An investment from the provincial government of Alberta into efforts to revitalize Calgary’s hollowed downtown core is receiving both praise and criticism in the city.
Calgary—as with so many cities these days—suffers from a badly-planned surfeit of office space, and a deficit of residential capacity. As documented in the 2020 book, RECONOMICS: The Path To Resilient Prosperity, downtown residents are the key to many cities’ revitalization efforts.
The city thus wants to repurpose much of this empty office space to residences.
As part of the 2022 budget, the province is allocating $4 million to the City of Calgary and an additional $1 million is earmarked for the Calgary Downtown Association (CDA) for downtown revitalization.