Calgary the cleanest city in the world?

[Curious P]

Article today in the Globe and Mail: No place cleaner than Calgary, global survey says (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070402.wxquality02/BNStory/National/home)

 

Anyone agree/disagree?

 

My only concern with Calgary is the lack of recycling facilites and programs.

[Jochi1543]

Funny, because 2 weeks ago I was driving through it to go to the airport and kept thinking "God, what an ugly dirty city, I'm so glad I never did move here," lol. Granted, the weather is not exactly pleasant, so the presence of TONS of mud and sleet is definitely contributing to that impression. When I was there in the summer, it seemed fairly nice.

[nevergiveup]

Having just moved from Calgary, I really really miss the sunshine- there is no place sunnier. It is such a beautiful city, and in my possibly biased opinion, one of the cleanest cities in the world.

 

Having experienced the recycling programs in Ontario, I now agree regarding the inferior quality of recycling programs in Calgary. You can recycle, you just have to spend more of your own time to do so- dropping it off at pickups, etc. That being said, I know there are talks of municipal programs for recycling pick up with normal garbage pick up, so hopefully this is changing soon...

[Redheadninja]

I dunno, I live in edmonton, and while it's not exactly sparkly clean here, whenever I visit my family in Calgary, I notice this overwhelming smell hanging in the air in the city. It smells kind of like those old used grease containers that you find outside fast food places... really gross. I only notice it for a few days, and then I get used to it. Maybe if I lived in Calgary I'd say edmonton smells too, but you never know. So yah, I'm not going to directly say calgary stinks... because it's a nice city, and I'm a flames fan, but it doesn't exactly smell like roses and sunshine.

[Jochi1543]

I dunno, I live in edmonton, and while it's not exactly sparkly clean here, whenever I visit my family in Calgary, I notice this overwhelming smell hanging in the air in the city. It smells kind of like those old used grease containers that you find outside fast food places... really gross. I only notice it for a few days, and then I get used to it. Maybe if I lived in Calgary I'd say edmonton smells too, but you never know. So yah, I'm not going to directly say calgary stinks... because it's a nice city, and I'm a flames fan, but it doesn't exactly smell like roses and sunshine.

Is there an oil processing plant there?

 

I live 2 hours south of Calgary, and boy, let me tell you, this town is FRAGRANT. The wind is very strong, so all these funny smells get carried in. Our local #1 odor polluter is the DowAgroSciences plant that makes canola oil. Some days you wake up and the whole town smells like sour donuts or stale fries. *gag*

 

Then of course there's the farmin'. There's actually a heap of sh!t about 250 feet high outside the city, on at least ONE side. Normally, 10 miles out is no big deal, but as I said, the winds bring all that smell into the city. Nothing like going on a date somewhere downtown and enjoying the fragrance of fresh manure.

[Kirsteen]

Hi,

 

I'm going to be very much missing some Calgary factors that I didn't have in Ontario. For one, there IS a heck of a lot more sunlight out here, and for far longer when it counts--in the summer. Two, the chinooks. Enough said when my family are *****ing about the hellish, gray fall/winter/spring weather in Toronto. Next, the long days and long nights. They're lovely. Tonight, the sky was light unitl 8:30pm, and it's still early spring. Also, the mountains. Where else can you drive for 45 minutes and be deep in the heart of some great rock? All of that (and more) I'll sorely miss in a few weeks.

 

Kirsteen

[Curious P]

Hey Kirsteen,

 

Not to pick on you specifically (...okay, maybe) but why do you think UofC has one of the lowest retention rates for its grads when it comes to residency? I was going through some CaRMS stats and I found that about 30% of UofC grads decide to do their residency at UofC compared to a national average of around 45% (UofA had about half of its grads return for post-grad training).

[UBCGuy]

When it comes to cleanliness I really doubt that they are talking about dirty road and mud. Yes the snow is brown sometimes and the spring is muddy but when you consider things like trash in the streets (or the lack thereof) Calgary is pretty darn clean. I live in Vancouver at the moment and the two aren't comparable...

[Kirsteen]

Hey Kirsteen,

 

Not to pick on you specifically (...okay, maybe) but why do you think UofC has one of the lowest retention rates for its grads when it comes to residency? I was going through some CaRMS stats and I found that about 30% of UofC grads decide to do their residency at UofC compared to a national average of around 45% (UofA had about half of its grads return for post-grad training).

Hey there,

 

Interesting numbers there. In fact, the retention rate for my newly-matched class is also around 30%--maybe just at titch lower, even.

 

There could be a number of different reasons for the relatively low retention rate. One item to examine would be if there is a correlation between the proportion of out-of-province students accepted over the years and retention rate. I'd assume that the correlation would be inverse, if at all. We have quite a few folks in our class who hail from BC and a very large proportion of our class ended up matching there. Also, perhaps a four-year program provides students with time to establish firmer roots, thereby, making the decision to relocate a harder one. Another factor may be average class age. Our school tended to have slightly higher mean ages and perhaps older students are more comfortable with the idea of relocation, another thought based on anecdotal evidence solely.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Jochi1543]

Also, maybe cost of living is a factor. And right now Calgary is not the greatest place to live, clean or not, because the infrastructure has yet to catch up with the increase in population. Meaning traffic is out of control, because not only are the roads not wide enough in many areas, there's also constant construction blocking them. I know some people don't care about this, but say, that's why I could never imagine living somewhere in the Los Angeles/San Diego area of California, no matter how lovely the weather.

[Kirsteen]

Meaning traffic is out of control, because not only are the roads not wide enough in many areas, there's also constant construction blocking them. I know some people don't care about this, but say, that's why I could never imagine living somewhere in the Los Angeles/San Diego area of California, no matter how lovely the weather.

Hey,

 

With all due respect, I love Calgary traffic relative to that of Vancouver and Toronto (and L.A. and Boston). I can normally get from one end of the city to the other lickety-split. In Vancouver and Toronto I've got to ensure that there's some good radio action happening to preserve sanity. I love Calgary and its traffic and I'm going to miss it when I head out east.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[riffraff]

Also, maybe cost of living is a factor. And right now Calgary is not the greatest place to live, clean or not, because the infrastructure has yet to catch up with the increase in population. Meaning traffic is out of control, because not only are the roads not wide enough in many areas, there's also constant construction blocking them. I know some people don't care about this, but say, that's why I could never imagine living somewhere in the Los Angeles/San Diego area of California, no matter how lovely the weather.

 

Traffic in Calgary is actually ridiculously good compared to most big cities.

[Jochi1543]

Hey,

 

With all due respect, I love Calgary traffic relative to that of Vancouver and Toronto (and L.A. and Boston). I can normally get from one end of the city to the other lickety-split. In Vancouver and Toronto I've got to ensure that there's some good radio action happening to preserve sanity. I love Calgary and its traffic and I'm going to miss it when I head out east.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

Really? I had the exact opposite experience, downtowns included. Bad timing for either you or me, maybe?

[Curious P]

I definitely don't mind the traffic in Calgary one bit! I dread getting onto the 401 or DVP (in Toronto) no matter what the time of day it is.

 

As for UofC's retention rate, another interesting fact I'd like to throw into the discussion is that more UofC students go out of the province for post grad training compared to UofA (55% for UofC compared to 25% for UofA). I wonder if this implies that UofC students are more likely to go after their desired residency programs, compared to UofA students who prefer to 'settle'?

[Kirsteen]

As for UofC's retention rate, another interesting fact I'd like to throw into the discussion is that more UofC students go out of the province for post grad training compared to UofA (55% for UofC compared to 25% for UofA). I wonder if this implies that UofC students are more likely to go after their desired residency programs, compared to UofA students who prefer to 'settle'?

Hey there,

 

That's another interesting point. There seemed to be a lot more people in my class this year who were willing to relocate for their ideal specialty than stay in their ideal city no matter what specialty. All of this would make for an interesting wee bit of research...

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

It seems to be a funny phenomenon, that draw to Edmonton. There were a few people in our class who were quite keen to match there. (Most were due to family connections.)

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen