CALGARY -- City of Calgary leaders joined representatives of the city's largest university for an announcement of the 9 Block safety program targeting the area around city hall.
The University of Calgary's School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape partners in the pilot project.
The 9 Block program will implement "innovative and inexpensive ideas", according to a news release sent Tuesday.
The program, which focuses on public safety in the nine blocks surrounding city hall, hopes to make the region of the downtown core more "safe, welcoming, vibrant and business friendly."
Mayor Naheed Nenshi and University of Calgary President Ed McCauley were among the dignitaries on hand at the announcement.
The University of Calgary's John Brown, the dean of the Faculty of Environmental Design, said the plan resided in paying attention to the details of the area.
"Where are the small parts of our downtown that just could use a little bit of love?" he asked. "A street corner. A neglected park. A bus shelter."
Nenshi added that, "It's no secret that there have been challenges in this area with social disorder. There have been challenges with people feeling safe and comfortable at different times of the day and different times of the week."
He expressed the hope that by taking a deeper dive into the nuances of the area, the university's design experts might unearth a few pearls of insight into how to turn the area into a user-friendly urban space.
"Yes, it may be about lights and planters," he said. "But it really is about (obtaining) a better understanding of how people use downtown now and how we want them to use downtown in the future."
Brown said the project was a little more than your garden variety neighbourhood revitalization effort.
"It's not only our neighbourhood, and city hall's neighbourhood," he said. "It's the city's heart."
