Calgary
A Study in Urban Pattern
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4043016 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Patricia J Smith (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1962 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 315 |
| Publication date | 1962-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Economic Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0095 • E-ISSN: 1944-8287 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/142261 |
| OpenAlex | W2333633930 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
AT the western margin of Canada's vast prairie region, where the grassland of the rolling glacial plains gives way to the forested foothills of the Rocky Mountain Cordillera (Fig. 1), the city of Calgary has emerged, inl an extremely brief time, as one of the nation's most vigorous urban areas. Youngest of all Canada's metropolitan areas' and ranking only slightly behind Edmonton as the fastest in growth since 1941 (Table I), Calgary in 85 years has developed from a tiny, insecure police outpost to a city of more than 265,000 persons,2 a major regional center serving an area of 75,000 square miles with a population of half a million people.3 Even more remarkable, three-fifths of its growth has been crowded into the years since 1948, a circumstance which helps Calgary exemplify, as much as any city in Canada, the way in which a rapidly expanding economy is given expression in the urban landscape. I The Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Ottawa, recognizes 15 metropolitan areas for census purposes. Calgary, which was founded in 1875 as a police fort for the control of whiskey trading in the heart of Blackfoot Indian territory, is the most recently established of these. 2 At the municipal census of March, 1961, the population of the City of Calgary was 241,675. The fringe population at the same time was estimated at 25,000. 3H. McKinley Conway, Jr.: Calgary-An Area Survey, Industrial Development, January 1960, p. 67. Calgary, in 1961, is still on the crest of a wave of expansion that began in 1948 and has continued to the present with no serious decline. The many, glistening multistory office blocks; the array of bright new stores and shopping centers; the burgeoning residential subdivisions-all bear adequate testimony to the rapidity of the city's growth, a testimony fully supported by construction statistics. Table II, for instance, shows how Calgary led Canadian metropolitan centers in per capita housing construction between 1956 and 1958. The 1959 report of Calgary's Industrial Co-ordinator states that the total value of building permits issued in Calgary in 1959 amounted to $99,000,000, a total which fell short of the 1958 record of $101,000,000 but was still high enough to place Calgary third amongst Canadian cities for the second consecutive year.4 For a metropolitan area that ranked only ninth in population at the 1956 census (Table I), this surge in construction represents a tremendous achievement. The modern expansion, however, cannot completely conceal the many dysfunctional aspects of the evolving urban
Economic geography · Geography · Regional science · Urbanization and City Planning
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,07 |
| Citation span | 1969 - 2020 (52) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |