In the late 1960s, residents of Kimberley, British Columbia, knew they needed to diversify the local economy, which at the time was focused on mining.
But when you’re a small town that’s not on the main highway, you have to create reasons to get people to visit it.
“We needed a reason for people to want to take the alternative route on the highway,” said Marie Stang, who runs the Kimberley Heritage Museum.
“Just being a simple, nice little town wasn’t enough.”
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Today the city is famous for its ski hills, mountain biking and leisure opportunities. But at its heart is the town square, which residents voted to create more than 50 years ago, by turning lively Spokane Street into a pedestrian-only shopping area.
This was part of the branding of the community as the Bavarian city of the Rocky Mountains – branding that is almost non-existent today.
But the shopping area – known as Platzl, with intersecting cobbled alleys winding through the city center – is still a key part of what makes the city welcoming and one of the hallmarks that helped Kimberly win the best kid a city in British Columbia in a brace-style competition held by the CBC in recent weeks.
“Platzl’s passability encourages our visitors to mingle with residents,” said Kimberly Mayor Don McCormick.
Marie Stang, administrator of the Kimberley Heritage Museum, stands next to a handmade replica of Platzl on display at the museum. (Brendan Coulter / CBC)
Unusual tourist strategy
Platzl – the word for “square” or “town square” in the Bavarian dialect of German – remains Kimberley’s largest business center, including cheese, chocolate and candy shops along with restaurants and a ski and bicycle shop, some of which are still have Bavarian architecture and décor.
Although the creation of pedestrian zones was something that happened in some larger cities in the 1970s, it was rarely initiated in smaller cities, according to David Montaine, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Calgary.
“[Kimberley] it can be unique in terms of the scale of the city, “he said.
The city’s efforts to diversify became much more urgent when the Sullivan mine, once the world’s largest lead-zinc mine and the city’s largest employer, was decommissioned in 2001.
Two thousand workers were fired from the mine and the city received $ 2 million in annual tax revenue, according to documents from Natural Resources Canada.
That has left the city’s business community devastated, said Matt Lamb, president of the Kimberley Chamber of Commerce.
“You would see a lot of vacancies [in the Platzl],” he said.
Tourism is developing
But the community’s foresight to diversify has paid off, with tourist arrivals doubling in almost a decade, from 68,000 in 2011 to 128,000 in 2021.
“We saw a complete turnaround,” Lamb said. “The whole tone of the city has changed.”
Although the city does not track revenue generated by Platzl alone, tourism will generate $ 38.2 million in 2021, much of it generated by companies in the pedestrian-friendly center.
Sandy James, a city planner and founder of Walk Metro Vancouver, said ski hills like Kimberly and Whistler, which have adopted car-free centers, have shown the economic benefits of building a shopping center focused on walking.
“What we’ve learned is that if you make a street for people to walk, people walk on it,” she said.
“We are looking at the 20th century and it was a car city … but we need to stay physically fit and attached to the communities.”
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