It suffers from the fatigue of empty stores and storefronts that offer no promise to people passing by. The only obvious commerce is in office towers. Saturday drives shoppers to the suburbs and the cavernous West Edmonton Mall. There they can play and shop at the same time. People come in droves.
School buses bring kids for the day.
Inside this sprawling shopping mecca is a skating rink, a wave pool with a water slide the begins in the girders of the glass roof, palm trees and a fake beach. If that doesn t interest you there s a dolphin show, a submarine ride in real submarines, an amusement park with a roller coaster that puts the structure of the mall in its path, plus other hair- raising rides. A fun house, games of chance, tattoo parlours mix with boutiques and souvenir shops, a theatre complex, mini-put, even a theme hotel that rents fantasy rooms for those who need one. Edmonton is a flat city. So much of it built on the profits of oil, gas and cattle.