Improving Quality of Life with Intelligent Urban Design: University District Weighs In

Wouldn’t most of us prefer to spend less time commuting and more time communing?

University District is making this a reality.

While many of us have different ideas of what’s most important part of life — whether it’s family, success, freedom, or happiness — one truth is common for all of us, time is valuable.

Time shapes our days. On weekends, it’s what we use to visit our friends and family, how we devote week over week to build careers, and in time, save for retirement. Time and effort is what’s needed to put together the recently-bought furniture on the living room floor and what we’re all (hopefully) aware of once a lasagna is in the oven.

Most of us wish there were more than 24 hours in a day since so much of our everyday life is filled with the in-between like the commute to-and-from work or the hunt for a grocery-store parking spot. These are things that regularly demand our time as life gets busy, but they don’t have to. Not at University District.

The advantage of proximity is the recouping of time. The growth of University District’s community with a complete urban village focused on walkability is a welcomed concept. Close amenities and services for everything you need helps you save on what’s in short supply—time.

What would life be like if we were all able to wake up and stroll to work knowing that your car is safely parked and won’t need to move until the weekend arrives and the mountains call? To have family across generations living close enough that when dinner comes, the table is only steps away from the community grocery store where you’ve been asked to stop for milk? Wouldn’t life be different if stuck in traffic became a euphemism for running into a friend while cycling to a coffee-meeting, or if the only mileage getting racked up this week was on your Fitbit?

We’d all like to spend more time on the things that matter and less on the in-between.

The difference here is that University District has decided it’s about time we do.

Learn more about how University District is changing the face of everyday living Calgary here.