It's All Good in the Hood

In this episode, I interviewed Alberta Avenue resident Catherine Owen on the two year anniversary of the purchase of her house.  Hailing from British Columbia, Catherine Owen is the author of 15 books in several genres, a visual and musical performer, and a cat lover who now has 4 cats!  After a very gracious introduction, Catherine talks about the reasons she chose to move to our little neighborhood and the inspiration behind the name of her beautiful house built in 1905. Hope you enjoy it!

There's a brand new bistro in the area! Serving delicious comforting foods and providing another great place for people to gather, Two Brown Dogs is a cafe full of heart, nestled in the heart of the inner city. You know the kind of food that brings back past pleasant comforting memories of feeling happy, safe, warm, loved, fulfilled?  Owner and chef extraordinaire Virginia Potkins aims to create that feeling for cafe customers with her incredible hearty food and deserts.

This summer Avenue Magazine Edmonton has finally caught on to what all of us living just North East of Downtown in our little communities have been saying all along...the best place to live in in Edmonton, Alberta is the inner city.  The community of Alberta Avenue ranked the most desirable community to live in, with neighbours  McCauley and Parkdale also making the list. This episode delves deeper into the various categories that Alberta Avenue scored so high on and on one VERY important element missing from the survey.   Link to Avenue Magazine's Survey Results: https://www.avenueedmonton.com/city-life/why-you-should-love-alberta-avenue/

Hi Friends!  This episode quickly glances over the history of our inner city Edmonton neighbourhood and looks at some of the factors that shaped where we live today.  It is a quick overview and doesn't get into the nitty gritty details, but it is a good basis for understanding our hood.

In this episode I interview Angela and Kim, owners of Gather textiles on Fort Road and 122 ave about the philosophy behind their lovely sewing and knitting shop and how this helps to create a community among sewers and weavers.  This is a really cool place to check out sometime and hopefully I will see you there sometime!  Check them out at gathertextiles.com.

A little group of local neighbours come together once a week to share food, friendship and the fellowship of music.  This group has brought so much joy to my life and has helped to create more of a sense of connection, safety and friendship in our little inner city community. There are many such music groups in the area, and they have this incredible ability to make life in the hood so magical.  Hope you enjoy!

The crime rates in the last few months have not been pretty. It seems that some of our inner city communities are experiencing an alarmingly high trend in crime. We are also seeing a proliferation of tent villages and visible homelessness. Are these things connected? And is crime only up in our neighbourhood? Yep! By quite a bit, actually.

Full discussion with Dave regarding living near problem properties in Edmonton's Inner City and his experience trying to affect change around these properties.

A look into the difficulties people face living next to or near problem properties.  In this episode we talk to Rickshaw Dave about his experiences living near this properties and having his concerns addressed.  We look at the city level and community level of involvement and the needs that have to be met for these problems to be resolved.

A look into what makes the Alberta Avenue Community a great place to live and how the community league engages with it's members.We discuss community as a means for being healthy and reducing disease prevalence.  We look at the events and programs hosted out of the Alberta Avenue Community League hall and we talk about the perception of our community.  Nicola also tries to figure out how to say EPIDEMIOLOGY properly.  Hint: She doesn't.

What is community?  What makes a community work? How do people create community?  Community is more than just a given space, but it is also a sense of interconnectedness based on common interest or values.  In this episode of It's All Good In The Hood, we talk to Parkdale-Cromdale's league president Kevin and second vice-president Steven about their community league's vision and operations.

In this episode we look at how perception shapes the view of our neighbourhood by people in the neighbourhood and outside of the neighbourhood. We talk to Katherine and Greg who have lived here for two years and how their view of the neghbourhood has changed or solidified since moving into the hood.

CBC Edmonton produced a podcast called Slumtown about problem properties in Edmonton's inner city neighbourhood.  It talked about the problems, the perspectives, and what some people are trying to do to improve the situation.  It was a well researched podcast, but it was missing something.  It was missing what made this a great neighbourhood to live in. In this episode, I talk to area Realtor Michelle Patterson-Nipp about what makes this area so attractive.  I also look at crime stats for the area and compare it with other communities in the city, dispelling myths and challenging outsider perceptions.

What makes people continue to gravitate to these old inner city neighbourhoods that media casts as being disorderly, crime ridden, ramshackle areas? Have you ever wondered why people invest money in fixing up the old houses and choose to stay despite the bad rap these areas get? Well, this podcast hopes to fill you in on the secrets of these great communities.

This teaser trailer is to update listeners that we will be ready in about 3 days to host our first episode of It's All Good In The Hood, Episode 1: What Town?

A quick intro trailer talking about what this podcast aims to do; this is, highlight the good, great, awesome, and some of the unique challenges we have living in the inner city neighbourhoods north east of downtown Edmonton, Alberta.