Building Skateboarding - An Exploration of DIY Skate Spots and Tactical Urbanism in Calgary, AB

BUILDING SKATEBOARDING An Exploration of DIY Skate Spots & Tactical Urbanism in Calgary, AB

author: Jay Heule, mplan 2022 supervisor: Fabian Neuhaus date: March, 2022 Building Skateboarding - An Exploration of DIY Skate Spots and Tactical Urbanism in Calgary, AB

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Acknowledgments This research was conducted at the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape (SAPL), located in Calgary, AB (Mohkinstsis). In the spirit of reconciliation, I acknowledge that we live, work and skateboard on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, the Métis Nation (Region 3), and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.

Thank you to the three interviewees who took the time to share their valuable insights and experience for this research, and all the people working to make skateboarding better in Calgary. Thank you, Jeff Hanson, for sharing your enthusiasm of skateboarding and planning, and Tyler Tanner, for capturing the DIY scene in Calgary so beautifully. Thank you Fabian Neuhaus, Associate Professor at SAPL, for your support throughout this project.

cover: Cole Stephens, Penguin Bowl, [o] Tyler Tanner, 2021 ii

Abstract Skateboarding is a global community that creatively reappropriates the urban environment, often facing a tense relationship with the public and governing bodies. Through a literature review of planning theories and relevant planning documents, and three semi-structured interviews with individuals involved in building skateboarding, this research examines the development of DIY (Do It Yourself ) skate spots in Calgary, Alberta, and the relationship between the skate community and the City of Calgary in co-creating the city. The methodological approach taken in this study is exploratory in nature, considering how the theories of tactical urbanism have been articulated in practice, and lessons learned that may support future DIY skate spot growth in Calgary, and beyond.

DIY skate spots are seen as incredibly important to the skate community as spaces for skill development, community building, and equitable access to skateboarding, but are often not prioritized at the municipal level. This creates opportunity for DIY spots to exist in the short term but fails to provide longer term direction to collaboratively support spaces for community development when complaints or injuries arise.

Key opportunities that have emerged from this research include: • the importance of self organization and community representation by skateboarders when working with the City, • the desire for increased communication, transparency, and relationship building between skateboarders and the City, and • the value of social engagement and community partnerships in supporting DIY skate spots long-term.

left: Penguin Bowl [o] Tyler Tanner, 2021 Building Skateboarding - An Exploration of DIY Skate Spots and Tactical Urbanism in Calgary, AB

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Contents 1.0 Introduction

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2.0 Framing Skateboarding

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2.1 Tactical Urbanism

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2.2 DIY Skate Spots

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2.3 Calgary’s Skate History

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3.0 DIY Calgary

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3.1 Calgary’s DIY Skate Spots

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3.2 Filling the Gaps

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3.3 Vacant Land

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3.4 DIY Liability

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3.5 Building Community

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3.6 Community Activism

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4.0 Insights & Reflections

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5.0 Works Cited

13 right: Penguin Bowl [o] Tyler Tanner, 2021

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“if you want something, do it, and then take care of it, and then show the rest of the community that it’s a worthwhile thing.”

– Fonda Slab

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1.0

Introduction

Skateboarding is a global culture and evolving community that creatively reappropriates the urban environment, and has often had a tense relationship with the public and governing bodies, facing restrictions, bylaws, and exclusion through environmental design. Stemming from its counterculture origins in the 1950s, skateboarders around the world have taken ownership and reinterpreted public space through the activity of skateboarding, challenging “many of our society’s norms and conventions” (Borden, 2019, p. 1). Over the last few decades, skateboarding has achieved a global mainstream status, with millions of participants in Canada and around the world (City of Calgary, 2011). This culture represents a notable portion of the population living in urban environments, who have taken upon themselves the right to actively engage with the urban environment (Harvey, 2003).

Skateboarding embeds citizens in the values of participation, expression, and community (Borden, 2019), all important societal values that cities are looking to encourage to help mitigate the complex social, economic and environmental challenges facing our built environment.

While skateboarding has recently become legitimized as a sport with its inclusion in the 2020 Olympics, it remains a dynamic culture strongly routed in the social and cultural values of arts and creativity, philanthropy, and industry and commercialism (Borden, 2019). Skateboarding means many things to many different people, from a mode of active transportation, to a tool for creative expression, a competitive sport, a means to improved mental and physical health, or a social activity to connect with one’s community (City of Calgary, 2011). Tensions between skateboarders and those who maintain order in urban environments have been a nearly universal theme in skate culture, with issues arising 1

over the noise, speed, and chaos of skateboarding, as well as the association of “young peoples’ presence in the city with crime and disorder” (Carr, 2010, p.

989). In recent years, the role the skate community plays in creating strong communities and a vibrant urban environment has been widely acknowledged by academic literature (Borden, 2019; Glenney & O’Connor, 2019; Jenson, Swords, & Jeffries, 2012).

At the same time, politicians and planners in cities as diverse as Malmö, Sweden; Portland, USA; and Vancouver, Canada, are recognizing skateboarding as an incredible tool to help foster vibrant public spaces, active citizens, economic activity, and a sense of shared ownership over the city. The collaboration between skateboarders, politicians, and planners is working to not only shape a different city, but the image we see of ourselves in that city.

This research examines the development of recent DIY (Do It Yourself ) skate spots in Calgary, Alberta, and the relationship between the skate community and the City of Calgary in co-creating the city. The research methods include a literature review of planning theories and relevant planning documents, and three semi-structured interviews with DIY Builders (2) and City of Calgary municipal staff members (1) who have been engaged with skatepark planning over the last decade. The interviews provided narrative data through the lived experience of participants actively engaged in building skateboarding in Calgary to develop an understanding of the local context and contemporary issues affecting the relationship of skateboarding and public space. The methodological approach taken in this study is exploratory in nature, considering how the theories of tactical urbanism have been articulated in practice, and what lessons have been learned that may support future DIY skate spot growth in Calgary, and beyond.

above: Fonda Slab DIY Construction, [0] Fonda Slab

2.0

Framing Skateboarding

above: Penguin Bowl [o] Tyler Tanner, 2021

2.1 Tactical Urbanism Tactical urbanism is a growing movement that resists easy categorization, going by a multitude of different names, but often involving small scale, citizen led design interventions that reshape urban spaces. Academics and activists see tactical urbanism as an effective technique to spark change in a city’s urban fabric, as citizens take it upon themselves to address urban issues that local authorities cannot, or will not address (Hou, 2010). As public spaces in our cities are increasingly built for the public rather than by the public (Mitchell, 2003), tactical urbanism provides the opportunity to critique the systems that govern our cities, and the ability to address urban issues at the human scale, which can be difficult to achieve through municipal planning processes.

The temporal nature of many tactical interventions is one of the greatest strengths of the approach, where small scale, low risk designs are easily and efficiently tested prior to committing to larger scale investment, illustrating to planners and citizens what is possible in our cities (Wohl, 2018). Another key characteristic of tactical urbanism is that intervention is initiated by city residents. This form of private investment that shapes the public realm of our cities is not a new concept, be it at the scale of multi million-dollar investments or a small DIY skate spots. Historically, municipal administrators have taken the role “to maximize the public benefit of private actions and minimize their attendant harms” (Finn, 2014, p. 387) when it comes to private investment in the city. While private investment is a significant factor influencing the creation of the public realm, it brings challenges of equity and accessibility to the built environment. Because tactical urbanism is in direct opposition to many of the top-down, capital and time intensive processes

of urban planning, cities have a role to play to ensure the safety, equity, and appropriateness of interventions in the built environment (Finn, 2014).

2.2 DIY Skateboard Spots Skateboarding is inherently a tactical activity as users adapt and reimagine the built environment to temporarily serve a different purpose. DIY skate spots serve as more permanent and physical form of tactical intervention that have seen an increasing prevalence in North American cities over the last 20 years. The spaces created by skateboarders “exploit existing site features and recycled materials” (Borden, 2019, p. 149) to create skateparks that vary greatly in terms of spatial and temporal dimensions, as well as legality. “DIY parks are expressions of the self-reliance ethic of its participants – built by skaters for skaters” (Glenney & O’Connor, 2019, p. 846) resulting in spaces that extend beyond the constructed environment to connect into the larger context of the public realm and skateboarding culture.

With the automobile oriented size and rapid development practices of North American cities, the creation of neglected space is a relatively recent urban phenomenon, that has in turn created the opportunity for citizens to exploit and transform their city to create a more equitable and dynamic urban environment (Villagomez, 2010). The skate community has contributed to the transformation of neglected urban spaces into meaningful public places, encouraging a shared sense of ownership over the public realm, and in select cases seeing interventions officially sanctioned by local

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authorities (Hollett & Vivoni, 2021; Lawton, 2018).

2.3 Calgary’s Skate History

While DIY skate spots are advocated as positive disruptions to increasingly privatized cities by skaters and academics (Hollett & Vivoni, 2021), their spatial production is often privileged over other citizens. This can work counter to the success of municipal policies ensuring values such as consensus, public safety, equity, and efficiency among others (Hollett & Vivoni, 2021, Deslandes, 2012). DIY skate spots are seen as incredibly important to the skate community as spaces for skill development, community building, and accessibility that arise from “skating something that you put time and effort into making” (Toone, 2022).

At the municipal level, they are often not a priority. Through the lens of urban planning, DIY skate spots have the potential to contribute to municipal goals of creating supportive and inclusive communities, activating underutilized public spaces, and supporting physical activity through urban form. Yet their legality and associated liability concerns create a significant barrier to a more widespread acceptance of these spaces.

Calgary’s history with skateboarding dates back to 1976, with the opening of western Canada’s first skateboard shop (Freewheelin’ Skateboards). Over the years, the city has received national and international recognition within the skate community, from being a hotspot of backyard halfpipe ramps in the 1980s, to the construction of the largest outdoor skatepark in the North America in 2000 (City of Calgary, 2011). The relationship between skateboarding and the City has been admittedly tense at times, with the late 1980s bylaw banning backyard ramps, and the 1990s bylaw “prohibiting skateboarding on streets, sidewalks and pathways” (Roe, 2016).

Despite these setbacks, significant progress has been made in recent years to change the perception of skateboarders and develop spaces for skateboarding through strong community representation and collaborative planning (Hanson, 2018). Since 2008, the Calgary Association of Skateboarding Enthusiasts (CASE) has been the voice of skateboarders, providing skateboarding advocacy through partnerships and leadership. As of 2013, it is estimated that there are more than 35,000 skateboarders in Calgary (City of Calgary, 2018).

above: Hieberts’ Southwood Ramp, Calgary AB 1977-1983, [0] Courtesy of Calgary Association of Skateboarding Enthusiasts viii

3.0

DIY Calgary

3.1 Calgary’s DIY Skate Spots Calgary is known for its sprawling suburbs and car dependant urban design, stemming from the socio-cultural values of mobility and freedom tied to the personal automobile and cyclical oil and gas economy (Stepanik, 2020). These postwar development practices, combined with the City’s varying relationship with skateboarders has significantly impacted the ways spaces for skateboarding have come to life. Since the implementation of the 2011 Calgary Skateboarding Amenities Strategy, the City has planned and constructed the majority of skateboard parks found in Calgary today, growing the skateboarding landscape across the city. Along with the recent growth in City planned skateboard amenities, four prominent DIY skate spots have been built by the skate community during the last decade; Bonavista Downs DIY , The Bridge DIY, Fonda Slab, and Penguin Bowl (Figure 1, Table 1). While likely not the only DIY spots in the city, these four represent a diversity of DIY parks, and are the most visible to skateboarders and the City.

Interview invites were extended to the groups behind all four skate spots. The skateboarders responsible for building and maintaining Penguin Bowl and Fonda Slab participated in 30-minute, semi-structured interviews, with questions focusing on key themes of community, the legacy of DIY spots, opportunities and constraints to working with the City, and the future of skateboarding in Calgary. To gain insight into the City’s perspective of DIY skate spots, a City of Calgary employee who has overseen skate park development in Calgary over the last decade participated in a semistructured interview with questions focusing on key themes of municipal responses to DIY spots, Calgary’s Skateboarding Amenities Strategy, and opportunities and constraints to working with the skate community. Penguin Bowl and Fonda Slab will serve as the focal point of this analysis to understand how skateboarders are applying tactical urbanism in Calgary, and the City’s response.

above: Fonda Slab [o] Fonda Slab Building Skateboarding - An Exploration of DIY Skate Spots and Tactical Urbanism in Calgary, AB

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figure 1: City of Calgary Skateboard Amenities

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table 1: DIY Skateparks in Calgary

Penguin Bowl

Fonda Slab

“The biggest thing that keeps the DIY spot going outside of the city being cool with something is that people are invested in it.”

– Fonda Slab, Feb 16, 2022

Fonda Slab is a DIY skate spot built in Calgary’s NE community of Forest Heights, transforming an underutilized concrete dry pad built in the late 1990s in Fonda Park. Initiated by local residents in 2013, Fonda Slab emerged from the desire to create a local place to skateboard at the neighbourhood scale, prior to the construction of many of the city’s newer skateparks. While the spot is the result of numerous DIY builders and care takers, it remains active and an important piece of skateboarding infrastructure in the city, as one of only two parks in Calgary’s NE. Fonda Slab offers a range in features that cater to beginner and intermediate skaters, from flat open spaces for learning how to skateboard, to more technical ledge and rail features. The DIY spot is not officially recognized by the City, but City employees are aware of it, and an official sign stating ‘Multi-use concrete court hours of 09:0021:00’ is placed at the entrance to the spot.

“With Penguin, it brought a lot of us together.

We’ve met a lot of good people, just because we didn’t judge anybody. Show up, it doesn’t matter your skill set, we were welcoming.”

– Penguin Bowl, Feb 19, 2022

Penguin Bowl is a transition style DIY skate bowl in the inner-city neighbourhood of Ramsay, built on a vacant residential property adjacent to the former Penguin Carwash and the CP rail line. Construction at Penguin Bowl began in 2020, built to meet a need for more intermediate to advanced transition style skateboard amenities that skateboarders felt wasn’t available in Calgary. Taking matters into their own hands embodies much of the ethos of skateboarding and allowed for these skateboarders to progress their skateboarding skills, in addition to creative and artistic expression and community building. As of November 2021, Penguin Bowl has been fenced and closed by the City over safety and liability concerns. As this land is set aside for the future Green Line LRT, conversations are underway at the time of writing between skateboarders, the Ramsay Community Association, and the City to determine a way forward for the time being prior to its likely eventual demolition (Underwood, 2021).

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3.2 Filling the Gaps Many DIY skate spots around the world have emerged to fill a need not met by existing skateboard amenities, as part of the “continuing evolution of skaters’ agency in responding to and capitalizing on openings in the legal landscape” (Carr, 2010, p. 988). As bylaws and City perspectives on skateboarders have evolved, so has the terrain and physical places of skateboarding.

A common theme brought up in interviews was that the incentive to build DIY spots was to create places and features for skateboarding at the neighbourhood scale to increase the accessibility and proximity to skateboarding amenities. Where municipally developed skateparks did not exist, skateboarders took it upon themselves to create these spaces for recreation, community, and public enjoyment. This is not to say that planned skate parks and DIY skate spots are directly interchangeable for one another though. Rather, that streets, public areas, DIY spots, and City skateparks are integral components to a connected and diverse skateboard network. DIY spots help to fill the gaps in city infrastructure, but also provide distinctive values of their own.

“A lot of the bowls and skateparks in Calgary, even Canada for that matter, aren’t the greatest transition wise, and to actually learn new tricks and be able to go and compete. So we just decided, all right, well, here’s a good spot, we can do it.”

– Penguin Bowl, Feb 19, 2022 below: Penguin Bowl [o] Tyler Tanner, 2021

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The proximity of DIY skate spots to Calgary’s city centre and other skateboard amenities (Figure 1) provides an interesting distinction between the communities these facilities serve. Penguin Bowl is located close to the city centre, and contained in a small geographic area with several other skateboard amenities. This contributes to a strong network of skateboarding spaces around Calgary’s densest neighbourhoods, ranging in scale from community skateparks to skate spots and DIY parks. This reflects the ongoing work to develop a city-wide skateboard network that includes a diversity of park sizes, access, and terrain, which has emerged as a best practice over the last decade of skateboard planning in Canada (City of Calgary, 2011; Toronto Parks, Forestry & Recreation, 2017; Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, 2021).

Although not centrally located in the city, Fonda Slab is centrally located within the neighbourhood of Forest Heights, offering a variety of features that are accessible to beginner and intermediate skateboarders. Looking at the network of skateboard amenities, this DIY spot exists well beyond the service areas of the newer city built skateparks. The builders of Fonda Slab spoke to the value of these spaces for those learning to skateboard and filling a need not met by the existing skateboard amenities.

Now, “there’s a bunch of kids that live around there that probably wouldn’t skateboard, because there wasn’t a skate park nearby, but now there’s local kids that skate”. The fact that this spot has continued to grow despite the addition of newer parks to the vicinity speaks to the complementary relationship between DIY spots and municipal skateparks in creating a vibrant skateboarding network.

3.3 Vacant Land “when it comes to DIY, they are not part of the strategy, they are technically illegal, and right now nobody really understands how to deal with it” – Calgary Recreation Sport Development, Mar 1, 2022

Analyzing places of skateboarding and their surrounding land uses can provide insights into their creation and the community they serve. DIY spots are typically characterized by their “’build first, ask questions later’ approach to abandoned and underused city and industrial property” (Carr, 2010, p. 998). Penguin Bowl is located on what is now municipally owned land along a heavy rail infrastructure corridor (Figure 2), with nearby residential land uses, and plans for the future Green Line LRT development (Underwood, 2021). The land had sat vacant for over 20 years under private ownership prior to skateboarders activating the space. Penguin Bowl claims this ordinary residual urban site, and contributes to city building at the human scale, animating the city in ways and timelines not always achievable within the confines of municipal processes.

Fonda Slab is located on municipally owned land in a community park (Figure 3), a commonality shared with many municipally developed skateparks (Moliera-Revelard, 2018). Placing skateparks near schools and other sporting facilities can serve to activate space, serve the local community, and there are lower spatial demands in place to accommodate this infrastructure. While not necessarily vacant land, Fonda Slab saw skateboarders assert their claim to underutilized municipal infrastructure. Fonda Slab is in line with the typology of Skate Spots, which are “typically

found in a neighbourhood park” (City of Calgary, 2011, p. 45), and equitably increase opportunities for skateboarding to underserviced areas of the city.

When considering the programming that DIY skate spots bring to vacant land, it is also important to consider how other users of the space are impacted. Studies have found that skateboarders often act as instruments of urban development and gentrification, resulting in decreased rates of crime and undesirable activity in areas surrounding DIY spots (Howell, 2005, Howell, 2008, Borden, 2019). This was a theme that emerged from both interviews with DIY builders, who felt the City and the community supported these spaces for the transformation and activation that skateboarders brought to neglected sites, “keeping away the trouble from the neighborhood” – Penguin Bowl, Feb 19, 2022.

While “the planning and urban design professions have come to see community participation as critically important” (Finn, 2014, p. 387), the equity of who has a voice in the city building conversation can be problematic. DIY skate spots and tactical urbanism interventions are often celebrated for their informality and innovation over numerous other informal interventions of people simply trying to meet their daily needs (Deslandes, 2012).

There is a complex tension between the legitimacy and equality of changes made to the public realm, hidden beneath the compelling activism and revitalization of tactical urbanism. With the diversity of stakeholders and competing interests involved in these vacant spaces, the evaluation of land equity and public space truly means was identified as a barrier to DIY spots by the City.

figure 2: Penguin Bowl Urban Context Building Skateboarding - An Exploration of DIY Skate Spots and Tactical Urbanism in Calgary, AB

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figure 3: Fonda Slab Residential Context

3.4 DIY Liability “The trickiest part is that [DIY spots] are inherently risky” – Calgary Recreation Sport Development, Mar 1, 2022

Since its inception, skateboarders have often faced issues with safety, legality, and liability when using and interpreting the urban environment (Borden, 2019). Liability in particular has been raised as a prominent concern when local authorities consider the risk and feasibility of allowing DIY spaces to exist, and Calgary is no exception to this (Underwood, 2021). As many DIY spots are built on municipal lands, without permits, or in accordance with building codes, the City is exposed to additional risk and liability in allowing these spaces to exist without intervention. This is not a new issue for skateparks, as the development of many North American skateparks in the 2000s was a result of a dynamic legal landscape and addressing this risk and liability. Within this legal context, North American municipalities took on the role of providing “recreation space in exchange for the acceptance of personal responsibility” (Howell, Skatepark as Neoliberal Playground, 2008, p. 492).

While not an official policy or addressed in the 2011 Skateboarding Amenities Strategy, the City of Calgary’s approach to addressing DIY spots has been to strategically ignore them. When these DIY spots are brought to the City’s attention, they are dealt with on a case by case basis, but due to the limited number and impact of these DIY spots in a city of over 1.6 million, they currently are not of high enough importance to address through any formal procedures. As long as “no one’s complaining, no one’s getting hurt, and no one’s mad about it, we’re good.” - Calgary Recreation Sport Development, Mar 1, 2022. This creates opportunity for DIY spots to exist in the short term but fails to provide longer term direction to collaboratively support spaces for community development when complaints or injuries arise. Through collaboration and risk management, liability does not have to be an insurmountable challenge, as several North American cities have found ways to formally recognize these DIY spaces (City of Vancouver, n.d.; Borden, 2019). In Calgary, working with community associations is showing potential as a means to mitigate risk through leasing and partnerships.

“Don’t let [the City] start with assuming 3.5 Building Community this is so unsafe that it’s not figure While the ultimate goal of DIY skate spots is out able, because it totally is” to create more skateable terrain, the resulting – Calgary Recreation Sport Development, Mar 1, 2022

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outcomes are much more than just another skatepark in the city. “DIY allows people to make meaningful connections through activism” (Smith, 2019, p. 72), where social capital is built between

skateboarders and non-skateboarders through the process of construction. This is a theme that is reflected in the broader literature on tactical urbanism, fostering leadership in the community through participation and helping to create a shared sense of ownership over the public realm (Lydon et al., 2012; Smith, 2019). Regardless of skill set or experience, showing up and positively participating in the DIY space was valued by Calgary’s DIY builders. Both DIY interviewees highlighted the sense of belonging and pride that DIY spots helped to grow within Calgary’s skate community, particularly rooted in the fact these spaces are built for skateboarders, by skateboarders.

“the skate park is also a space where you’re developing as a human, you’re creating community cohesion and having access and accessibility and visible diversity” – Calgary Recreation Sport Development, Mar 1, 2022

Throughout its history, skateboarding has often been typified as a “male-dominated and sometimes sexist culture” (Gray, 2018, p. v), excluding and creating barriers to access for female identifying and nonbinary skateboarders. Studies have found that female identifying skateboarders “experience gender as a significant part of their identity inside and outside of skateboarding spaces” (Corwin, et al., 2019, p.

28), altering their perception of skateboarding and sense of security in skateparks. While significant progress has been made in recent years to encourage and support a greater diversity of people picking up skateboards, female identifying skaters often experience discomfort when skateboarding in the public realm (Bäckström & Nairn, 2018). Much of this discomfort arises from being watched and judged by others, where “women and girls do not feel entitled to occupy public spaces such as a skatepark” (Bäckström & Nairn, 2018, p. 426).

A theme that emerged from both DIY interviews was that groups of female identifying skaters felt more comfortable skating at the DIY spots then at other city skateparks. Founded in the sense of community it takes to build a DIY spot, these spaces have been perceived as welcoming, judgement free environments, regardless of gender or ability level.

While far from a perfect solution to the barriers facing these groups, DIY spots appear to support a sense of community not always achieved through municipal skateparks. As the caretaker of Fonda Slab put it, “if you skateboard, you’re welcome here”. Through sustained, long term, intentional investment, the city can begin to support more diversified and accessible spaces for skateboarding, and DIY spots are one tool to help accomplish this.

3.6 Community Activism “organize yourself to the degree that enables you to have a voice for your community”

– Calgary Recreation Sport Development, Mar 1, 2022

A theme identified by all interview participants and supported by Hanson’s 2018 case study of the planning process of Calgary skateboard amenities (Hanson, 2018) is the critical need for community advocacy, organization, and support to effectively champion DIY spots and create meaningful community change. Community advocacy and organization has been one of the key drivers behind the City’s increasing support of skateboarding in Calgary, as it hasn’t been so much that the municipalities values or vision have changed around skateboarding, but that “the community changed us” – Calgary Recreation Sport Development, Mar 1, 2022.

With the competing priorities and limited resources facing many municipal authorities, it can be difficult for individual voices to be heard. Organization at the community scale, be that a collective letter sent to a city councillor, or a registered non-profit society, allows the voice of skateboarders to be represented at the municipal scale. While somewhat counter to the rebellious culture of skateboarding, organization to the extent necessary allows for streamlined communication and understanding between the municipality and skateboarders, and emphasizes that there is a large community that values and benefits from these spaces.

“The community itself and the neighbors have been great, they’ve backed it since day one.”

– Penguin Bowl, Feb 19, 2022

Of potential equal importance to representation at the municipal level, is the degree of support for DIY spots within the skateboard community, and surrounding community. Without the funding and organization of a municipality to maintain DIY spots, the community must be self reliant if they want to support these spaces in the long term. Both Fonda Slab and Penguin Bowl have utilized social media accounts, and crowd sourced funding platforms to finance and build support for their construction and create a sense of community ownership.

Skateboarders in Calgary have acted as stewards for these neglected sites, allowing DIY spots to stay within the community when the original builders move on to new ventures. Stewardship can also help establish positive relationships with neighbouring landowners, and reduce the likelihood of complaints that may lead to closure or increased municipal investigation. Positive relationships with open dialog between skaters, the community, and the City can help ensure issues are addressed amicably and mutually beneficial solutions are achieved.

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4.0

Insights & Reflections

Over the last two decades in Calgary, skaters have embedded themselves in the process of city building, shaping the dynamic urban environment, and engaging in in larger discussions of public space, equity, and accessibility. The creation of DIY spots finds skaters at an interesting intersection between the rebellious counterculture values of the skate community, and the need to work through formalized municipal processes to create and preserve spaces for skateboarding. Connecting tactical urbanism initiatives with political strategies is advocated for as a means to create larger scale systematic change (Alisdairi, 2014), but opposes many of the values of DIY spots which emerged outside of the confines of law and policy. While municipal authorities can provide legitimacy and permanence to these spaces, to what extent municipal involvement is desirable while maintaining the intent and values of both these spaces and the skate community is unknown. Regardless of the City’s response to DIY spots, it is inevitable that “skateboarders will always seek to render their environment in new and creatively experimental ways” (Glenney & O’Connor, 2019, p.

852). Accepting this creativity and experimental nature, four key insights have emerged from this research on the nature of DIY spots, and how skaters and the City can collaboratively work to support them:

DIY spots are valued spaces for building community

DIY spots are much more than just another skatepark in the city. They are countless hours of planning, hundreds of bags of ready-mix concrete, and the endless volunteer hours and support of the community. They are places for creativity, artistic expression, and emersion in the culture of skateboarding. They are places where a diversity of people can feel safe and welcomed to pick up a skateboard and be a part of the community, whether it’s their first time or their thousandth.

They are places for human development through sport, bringing to reality “that skateboarding knows better than a lot of other sports that you do a sport for so much more than nailing the kickflip” – Calgary Recreation Sport Development, Mar 1, 2022. “Skateboarding is fueled by imperfection” (Toone, 2022), and DIY spots serve as an important contributor to growing and supporting a vibrant skate community. Collectively embracing DIY spots would be a positive step towards achieving City goals of activating open spaces and creating opportunities for unstructured sport and play, and supporting Calgary’s growing skate community. above: Penguin Bowl [o] Tyler Tanner, 2021 11

Community advocacy is key to effectively working with local government

As the skate community continues to grow in Calgary, self organization and community representation by skateboarders has been crucial to having the voice of skateboarding heard and meaningfully engaged at the municipal level. The Calgary Association of Skateboarding Enthusiasts (CASE) has played an instrumental role in the development of both the Skateboard Amenities Strategy, and the development of new parks around the city, and is an incredible asset to the skate community in Calgary. Advocacy for the importance of streets, public areas, and DIY spots as critical components to a vibrant and connected skateboard network is an important next step to support skateboarding in Calgary. In shifting the focus from municipal skateparks to a greater diversity of skateboard amenities, it is important to maintain the perspective of “what [skateboarders] can do for the city and how this can help them grow, rather than just thinking about what the city can do for them” (Lawton, 2018).

Open communication and relationship building strengthens the process

As skaters assert their claim to public spaces in the city, DIY spots are often kept secret at the beginning to ensure their survival. When brought to the attention of local authorities, collaboration is not often the initial outcome due to the illegal nature of building without permission on municipal land, which is further strained by a lack of communication and trust between the two parties. Interfacing with the countless business units and departments in local government can be challenging for everyday citizens, and both DIY builders expressed that communication was a major barrier to collaboratively working with the City. Communication requires commitment from both parties as expressed in Calgary, were the City has the preference to work with an association that represents the voice of the community, and skaters would prefer clear, consistent, and unified communication from the City. While relationships are not built overnight, engagement from the City and skaters to create both formal and informal relationships today can help to increase transparency and create mutually beneficial outcomes down the road (Hanson, 2018).

Social engagement and partnerships are needed to support DIY spots

DIY spots are built by the community, for the community. To transition these spaces from short term interventions to longer term amenities, community support is required. Calgary’s DIY builders have utilized social media, crowd sourced funding platforms, and partnerships with local community associations to provide funding and support for DIY spots. Social media and crowd sourced funding have shown that there is significant support for these spaces within the skate community, and successfully providing a platform for more established spaces help to raise awareness and create community buy-in. It takes a community to realize DIY spots as vibrant contributions to the built environment, allowing the hard work of a few individuals to transcend to community level impacts through on going maintenance, caretaking, and use.

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5.0

Works Cited

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above: Penguin Bowl [o] Tyler Tanner, 2021 13

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(2021). Skateboard Amenities Strategy Engagement Summary. Vancouver, BC: City of Vancouver. Retrieved from https:// syc.vancouver.ca/projects/skateboardamenities-strategy/skateboard-amenitiesstrategy-engagement-summary.pdf 31. Villagomez, E. (2010). Claiming Residual Spaces in the Heterogeneous City. In J. Hou, Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla urbanism and the remaking of contemporary cities (pp. 81-96). Routledge.

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Building Skateboarding - An Exploration of DIY Skate Spots and Tactical Urbanism in Calgary, AB

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This research is an original, unpublished, independent work by the author, J. Heule. Go skateboarding with your friends!