Hood by hood

where should we live if we move to edmonton? that was the question i got in an email from two potential new colleagues the other day. no fool, i could see immediately the procrastinatory potential in a city tour, so i stepped right up as colleague of the year and offered to ferry IS and MW about e-town.

first i dispensed with the obvious neighbourhoods. parkallen i see as a grid whose main feature, affordability, has been gutted by the recent market craziness here (though i admitted it would permit you to walk to a bar or 30). belgravia/mckernan: lovely little area, the kind you could show off to your parents. windsor park, where faculty used to buy, is gorgeous -- if your idea of gorgeous is rotting away in a showy piece of real estate you'll never pay off in this lifetime. if you're into the package deal, buy in garneau, and it'll be like the ghermezians said when they finished phase 2 of the mall: "you never need to go to europe again!" i didn't even mention strathcona.

our tour started with mill creek, my single concession to south-side living. i pulled into an avenue -- i'm not even sure which one now -- and parked in a keyhole. "let's get out, and i can show you how beautiful the river valley is here." then i promptly got us lost in said nature. i honestly didn't intend to; it's just that the river valley is so very wild and complex there that it's hard to get your bearings. i walked us unwittingly into someone's backyard. "oops," i said. "is that someone's backyard?," they asked. "incredible!"

we found the car just before a huge thunderstorm took over, but i think they got a decent view of Thunderhead Obscuring the High Level Bridge. i can't be sure, though, since i could hardly see the road. i yelled to the passenger seat, "it's like this in alberta." my would-be colleague yelled back, "what?" rossdale shows well even in the rain, and how can you not be impressed by a 30-minute commute through the woods? oliver advertises itself, those stately old houses on 99th and 100th aves, and although even strangers roll their eyes at the "westmount architectural heritage area" moniker, the neighbourhood is pretty nice. "wow," my companions said, "edmonton architecture is much more diverse than we'd expected." it is? "and it has a lot of designated bike lanes." it does? i will say that 124th street is intriguingly weird, what with its corsets and longboards, greek orthodox churches and money marts, art galleries and worrying numbers of prosethesis stores. (my personal favorite: karl hager limb and brace.)

i had to blindfold my colleagues to drive 111 ave until we got to norwood. the italian centre! zocalo! lotus soul gym! all the yuppie treats, with the barbershops and mustard seed church keepin' it real. what i love best about norwood: all the other report-a-john neighbourhoods "do not tolerate prostitution," but norwood "does not tolerate exploitation." there's a sentiment i can get behind.

finally, the highlands gem, its modest post-war bungalows to the east, ada boulevard mansions to the west. ada boulevard is the most honest high-end real estate in any city, what with its views of refineries and sunsets: cause and consequence in one sweeping vista. and i love the highlands strip. even though rob buttery sold collectiv to move to winnipeg with his filmmaker wife renee baril (incidentally, my next door neighbour in the very last '60s -- no kidding), sabrina butterfly set up shop in his old space. angela's closing swish to sell on ebay, since her landlord jacked the rent, but bacon is full all the time. mandolin books deserves a citizenship medal for sharon's openness to local art, and if i knitted -- right, i was going to take that up as a hobby, what happened to that plan? -- i'd shop at that little yarn store right there.

anyway, i told them, that's my edmonton. you can live in any of those neighbourhoods and be my colleague.