Calgary A Preliminary Scheme For Controlling The Economic Growth Of A City

The essence of a vibrant, growing, and changing Calgary is captured over the life of its development. Calgary is a typical boom-and-bust town that was first based on ranching and farming, then oil and gas, and now energy. And energy is what its citizens have, whether for skiing, work, or construction. It is a city that leaps ahead eagerly to new futures and rarely looks back., but Calgary can also be an unsentimental city, discarding its ideas, plans, and buildings with ease. Unbuilt Calgary is a survey of 30 projects that were proposed but not realized, schemes that were situated at critical times in Calgary’s development, and proposals that indicated the city’s ambitions through its first 100 years. Unbuilt Calgary looks back to ideas and notions that might have been, and building endeavours that would have changed the shape of the city for better or worse. The 30 critical projects are accompanied by drawings and models to illustrate something of Calgary’s irrepressible exuberance.

Alberta Formed Alberta Transformed is a two-volume set spanning a remarkable 12,000 years of history and showcasing the work of 34 of Alberta's most respected scholars. Volume 1 sets the stage from human beginnings in Alberta to the eve of Alberta's inauguration as a province in 1905, while Volume 2 takes readers through the twentieth century and up to the 2005 centennial.

In June of 1962, the Canadian Pacific Railway announced a proposal to redevelop part of its reserved land in the heart of downtown Calgary. In an effort to bolster its waning revenues and to redefine its urban presence, the CPR proposed a multimillion dollar development project that included retail, office, and convention facilities, along with a major transportation centre. With visions of enhanced tax revenues, increased land values, and new investment opportunities, Calgary’s political and business leaders greeted the proposal with excitement. Over the following year, the scope of the project expanded, growing to a scale never before seen in Canada. The plan took official form through an agreement between the City of Calgary and the railway company to develop a much larger area of land and to reroute or remove the railway tracks from the downtown area—a grand design for reshaping Calgary’s urban core. In 1964, amid bickering and a failed negotiating process, the project came to an abrupt end. What caused this promising partnership between the nation’s leading corporation and the burgeoning city of Calgary to collapse? What, in economic terms, was perceived to be a win-win situation for both parties fell prey to a conflict between corporate rigidity and an unorganized, ill-informed, and over-enthusiastic civic administration and city council. Drawing on the private records of Rod Sykes, the CPR’s onsite negotiator and later Calgary’s mayor, Foran unravels the fascinating story of how politics ultimately undermined promise.

This collection of original essays serves both the historians and geographers who seek a deeper understanding of Canada's urban past, and the planners, politicians and citizens who seek to preserve or to change their cities today.