A big part of the issue is that Edmontonians and new arrivals (for a mix of cultural and job market reasons) don't see a ton of value in living centrally, so development at Century Park, Blatchford, etc is slow. But it is happening!

Three out of four of these were also part of the original LRT line in 1978, so I don't think they reflect on the choices in current transit expansions

Yeah, so two of those (Belvedere and Stadium) have big ongoing TOD buildouts, and a third (Coliseum) will once the Coliseum comes down. But also, this has nothing to do with the original contention about building restrictions!

I... don't think Alberta's cities have done that? Certainly Edmonton hasn't. We have tons of residential construction downtown and big TOD buildouts around Century Park and the NE stations, and a lot of land around the in-progress VLW has just been blanket-upzoned

it's definitely something to work up to, though, I would not recommend it to a first-timer

being a mildly precocious anti-war 10-year-old in 2003 and seeing the lust for war from every responsible grown-up institution is a feeling I've never quite managed to shake

on the one hand, sure, TOD development has been really sluggish in Edmonton, but on the other hand it's fairly easy and affordable to live in neighborhoods like Wihkwentowin, Downtown, Garneau, or Strathcona with good transit connectivity

honestly more offended as an ecologist than as an Indian person

to be clear, I'm not trying to insinuate that Edmonton is actually conservative or that the election results were somehow unrepresentative! but I do think the relative coordination on the progressive side was an asset

I mean, it seems reasonable to think that the mayoral election could have turned out otherwise had there been fewer candidates on the right or in a broadly anti-incumbent slant (and of course Anirniq)

I'm not sure that any of the incumbents had anyone running to their left who got any meaningful share of votes (except maybe Principe? I don't know much about the other candidates in her ward)—although many candidates in many wards never seemed to articulate much of a platform at all

wait, what about Anirniq? (and the mayoral race—there was no incumbent, or PACE candidate, but Knack represents a degree of continuity and nearly all candidates were running to his right to varying degrees)

I suspect that a big part of it is indeed the perception that BE is UCP-aligned—and also the fragmentation of the right compared to the unity of the progressives

a surprising number of my friends in Quebec are devout MSNBC watchers—and not the ones in Montréal proper, who generally consider themselves above that sort of thing

"ton arrière arrière grand-mère, elle a eu 14 enfants" 😬

The days ahead will be crucial.

Not just in terms of public opinion, but in terms of political culture.

Champions of human rights and the constitution must not only outnumber the premier's supporters.

They must persuade Albertans that these positions are dominant, piercing the populist bubble.

actually, it's not clear to me what major bodies of theory from community ecology are useful to foresters! lots of theorizing around succession, probably, as well as topics related to disturbance and colonization and patch dynamics... maybe R* theory but just as a matter of loose analogy?