Does Calgary need to be more like Austin or Nashville?
Note: This blog was written before the COVID-19 outbreak in North America which will certain change the way we “work, live and play” and where. Cities and countries with the best health care will become much more attractive.
Irfhan Rawji CEO of the MobSquad and Chair of the Glenbow thinks so. Recently, he was on the Danielle Smith show talking about how Calgary needs to be more like Austin Texas if we are going to attract more young tech sector professional to Calgary to fill up the empty office spaces downtown and new residential buildings in the neighbouring communities.
He pointed out, Austin is the second most attractive City the US for young tech professions to work. The show was in response to CBC Calgary’s Robson Fletcher’s post “Why Calgary is losing its young adults.”
Rawji knows what he is talking about. MobSquad is a Calgary based company that hires U.S. tech company’s highly-skilled foreign tech workers when their U.S. work visas haven’t been renewed and moves them to Calgary.
In chatting with Smith, Rawji pointed out Austin has many similarities to Calgary - oil & gas, ranching, rodeo and population size – but Calgary is not viewed as a cool place to live, work and play by those in the tech sector.
Calgary vs Austin
However what Rawji failed to mention are the two huge differences between Calgary and Austin. First Austin is not the epicentre of the Texas’ oil & gas industry - Houston and Dallas are - so it doesn’t have the stigma of being the home of “dirty oil companies,” which is a big turn off for the “climate change generation.”
Second, Austin’s downtown is dominated by the huge and robust 350-acre University of Texas campus with its 50,000 students, plus 21,000 faculty and staff. The university gives the entire downtown a bohemian sense of place, with people coming and going at all times of the day; this is very attractive to recent tech graduates. Austin’s downtown is like one huge university campus.
Downtown Calgary is about the same size, but it is home to about about 75,000 oil & gas geologists, accountants bankers, brokers and engineers, who arrive by 7 or 8 am leave by 6 pm and five days a week.
It is a corporate campus that is conservative and sterile, which makes it much less appealing to recent techie graduates who are looking for something much more informal.
And perhaps there is a third, Calgary’s cold winters (especially in the evening which makes nightlife difficult), with icy sidewalks and snow for almost six months of the year is a big turn-off.
Rawji, thinks Calgary needs more investment in cultural industries to attract the young techies and entrepreneurs. He points to things like Austin being known internationally as the “Live Music Capital of the World” and home to the huge SXSW festival that is a smash-up of music, art and new technology.
In fact Calgary has been doing just that for the past 10+ years with the National Music Centre, Central Library, cSPACE, Contemporary Calgary, DJD dance studio and new mural programs several city centre neighbourhoods. The recent announcement by the provincial government of $40M to the Glenbow and plans for mega million dollar makeover of Arts Commons will keep the momentum going.
Perhaps we need to hype our city’s arts scene more? I find when I visit American cities they often over-sell their cities attractions. In many ways, our collection of music festivals like International Folk Festival, SLED Island, Chasing Summer and Country Thunder to name just four, offer as strong and diverse year-round music program as other cities. But we don’t seem to be able to leverage them that way other cities do. Can we grow Beakerhead to become Calgary’s equivalent of Austin’s SXSW?
So the questions are; “ How do we make the Calgary Stampede the equivalent of Austin City Lights? How do we evolve our Beakerhead or SLED Island or High Performance Rodeo festivals into something as internationally recognized as Austin’s SXSW festival (culture and technology festival). How can we create a fun party street like Austin’s Sixth Street or South Congress?
Let’s address the later as that is the key to creating a city with a cool year-round image and not just when there is a festival happening. Calgary’s Inglewood, Kensington Village and 17th Avenue offer some fun street animation experiences, but they don’t have the density of live music and partying places that creates a vibrant night-life seven days a week.
In Austin, Sixth Street between Lavaca Street and the Interstate 35 is considered the epicentre of what made Austin the “Live Music Capital of the world.” The street was in decline until the Pecan Festival in 1978 which combined local food and art vendors with live bands and gradually resulted in the street becoming a live music mecca. In addition, Austin’s South Congress has also evolved into a “hang-out” street for locals with restaurants, cafes, bars, patios, food trucks and shops. Austin didn’t become cool overnight.
Nashville is another example of a city the size of Calgary where its downtown has evolved over the past 25 years from being downtrodden to being cool. Nashville’s Lower Broadway street is home to 20+ live music venues, as well as restaurants and souvenir shops. It is packed with tourists and locals seven days a week. Nearby is the 2,362 seat Ryman Theatre, home of the Grand Old Opry from 1943 to 1974, after which it remained more or less dormant until 1993. In 1994, a newly renovated Ryman opened with live music seven days a weeks. Then in 1996 the Bridgestone Arena opened on Broadway and together they began the revitalization of Downtown Nashville into the international music center it is today.
Austin’s Continental Club vs Calgary’s Blues Can.
Weekend strollers on Austin’s urban pathway vs Calgary’s
Missed Opportunities
In the ’80 and early ’90s the epicentre for Calgary’s nightlife was Electric Avenue (11th Avenue SW) between 4th and 6th streets) with its numerous bars. Unfortunately it became known more for raunchy drunkenness and a sports bar scene than live music scene. By the ‘80s it was not uncommon to have 10,000 people flock to Electric Avenue to party on Flames game nights. However, by the mid ‘90s the partying turned into fighting which lead to the City refusing to license new bars; this meant as bars closed (as they all do) they wouldn’t be replaced. Electric Avenue died a quick death.
By the late ‘90s, Stephen Avenue Walk showed signed of revitalization with new restaurants opening up with patios along the pedestrian mall. It would attract 10,000+ strollers over the noon hour, but evenings and weekends were still quiet. The Palace Theatre was renovated in 1998 and converted into a massive nightclub but it struggled. In 2007 it was reborn as Flames Central a sports bar which also struggled and then in 2017 it reverted back to The Place - a nightclub and live music venue. The Palace has never become Calgary’s equivalent to the Ryman - a music venue with acts that attracts both locals and tourists to come downtown almost every night.
And while the performing arts centre at the east end of Stephen Avenue with its five performance spaces totally 3,200 seats has the potential for making Stephen Avenue a lively night spot, most of its patrons just hop into their cars after a performance and head home. It has not been a catalyst for the development of bars, lounges and cafes for pre and post performances nearby.
Stephen Avenue eventually evolved to become an upscale restaurant row, home to dozens of restaurants catering to the corporate expense accounts of downtown oil and gas executives; these restaurants have struggled since 2014 with economic downturn.
Fun streets are more bohemian than corporate. While Calgary’s skyline is dominated by high-rise office and residential towers there are pockets of bohemia that that area very attractive to those working in the new economy.
Red Mile Madness
In 2004, Calgary’s 17th Avenue received international status as a party street when it was dubbed “The Red Mile” as the result of the sea of red Calgary Flames jerseys that took over the street after Calgary Flames games during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. However by 2006 complaints about noise, traffic tie-ups, jay-walking and public drunkenness by Flames fans resulted in increased police enforcement that put a damper on the celebrations. The Red Mile eventually died a slow death. Today it is branded as “RED” which stands for Retail Entertainment District, but it has little to offer in the way of entertainment – mostly shopping and restaurants.
Coming Soon!
Today, Calgary is putting all of its hopes and energy behind CMLC’s and Stampede’s plan for a new culture & entertainment district at Stampede Park as our calling card to the world that we are fun cool place to live, work, play and visit.
Plans call for a major new arena (aka events centre) and an expanded BMO convention, trade and event centre with a main street of bars, shops and clubs along what is now called Olympic Way aka 4th St. SE.
Note: Perhaps Calgary is fortunate it hasn’t started building its new arena and convention centre as the world rethinks large gatherings of people.
It will look very much like Nashville’s downtown with Lower Broadway as the main street, the Bridgestone Arena (1996) and the massive Music City Centre (a 2,100,000 square foot convention centre built for $623M USD in 2013) located a block away.
While Calgary has attempted several times to create a street with nightlife over the past 30+ years they have ultimately failed due to the rowdy drunken behaviour that won’t be tolerated by our pragmatic conservative mindset. Unfortunately, nightlife is synonymous with “drunkenness and rowdiness” be that Nashville, Austin or Berlin.
In hanging with young techno musicians and coders in Berlin a few years ago, one of the most common things they said they loved about Berlin was the relaxed drinking laws where you can buy a 500 ml bottle of beer at any grocery store for about $1.50 CDN and open it there and drink it on the street, take it to the park or back to their co-work space.
You can also drink on the street in Nashville’s Broadway Street and Memphis’ Beale Street (another famous street of bars and live music), but you can’t on Austin’s Sixth Street (at least you aren’t supposed to).
If Calgary wants to create a vibrant entertainment district it is going to have to become more tolerant of street drinking and the shenanigans that comes with being a party city. Calgary politicians, police and public, as well as the Stampede, will have to live with the Stampede-like horse-play year-round - not just for 10 days.
Link Calgary’s HQ downtown vs Nashville’s SHED
Nashville’s Broadway Street (left) looks like this every night, Calgary’s Stephen Avenue is more of a noon hour stroll for downtown workers.
Multi-culturalism Advantage
Irfhan Rawji made another very interesting point during his chat with Smith - 75% of the software engineers applying for US visas are of Indian descent.
If Calgary is serious about attracting the next generation of young techies to move to Calgary it would be wise to play up the fact Calgary is the third most ethnic diverse city in Canada. It probably wouldn’t hurt if we profiled the Sunday cricket matches at Riley Park, Calgary’s Hindu Temple and our annual Nagar Kiran Sikh Parade in our marketing material.
Last Word
Perhaps Calgary City planners need to focus more on how we can make living, working and playing in the NE cool, rather than always focusing on the City Centre?
It is always good to have a back-up plan.