Jodi Gunn and Saleh Hasso sell vegetables, flowers, eggs and canning at a pop-up food market run by YYC Growers in central memorial park in Calgary, on Aug. 22, 2020.The COVID-19 pandemic has brought neighbourhoods alive as people have stuck close to home: Local parks are being heavily used by small groups gathering for a beer or picnic; shoppers visit local stores as they try to avoid crowds and no longer get their groceries or supplies as part of a work commute.
In each city, planners are experimenting with ideas to reintroduce small retail in areas where there are shopping deserts or where new waves of housing are producing a crop of residents likely to want even more shops nearby. In Edmonton, the city put some resources a few years ago into helping revive a small strip mall in the Ritchie neighbourhood south of downtown, now home to a butcher, a coffee shop, a brewpub, a bakery and a restaurant.Planners want to see more of that, along with a whole new way of looking at how to integrate shopping and services into changing neighbourhoods.
Her team put together a map recently showing where residents had easy access to services and shops in keeping with the 15-minute city concept and it showed some surprising wastelands. Vancouver used to have 250 corner stores in the 1920s. The number is now closer to 150, after decades where the city enforced strict separation of uses through zoning.
He ended up hiring one of the city’s most powerful development consulting firms, Pooni Group, to get through the convoluted and unfamiliar system, which cost him thousands a month in fees for several months.
This is great, let’s get back to supporting our communities and stay away from this corporatism that has destroyed our economy
iamdavidmiller But are all the Farmers’ markets back open yet?
Maybe one good thing will actually come out of this, a return to Canadian culture, and supporting local business.