Big cities across North America are dealing with a slew of office buildings sitting vacant since the pandemic—and they have no idea what to do with them. But Calgary has a plan. Alberta’s biggest city has a roadmap to convert six million square feet for new use, including lots of much-needed residential living space. Two years into the plan, the city is 30 per cent of the way to its goal. How did that happen?

In this intimate and far-ranging interview for Maclean’s, Calgary’s mayor, Jyoti Gondek, describes how the city has been turning vacant offices into housing and why mayors from other big cities like San Francisco have been calling to ask her for advice. Gondek tells them there’s no quick fix. “We started to think about what to do with our commercial downtown space in 2015, when the energy sector was going through a decline,” says Gondek. “It’s fascinating to watch people who live in other cities—who have seen their own cities evolve over time—think that ours hasn’t.”

—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief

Children of immigrants often act as language brokers—translating and interpreting everything from casual conversations to tax documents for their parents. It’s a big responsibility, especially for a child, says Cecilia Huang, who emigrated from Taiwan when she was nine. In this piece for Maclean’s, she details what her experience was like.

Ethan Minnie explored his first abandoned building when he was 13. While his mom was driving him to school, he noticed a string of empty houses in Courtice, Ontario. He begged her to take him back so he could go inside. Now, the 23-year-old Minnie makes a living by exploring abandoned houses for his YouTube channel, which has nearly 100,000 subscribers. “We’re going to get to a point where one day, none of this is going to be left. I document for the future when everything is gone.”

CULTURE PICK
OF THE WEEK

This joyful fest offers 24 packed days of performances from classical artists interpreting this year’s theme: metamorphosis. Headliners include soprano superstar Sondra Radvanovsky and pianist Angela Hewitt. The fabulously nebulous theme also makes room for any number of surprises, like Puccini’s Madama Butterfly reimagined by Canadian Teiya Kasahara, a queer, non-binary singer. They challenge everything you know about opera in their performance, which focuses on the Japanese melodies Puccini borrowed. PointeTango Dance Company, meanwhile, merges classical ballet with Argentine tango for what might be the sexiest show you’ll ever see on pointe.

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