Creating a diverse city - How Edmonton is doing it

City skyline of Edmonton, Canada - photo Wiki Creative Commons

GUEST BLOG - Lilit Houlder is an urban planner working with a consulting firm in Edmonton, Canada. She is the most recent member of the SafeGrowth team and in this blog, she describes how the City of Edmonton is crafting diversity into their City Plan at a large macro scale, just as SafeGrowth does the same at a smaller micro scale. 

SafeGrowth strives to apply citizen-led visions and goals into practice. In our experience, this results in strong communities and active partnerships which in turn link neighbourhoods together and improve their resourcefulness. Neighbourhoods can then begin to address challenges on their own, using the vast repository of resources gained through the SafeGrowth process.  

What might this look like within an official city plan?

Edmonton recently approved its new City Plan. The City Plan came about with a goal to create a feeling of home and give the ability for diverse groups of populations to participate in their communities, groups such as women, children, indigenous people, migrants and immigrants, and seniors. 

Indigenous parks in Edmonton - photo Explore Edmonton

How can such high-level concepts be realized in communities? Right now, Edmonton is working on a new zoning bylaw that aims to transform its current legacy of segregation.

The zoning bylaw describes what can or cannot happen on one’s property and it is a tool used to implement visions found within higher-level documents like the City Plan. 

BIG MOVE: INCLUSION OF INDIGENOUS RESIDENTS

Edmonton is a leader when it comes to the inclusion of its indigenous residents and neighbours – the Enoch Cree Nation to the west. The key is to strengthen this relationship through initiatives that increase indigenous participation in the city’s workforce, support indigenous community-led initiatives, and many others. With Edmonton located on the Treaty Six First Nations Territory and as the home of the second-largest urban indigenous population in Canada, prioritizing diversity and inclusion is no small task. 

Perhaps more symbolic than practical, Edmonton has recently approved the renaming of its 12 wards to indigenous names (in different languages). 

This process was led by a committee of 17 indigenous women. Additionally, the Indigenous Art Park was opened in 2018 that permanently exhibits artwork from indigenous artists across Canada.

COMPARISON OF APPROACHES 

SafeGrowth begins with big ideas – the vision and goals. These vision and goals are turned into implementation tools resulting in outcomes that can be seen on the ground. Similarly, Edmonton’s City Plan presents a long-term vision of inclusion and diversity, and the zoning bylaw regulations ensure that this vision is implemented on the ground. 

The City Plan and zoning bylaw encouraged extensive public participation at various stages of the process. It is a great way to empower communities to make decisions about what’s best for them. In this case, they sought to empower women, children, indigenous people, seniors, and newcomers to Edmonton. 

As with the SafeGrowth principle to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion, Edmonton’s City Plan aims to build sustainable, empowered, and interlinked communities. Mateja Mihinjac’s blog Cities of Neighbourhoods - Are We There Yet? describes how SafeGrowth links neighbourhoods through pedestrian-friendly design. 

Edmonton is attempting to achieve similar goals by reaching out and representing its diverse population in decision-making. It is a work in progress that shows how large-scale city planning might adapt to the demands of a diverse society.

You may say I'm a dreamer...

Imagine - photo by TripAdvisor

This photo of New York City is courtesy of TripAdvisor
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John Lennon's lyrics from Imagine made me wonder; How do we end a year with so many ups and downs?

Do we remember only local successes, especially our SafeGrowth neighborhoods in Newark, Philadelphia and Christchurch? Do we ignore disasters like those in Ferguson and New York or depressing news about misdirected police reform?

One story above all is a beacon and this week it went viral on YouTube.

The story starts with a few mentally unstable souls gullible to the jihadist ramblings of madmen far away. It festers into misguided delusions about killing and it climaxes with murderous rampages in Quebec and Ottawa (and this week in Sydney).

What to do? Here's one answer.

After two Canadian soldiers were murdered by homegrown jihadis, three students from my alma mater staged a social experiment on racial tolerance. They acted out a racist scenario with random people waiting for a bus. Note that this occurred in the hometown of Nathan Cirillo, the solider killed at the national memorial only weeks earlier.

Count how many strangers come to the aid of the Muslim man. Some even claim he is with me (he wasn’t). It's the exact opposite of the by-stander effect.

This suggests 2nd Generation CPTED predictions for rebuilding social cohesion are correct. Altruism, not self-interest, is the most desired object of our behavior.

A NEW YEAR PLAN

The experiment almost backfires when an enraged passerby punches the student actor. (Oops!) Clearly some need training in conflict resolution, which is why we say in SafeGrowth that a coherent neighborhood plan must precede social action.  

Of course we shouldn't punch ignorant racists regardless how wonderful that might feel. Yet we need to stand up for the abused and victimized when it happens in front of us, which is exactly what happens here.

We need to celebrate diversity not condemn it, especially when it is unpopular to take such a stand. That is how we reaffirm our social contract with each other; the one that keeps us civilized. And humane.

Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday Canada

Combined Canada Day and Gay Pride Parade celebrations, Toronto (Reuter's photo)

Neighborhoods of excellence and safety grow from tolerance for differences. That old message emerges from urban gurus like Jane Jacobs. Nowhere is the celebration of diversity better illustrated than in parades and festivals.

This year Toronto has accomplished what few other places in the world can claim - a successful pairing of a gay pride parade with the nation's birthday celebrations. I watched that odd spectacle on July 1 when Toronto's annual Pride Parade was intentionally combined with the nation's birthday celebrations on Canada Day.

For many citizens tolerance is no doubt tested in such a pairing. As well, Toronto's Pride parade is not without controversy (the mayor didn't attend). Further, some hate this unique pairing. Then again, hatred is precisely the point.

From what I saw, 100,000 combined Pride Parade and Canada Day revelers had few problems proving that tolerance isn't just acceptable, it is the very definition of diversity.

Pride and Police - waiting for the parade to arrive

Peeking over the heads of thousands lining the parade route

Tipping Points in Philadelphia

Ghost Busters on South Street

How much is too much?

Planner, developer, and academic types have asked this question for decades. So has Malcolm Gladwell in his bestseller The Tipping Point. I asked this question in field research with Paul Wong my business partner years ago. I asked it again in research with my colleague Chuck Genre, a co-faculty member at our university research center.

In the 1960s, Jane Jacobs and William Whyte talked plenty about it too in their writings of diversity on the street. How much diversity is a good thing? How many benches before people use them? How many shops before a street becomes vibrant. How many shops is too many? What kind of shops will tip a neighborhood into or out of crime? How many bars are too many (Paul and I tackled that in the mid 1990s). How many parking lots trigger auto crime (Chuck and I studied that from 2000 - 2002).

I am back this week with my latest SafeGrowth students in Philadelphia. My weekend comprised walks and talks on the eclectic South Street, the Bohemian mecca for street kids, students, shoppers and a fair share of tourists, artists, and hangers-on.

South Street is one of those self-evolving, hipster commercial drives, about 25 blocks and a mile and a half in length. I walked back and forth on it and was surprised by its intense diversity. Unlike many such entertainment venues like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, this one does a much better job catering to local residents. Over a thousand live in pricey digs directly on or near the one way, narrow street. I'm not a fan of one-ways, but the narrowness and eye-catching architectural diversity make this one work pretty well.

One of Philadelphia's famous murals

It has some community gardens, a grocery store, and similar places where locals can patronize. It also has a region-wide reputation for hipness, a place where, as the song says, "the hippies go".

I also learned there was local organizations and non-profits who kept momentum moving forward by watching zoning issues, providing programs, and working on neighborhood livability. As in SafeGrowth strategies, it is the local organizations and non-profits who sustain positive momentum forward. It sure seemed to work on South Street.

True, South Street has the odd controversy; one example was a recent Twitter Flash Mob of juveniles (both the chronological and emotional types) who rampaged storefronts and generally acted out their immaturity. Some crowded evenings the street gets so packed cops must siphon pedestrians in one direction to keep the street moving. I also found crime stats too, a handful of thefts, a store robbery, a street robbery, and a few burglaries over the past 6 months.

For the most part, with such a high population density and diverse population, it all seems to work pretty well.

Humanizing the street with community gardens

I don't know if this is the best combination for the diverse street. I don't know if South Street represents the Golden Rule for what diversity should look like. It feels like a cross between the positive vibe on Vancouver's Commercial Drive and the livability of Dayton's Oregon District. Yet it's much larger than both and Philadelphia faces considerably more crime.

So consider this - In one of the country's largest cities (6 million in the metro area), with a national city ranking in the top ten for too many crime categories, South Street's diversity and cultural energy thrives, it draws shoppers and tourists in droves, and still provides a convenient and interesting place to live.

Jacobs and Whyte, it seems, were right.