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Podcast: Downtown Edmonton Struggles, and the Future of Retail in Canadian Downtowns

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Podcast: Downtown Edmonton Struggles, and the Future of Retail in Canadian Downtowns

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This week Craig and Lee discuss challenges for retail in downtown Edmonton and its retreat over the past couple of decades, as well as the situation and projections for downtowns in cities across Canada. Craig is also an advisor at the University of Alberta Centre for Cities and Communities.

The Weekly podcast by Retail Insider Canada is available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Also check out our The Interview Series podcast where Craig interviews guests from across the Canadian retail landscape as part of the The Retail Insider Podcast Network.

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Background Music Credit: Hard Boiled Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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  1. That was a good Pan-Canadian survey of the downtown retail situation in the major urban centres. As you mentioned, a successful city centre is almost a sort of recipe with a complex mixture. Also, a mix that works in one city won’t work in another. I follow some of the local Montreal urban development blogs and the consensus seems to be that downtown is definitely on the rebound from the coronavirus shutdowns. Its retail sector, though not booming, is holding steady. There is of course anticipation of the Royalmount effect in a couple of years. Again, however, there is a consensus that the market in Montreal has expanded sufficiently to accommodate both the new glittering centre and Centreville. Royalmount will attract the moneyed suburbanites who won’t drive downtown anyway, but the residential weight and popularity of downtown and the adjacent mid-density central quartiers will maintain the city’s gravitational pull. At least that is the optimist’s read; hope they’re right.

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