selling drugs while sitting down at a table, some spaced out guy spilled an entire 2L of Dr. Pepper on the floor, and then just walked away.
We then tried walking around a few more blocks before thinking, “F this place, let’s get out of here”. Back on the train and left downtown.
I’m just curious, for those who have been around here for awhile, was it ever better before?
What’s the solution do you think to actually make downtown a fun place to be? (on non-Oilers nights).