The City of Calgary’s Centre City Plan may create an unintended disincentive to diversity, to the distribution of vital social services, and to continuing widely accepted social virtues, according to a preliminary study released October 20, 2010 by Cardus.

This is Calgary City Soul Phase 1: Inventory of Physical Worship Space in Calgary’s City Centre, an audit report conducted over the summer of 2010. Cardus analyzed the physical infrastructure that supports the work of faith communities in the area defined by the Centre City plan—25 spaces devoted to worship, mostly Christian churches and one Buddhist Temple. There are no synagogues, mosques, Latter Day Saints, Sikh or Hindu temples currently within the civic core.

Calgary’s Centre City Plan is designed to provide room and services for 40,000 additional residents in the civic core in the years ahead. If the plan makes no reference to the need for continued growth of the faith institutions in the Centre City, what will flourishing in the future be like?

This report is the first phase of a multi-phase undertaking titled Calgary City Soul. Watch www.cardus.ca for more.