Leaving municipal identity to Chance

Seems Edmonton is doing pretty well on our quest to score a sweet spot on the new Canadian Monopoly board. How ’bout that?

The online vote, sponsored by game maker Hasbro, has been running for the last three weeks. In that time, our fair city has rocketed through the ranks from the lowest rung, with which our the cellar-dwelling Oilers are so well acquainted, to a respectable sixth place. This comes evidently on the heels of a Get-out-of-Jail-free-themed costumed publicity stunt orchestrated by city paragon Michael Phair, though I’m sure that those no-good #yeg Twitterati had something to do with it as well.

But regardless of who passes go when the poll closes on Sunday, the question that no one this side of the Henday seems to be asking is really, should anybody really care?

At its simplest, this ploy is just another straw-grasping effort for Edmontonians to validate their existence as a notable city on a Canadian map, where we’re always between the lines of fame and fortune. We’ve seen it with our long-gone claim to fame for having the world’s biggest mall. We’ve seen it with the budget-busting Grand Prix that everyone pretends to attend, but no one really cares about. I can’t even remember the last time the “City of Champions” moniker was relevant — and I’m pretty sure it’s got nothing to do with that big tornado everyone keeps talking about.

At best, “winning” this contest will gain us 15 minutes of fame while Torontonians turn up their noses and insist that they’re the only Canadian city that really matters. At worst, it’ll be even tackier than that — open public ballots like this rarely hold much merit or legitimacy, after all. In that case, this’ll put our city right up there alongside Ryan Malcolm or Rex Goudie. Who? Exactly.

If the city really wanted to strut its stuff, it’d be pursuing avenues of entertainment more lucrative than a Monopoly board. If sticking with board games is a must, Ticket to Ride: Edmonton seems like a profitable venture at first glance, but the fun factor would take a severe dip when railroad construction inevitably takes a back seat to the bureaucratic mini-game, “Keep Off Tony Caterina’s Lawn.”

I did hear that a custom edition of Sim City was in development for Edmonton; it was canned, however, when they couldn’t resolve the issue of the Civic Advisor’s permanent alert status, scolding the player for forgetting to build schools in Ellerslie.

And where’s my copy of Grant Theft Auto: Oil City, wherein a working class Ukrainian immigrant must lie, cheat, and steal his way through the seedy underbelly of Edmonton — cutting drug deals with the Katz empire, setting up laundering operations and business fronts with the help of Paranych real estate, and eventually landing in the middle of an all-out gang war when the Pocklingtons return to town to find that a new thug has been rolling in on their turf.

The point is, landing our city’s name on a Monopoly board that no one will buy (if not for ironic or re-gifting purposes) really isn’t as illustrious as some are making it out to be. Sure, it’s a fun novelty, but so is bidding for the Universiade, and we all remember how well that turned out. If T-O, Van-City, or our Stetson-wearing neighbours to the south land better properties than Edmonton, Canucks from coast to coast won’t think any less of us than they already do. Fabricating civic pride has burned us in the past, and digging deep into the Community Chest in a folly like this is no classier than spending a night in a Baltic Avenue economy suite.