Humming with an eclectic, urban vibe, Calgary's inner-city community of Connaught attracts a variety of residents, from millennials to empty nesters. The community brims with multi-family housing, tree-lined parks, community vegetable gardens, purpose-built dog playgrounds, and a variety of unique restaurant and retail offerings. As an added bonus, many of these businesses, such as Kalamata Grocery and Analog Coffee, are spearheaded by local entrepreneurs.

"There is just this huge appeal – there are the parks and the trees and you are also in the thick of it. It's a real community where there is something for everyone," said Connaught resident Patricia Insole.

A year-long pilot project designed to ramp up safety in the downtown core winds to a close at the end of 2020, but its effects might be long lasting.

The vibrancy of Calgary's downtown office market is a good indicator of the health of the city's economy, and since the oil price collapse that started in the latter half of 2014, they've both been struggling.

Five-month-old baby James gurgles and smiles sweetly as he poses for a photo in his living room on the 26th floor of the Guardian residential tower. The downtown skyline full of skyscrapers serves as the backdrop, the streets bursting with life far below.

No, this isn't New York, Paris or even Toronto, where it is common for families to live in inner-city apartments. James lives in Calgary, a city where families rarely seek out the downtown lifestyle.

Dear Santa,

I know you're pretty busy these days getting ready for your epic journey. You must receive millions of letters. I can't imagine how time-consuming it is for you, but if you have a chance, please read mine.

Marina and Gavin Reeves returned to the core to recapture their inner-city lifestyle

Marina and Gavin Reeves are busy, young professionals – she's an engineer and he's an accountant. Four years ago, they sold their condo in Connaught and moved to the northeast area of Highland Park, where they purchased a larger home, but they soon realized it wasn't the lifestyle fit that they were looking for. The couple ended up coming full-circle, as their lifestyle epiphany spurred a search for a townhome in the city's core. They wanted a home with outdoor space for their two dogs that was also close to transit, coffee shops and the inner-city action. Plus, it had to be big enough to grow into, as the couple plans to start a family in the near future. They found what they were looking for at Grosvenor Americas' Avenue project, located in Calgary's Downtown West End.

The suburban commercial real estate market has mostly avoided the high vacancy rates seen downtown, but levels are creeping upwards in suburban malls

The economic downturn of the past two years has had a widespread impact on Calgary's retail sector with businesses in the core particularly hard hit.

Two years of a recession in 2015 and 2016 have taken their toll as thousands of people in the city's central business district were victims of layoffs in the oil patch, which takes up the vast majority of space in the downtown office market.

With thousands of potential customers gone, retail stores and restaurants have felt the pinch.

The exterior of one of Calgary's most storied buildings is on its way to earning a historic designation protecting it from demolition.

In the Alberta Gazette — a Government of Alberta newspaper - notice was given that Minister of Culture Heather Klimchuk intends to make an order that the Barron Building on Eighth Avenue SW be designated a Provincial Historic Resource.