The character of post-World War ll urban growth is well-illustrated in this winter photograph. Looking north toward the downtown core, the large Chinook-Ridge Shopping Centre stands out as the dominant feature. Regional shopping centres, such as this one in Calgary's southern sector, have been the nuclei about which vast, suburban, residential development has occurred. Anchored by such regional and local centres, the city has expanded southward at a remarkable rate, many miles beyond Chinook-Ridge which marked the near edge of suburbia in the early 1960s. Providing the suburban householder with practically all the required commercial and professional services, shopping centres have provided strong competition for downtown merchants and in the process have greatly influenced urban life styles.
Shopping centres stand as mute testimony to the primacy of the automobile as the most important factor shaping the pattern of post-war urban development. Further evidence of this pervasive influence can be seen in the evolution of the Macleod Trail (running northward from the lower right corner) from a rutted wagon track, that linked Calgary to Fort Macleod, to a busy multi-laned artery of north-south commerce. Attracted to the Macleod Trail in the early 1950s was commercial strip development, characteristic of the major routes into almost every North American city. This finger-like development, consisting largely of a haphazard string of used car lots, hamburger stands and restaurants, motels and trailer parks, affected subsequent residential and commercial expansion. The Macleod Trail came also to separate western residential districts from areas of light industry on the east side of the highway.
