Jasper Avenue, Saturday night, 2008

It's been Whyte Avenue that the sensible have been avoiding, between Thursday and Saturday, sidestepping the drunken bravados, fist fights, stabbings, gropings, and the overall unbridled debauchery and excessive public urination.

Only it's been creeping up to the north side of the river, slowly taking over with the strongest concentration between 109 St. and 106. Spilling out mostly from the Oil City Roadhouse, a monster in itself, its clientele takes over the entire block of sidewalks, pandering in groups or trying to find one another on their cellphones. Past the point of coherent drunk and raucous in groups, the air is thick with the tension of a fight ready to break at any moment.
Walking by last night shortly before 2 a.m., a couple of cops on bikes stand still nearby. A young man in a white shirt turns around and you can see that he is covered in blood. A small group are slumped in a corner, where usually a homeless person sits or sleeps, and they are now waving toxic swizzle sticks and serenading a birthday pal. Turning the corner two more cops jaunt by on foot, coming from the alley where the cruiser lights are ricocheting down the lane. Somebody yells, a man, or more probably a boy, and I'm warned that there are more cops on this block ticketing jaywalkers more than ever. Because that's the real problem. Pedestrians avoiding fights by crossing the street instead of the establishments incubating this behavior. The aggression on the street is palpable when you walk through it, less so then when you just drive by. Walking through a haze of the delirious, the only sound is traffic and sirens.

Crowds and density are not the problem, as I feel more on guard walking in Edmonton than I do amidst the busiest intersections in the world; the problem is the purpose of density. Density in Edmonton manifests two ways.

- In one, it is in traffic, specifically the arteries of the Yellowhead, Whitemud, and soon enough Anthony Henday that swings thousands of people and tonnes of goods along with burning gallons of gasoline every single day. It is a density-in-transition, something fitting for this gateway nexus, and its transient energy cuts through to how citizens may live and try to navigate this place.

- The second density correlates with the first. Edmonton is a transient stop, the "big" city with over half a dozen satellite cities and counties, whose young and restless blow into town with the sole purpose of getting absolutely trashed on their big night out. Concentrated, destructive, they disperse again leaving downtown and Strathcona sticky and stained. Of course residents frequent these areas too on the weekend, but the overwhelming majority are not. Edmonton is shedding its 'big city with a small town mentality' image with a much more dismal notion of being a small town with big city problems.