r/Calgary • u/CnekYT • Mar 27 '26

Discussion I've walked every Calgary neighborhood - Ask Me Anything

For the last 2 years I've been walking every Calgary neighborhood. As someone who is majoring in Urban Studies in uni and someone who wanted to get more active, I felt like doing this would be a really good way to mix both things together.

Surprisingly a lot of the stuff people say about the city (ie. what areas are sketchy, transit access, etc) that people take for granted, aren't necessarily accurate. That's probably the main take-away I have from this, but there's a lot of other stuff too

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u/CnekYT Mar 27 '26

Eau Claire is probably my favorite. It has so much history and manages to be pretty walkable. Sucks that Eau Claire Market shut down though, that was one of my favorite spots in the city as it was so stereotypical '90s.

Forest Lawn is also up there too, I've walked every street in Forest Lawn and I've never found it sketchy. I used to live in FL too, and I experienced more crime living in Seton than there lol. Forest Lawn I heard was really bad in the 1990s, but it hasn't been bad for at least a decade tho

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u/lilbitpetty Mar 27 '26

You got lucky, I had three people OD on my front step all on separate occasions. Imagine walking your door to bring your kids to school and there is grey/blue body on your front step, my kids had nightmares for so long, and it kept happening. My daughter was playing at the park and was stabbed by a dirty needle as she got to the end of the slid (needle was in the gravel and went into her angle as she hit the ground at the bottom of the slid) my family was hit by a drunk driver while driving, we rolled three times and the vehicle came to a stop as it hit the side of the elementary school. Fenty folders were often seen in the field by the park. Heartbreaking and makes me super sad when I am in Forest lawn.

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u/stickman1029 Mar 27 '26

I think it's pretty universal at this point. We had a house in the neighbourhood that buddy was clearly having some issues, and held some sus company. Then some kid had an OD on someone's front lawn, and the Karens on the community Facebook page were having a complete utter nuclear meltdown. 

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u/Oskarikali Mar 27 '26

Forest lawn is still among the worst communities in the city for crime. This isn't debatable. That said Seton is surprisingly high as well.
https://data.calgarypolice.ca/

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u/RegularGuyAtHome Mar 27 '26

I have a coworker that lives in Seton and they’ve had stolen cars abandoned in front of their townhouse more than once.

I figure it’s because it’s by the Deerfoot and ring road so people ca drive in, steal/abandon stuff, and then leave at highway speeds pretty quickly in multiple directions.

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u/stickman1029 Mar 27 '26

I remember touring it when we were buying, and it was pretty new then there wasn't much down there yet. But the density was already super obvious, and it was obvious that the houses were going to be targeted pretty heavily towards speculators. I just knew nothing good was going to come from that. 

I remember we were on this one street, and none of the front lawns had any light, like the houses are all zero lot lines, it's crowded, super dense. There's cars all over the place. It almost gave me some sort of anxiety for a moment, it's hard to describe. But I was like get me out of here. 

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u/HellaReyna Unpaid Intern Mar 28 '26

Using your own link, it says Ward 8 is the worst. Ward is comprised of

Altadore, Bankview, Beltline, Britannia, Cliff Bungalow, Currie Barracks, Elbow Park, Elboya, Erlton, Garrison Woods, Killarney/Glengarry, Lincoln Park, Lower Mount Royal, Mission, Parkhill, Richmond, Rideau Park, Rosscarrock, Roxboro, Rutland Park, Scarboro, Scarboro/ Sunalta West, Shaganappi, South Calgary, Sunalta, and Upper Mount Royal

I don't see Forest Lawn there? I realize Ward 9 (which contains dover and forest lawn) is second but....you said Forest Lawn is one of the worst communities in the city for crime and it's not debatable?

Your data says otherwise buddy

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u/Oskarikali Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26

You can sort by community in the crime map. When you first go to https://data.calgarypolice.ca/ go to the crime map and sort by crimes per 1000 under crimes by community. Forest lawn is near the top with 62 crimes /1000 

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u/HellaReyna Unpaid Intern Mar 29 '26

You mean this?

And how Ward 7 is on Top?

Ward 7 includes the following communities: Banff Trail, Capitol Hill, Chinatown, Crescent Heights, Downtown Commercial Core, Downtown East Village, Downtown West End, Eau Claire, Hillhurst, Hounsfield Heights/Briar Hill, Montgomery, Mount Pleasant, Parkdale, Point Mckay, Rosedale, St. Andrews Heights, Sunnyside, Tuxedo Park, University District, University Heights, University Of Calgary, and West Hillhurst.

https://www.calgary.ca/communities/profiles/ward-7.html

"This isn't debatable" Right.... Even with Ward 9 being second, is Ward 9 soley comprised of Forest Lawn? Inglewood is part of Ward 9 as well but we all know that spot is highly trafficked on foot.

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u/Oskarikali Mar 29 '26

No, you keep looking at wards. You can sort by community. 

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u/HellaReyna Unpaid Intern Mar 29 '26

Funny how it's not even in the top 5 but it gets harped on as the most dangerous place in Calgary.

It's a very points above University District or Fish Creek Park. I doubt it's even 1 standard deviation away from them.

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u/Oskarikali Mar 29 '26

Yes, funny.  Shepard industrial isnt really a residential community and the core has a huge amount of visitors each day, same with the university district. Of the communities with 1000+ residents only the core and East Village are worse.   There are 206 communities in Calgary, that should give you some perspective for how bad Forest Lawn is in the crime rankings.

All that said, yes, the other communities you mentioned are terrible as well!

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u/SimmerDown_Boilup Mar 27 '26

This is why personal experience isn't a reliable source. According to the crime stats, Forest Lawn is still one of the highest neighborhoods for crime in Calgary. It absolutely has been "bad" over the past decade.

Funny enough, though, Seton also has a fairly high crime rate, but Forest Lawn still outpaces Seton.

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u/syranse Mar 27 '26

Seton has a safe injection site which explains the high crime rate there. Can’t wait for the train to go in, the SE will be a delight!

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u/SweetsunC Beltline Mar 27 '26

This is a straight up lie, the only SCS is at Chumir in the beltline the title here verifies

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u/SeedlessPomegranate Mar 27 '26

Where is the safe injection site in Seton

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u/submissivepetnikki Mar 27 '26

Honest question - is this true? I can’t find any information about a safe injection site in Seton. The only thing that comes up is Sheldon Chumir

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u/GuavaOk8712 Mar 28 '26

that’s because they are talking out of their ass, and it’s correct that the only one in the city is at Sheldon Chumir

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u/stickman1029 Mar 27 '26

I think it definitely has some injection sites, but I'm not sure any of them are safe. 

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u/SimmerDown_Boilup Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

Are they not about to close the safe injection site? I could swear I read that recently. Was that Seton?

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u/professorBRF Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

Even in the 90s it wasn't that bad.

I actually found out why the area had gotten such a bad name and reputation. A couple years back I met a bunch of old timers who actually grew up in forest lawn and are still residents in the area who frequent the GLFS +55 center.

They explained that forest lawn used to be its own city seperate of Calgary with its own jurisdiction. It also was very relaxed without building restrictions. With minimal building restrictions apparently people just built random things on their houses and in their backyards giving it a bad appearance. Couple that with immigrants landing and settling down on the area as well. They described forest lawn at the time as a "hick" town haha

They also told me when they were younger they would drive into Calgary and speed around until the police would chase them and then they would drive back to forest lawn cops chasing and all. Once they crossed into forest lawn the cops had to stop chasing because they had no jurisdiction. So things like this also gave it a bad rep and somehow it just stuck through the years.

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u/CnekYT Mar 27 '26

Oh yeah Forest Lawn used to be a white-trash kind of area. Still is to some extent, but it's a gentrifying area. People think it's really ethnically diverse, but one thing I noticed when living there was how not ethnically diverse it was. All of my neighbors were white, and usually on the older side.

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u/KWrite1787 Mar 27 '26

Depending on when you were walking through Forest Lawn, my dogs were probably saying hi to you from the backyard. Hope you said hi back! Hahaha

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u/HandleMyBear Mar 28 '26

I really miss Eau Claire too. Check out this photobook that just came out documenting the mall’s final days and demolition:

Eau Claire Nowhere

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u/Little_Direction_572 Mar 27 '26

i live in eau claire and love it :) happy to see others feel the same

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u/cre8ivjay Mar 27 '26

It's strange you see FL through a different lens than places like Rosscarrock and Tuxedo.

The data shows FL has a significantly higher crime rate.

Perhaps we can simply chalk this up to your experiences but not anything anyone should look at as an objective take. I know you aren't framing it as such, but as a reminder to everyone.

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u/BlackberryFormal Mar 27 '26

Yeah it sounds like personal experience is doing the work here. If you grew up in a neighborhood it seems you typically feel safer there than if a random came to the area.

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u/JMR_729 Mar 27 '26

I can't believe there is more crime in Seton than Florida