[itom987]

If you go to this website: https://cityarchives.edmonton.ca/1924-aerial-section-74-frame-13

You will see aerial photographs from 1924. Check out specifically photos in section 74, frames 11 to 13. You will see lots of vacant land which makes me assume that vacant land has been a part of Edmonton's urban fabric for a 100 years. Sure, some get developed, yet new ones show up, decade after decade. The problem we have could be internal, everyone is used to seeing vacant land and do not think it is a problem. The uninterrupted urban fabric we see in other cities like Montreal, never caught on in Edmonton.

It is interesting to note that all the land along both sides of Jasper Ave. west of 109 St. was vacant in 1924.

Changing the status quo that Edmontonians have on urbanity will go a long way to getting rid of surface parking lots and vacant land.

 

[David A]

It is harder for a city that grew mostly after the arrival of the auto to build up the same density as a city that developed for a hundred or even more years before that.

However, we at least seem to have slowed down adding new empty lots in the core and over the last decade or two a number of them have been filled in, which is still continuing now. So perhaps there is some hope.