Welcome to CalgaryUrbanite

Posted on February 1st, 2009 by Derek McBurneysadsa in Announcements

So, what is CalgaryUrbanite?

Well, good question.  On any given weekday, I often find myself beelining it from the office straight home.  I know I'm not the only doing this, because every day I'll be sandwiched in with the thousands of other cars also trying to make their way back home.  It's on this daily commute that I usually get thinking, what is this city's culture?  I know there's a lot more to this city than just work & profits, oilsands & resource development.  Like a lot of people I know, I can find it frustratingly hard sometimes to find the real pulse of the city.  But the truth is there's a lot going on in Calgary and lots of great people, and we're hoping to feature a lot of them here.  Although we live in the heart of the oil economy, there's lots of us here who care about the environment, care about sustainable living, and care about making our city a better place.

So how can we contribute to this positive change?  By sharing and stuff. We have a couple authors here to get things going.  We'll be posting stories, rants, reviews, photos and the like.  Sustainable living, community events, outdoor activities, local restaurants, social causes - all that warm fuzzy (and tasty) stuff.  Best of all, we encourage you all to contribute too!  We don't kid ourselves in thinking that our ability to write is any better than yours, if anything it's the opposite!  Start posting your own entries, and if they contribute something new to the blog/site/magazine/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, they'll be featured.  If you're really good, you'll get to be a featured author here, and we'd love to have you!

The name of this place is CalgaryUrbanite after all, so I won't lie, most articles here will deal with events and issues more tailored to sustainable living in the inner city.  That's not to say there won't be content for all Calgarians, but it is to say that if your vision is the double garage & white picket fence home, we might not share it.  It's just not us.

To encourage everyone to contribute here, we will be running challenges whenever we get our hands on some decent prizes.  The challenges will usually involve raising awareness for social issues or sustainable living.  Often in Alberta, policy towards the environment and a sustainable economy are ignored.  Despite this, we can lead by example in our day to day living, doing the small things that make a difference.  It's this movement that is what CalgaryUrbanite is all about.

And about me?  I'm just a lowly web designer who's trying to use his powers for good, instead of evil.  I've been toying with this idea for a long time.  Such a long time that I've had a mental block after mental block trying to design a layout, but eventually after the umpteenth design, I came upon this look.  The inspiration?  Street & sidewalk chalk art.  To me its a perfect fit, street chalk art is something organic from the community, and that's what I hope this place will be.