A portrayal of Calgary's spatial growth offers a particularly appropriate instrument to review and conclude consideration of the city's development. In the short space of 100 years, the population dwelling on this site grew from a few people scattered about a police post, to a burgeoning city of about one half million. The spatial pattern of this growth is revealed here. In looking at this map it is essential to realize that there is, in fact, a pattern; the spatial configuration one sees did not just happen. Behind these boundaries are determinant economic, technological and geographic factors with perhaps the most important of these being transportation technology. First, the community grew along the CPR railway tracks in the spacious river valley. During the great rush of prairie settlement, in the first decade of the century, street railway lines facilitated occupation of remaining portions of the river valley and even a tentative advance onto the benchlands to the northeast. The growth that occurred after World War ll came in the automobile era and was characterized by commercial and residential development that reached outwards along the major highway approaches to the city. Industrial expansion continued in a southeasterly direction along the railway. Intervening areas were filled through the 1960s and 1970s.
