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I paid a brief visit to my phenology site again this morning. The temperatures have dropped after a few days warm enough to melt the snow. Sparse flakes of snow were drifting unhurriedly from distance clouds. Trails were covered with ice, of course, as are the sidewalks; I was glad to be wearing my cleats. A new fragile looking layer of ice has formed over the creek, everywhere splintering. Everyone seems to be about in the same space they were last time I visited, not too mu

Jane Jacobs’ 4 generators of diversity form the core of her 1962 classic “Life and Death of Great American Cities,” and they have become common parlance in city planning conversations.  Less discussed are the four forces of decline and regeneration that she describes in part three of the book.  In this post I am going to explore one of these four forces: Border Vacuums, and how this notion applies to our current reality in the settlement of Edmonton.     Jane Jacobs defines a

I grew up in a district of Edmonton called Clareview. A very interesting place to have grown up, as it turns out, looking at this area from an urban planning and strong towns lens. Outside of the region of mature neighbourhoods, the area might have been considered a suburb at the time my family moved there. At the same time, it's also not that classic "built all at once" green field development. It's adjacent to Olde Towne Beverly, to the South, and the old town of North

I paid a visit to my phenology site this morning. Snow is falling thickly, generating a mood that is conducive to certain kinds of meditation. I find myself curious about the sky again - this sky, like the blue sky, feels "distance-less" somehow, (not like a partly cloudy sky, where the clouds appear to have clearly defined boundaries, distances, shapes, and heights), and I think that gazing into a distance-less colour must be one of the factors that stimulates meditative s

I paid a brief visit to my phenology site this morning. Temperatures are low again this morning, and the snow pack has aged, it doesn't have the freshly fallen radiance anymore. I saw boot prints along with snowshare hare prints on the snow covering the ice of the creek, so some human has done the creek walk. I could still faintly hear the voice of the creek, the trickles of the small volumes that remain flowing emanating from cracks in the ice layers. The voices of ravens ca

Hello Readers! Welcome to my Edmonton urbanism themed blogs. I'm a lifelong Edmontonian. I've lived in the neighbourhoods of Belmont, Canora, McCauley, and Strathcona, studied at the University of Alberta, and worked on sites all over the city as a lawn maintenance worker. I also know the city well as a pedestrian, cyclist, transit user, and someone who enjoys the ravines and natural areas. I got interested in urbanism and municipal issues around the time of the 2021 ele

I visited my phenology site this morning. Today was the first day I wore my heavy winter coat. There was frost cover and a very light dusting of snow in scattered places, though fortunately very little glare ice, so I didn't need my cleats. This time of year always feels more off to me than others due to climate change ... whether conditions are too warm, or cold without the snow. The creek now has a cover of ice as well. There's transparent black patches, with the occasional

We hear Jane Jacobs’ name invoked frequently in discussion about city planning, zoning, walkability, and community engagement.  The planning profession itself has taken to many of the principles Jacobs articulated so well, such as mixed use development and the importance of encouraging density to urban environments.  Edmonton’s city council of the past four years has taken bold, meaningful, and concrete steps to enable the realization of urbanist goals and visions in the city