Through my volunteering at the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues, I obtained a copy of a book that talks about the concept of community leagues and its impact in Edmonton, named Edmonton’s Urban Villages, written by Ron Kuban. This is a review of the book.

A Comprehensive and Digestible Overview of this City’s History

A city that existed for over a hundred years has a fairly lengthy history, one that would have pretty decent documentation as well. It is safe to say that the volume of information can be overwhelming, particularly for someone like myself who doesn’t describe themselves as a ‘history buff’. What I appreciate about this book is in its pages, combined with narrations, photos obtained from archives of the organization and from the city, the book is a neatly organized overview of the city’s history that is easy to read.

I have heard about how the city evolved, how it expanded and merged with neighbouring towns, how roadways are planned and utilities are managed, how recessions and wars impacted the economy and day-to-day living. Though other events or forms of media, I learned about the different social, political and economic eras that our city had, and I appreciated how it was presented in the book.

Community Leagues and EFCL had been an incubator of many initiatives that flourished into independent organizations. When I encounter city-wide organizations that focus on a particular activity, like soccer or hockey, I am now more likely to probe on whether this is something that the community league movement had initiated on a neighbourhood level.

Familiar Names and Places Given Deeper Context and Appreciation

People whose names I see in street signs, news articles, historical videos and hall of fame galleries popped up numerous times in all the book’s pages, which for me is quite delightful. As I personally never had a formal class about Edmonton’s history, opportunities like this book, which is a light read, is a chance to understand who, when and what happened at certain times. Some of the names in the book were individuals I have met in person recently, and it’s incredible to witness what they have accomplished in decades past, that is impactful enough to be documented in such a fashion.

From war veterans to business owners, from politicians to women to broke the glass ceiling in their own right, witnessing how they did their part to make an impact at a local level (the neighbourhood level) is valuable in knowing why our city works the way it is now. The events were not always pleasant, and even the people were far from perfect. The chapters talked about differing views, burnout, conflict, and missed opportunities to work together, but there seems to always be a positive turn of events afterwards.

Motivation for Greater Involvement in the Community

My community involvement has a slightly selfish goal, to address my level of disconnectedness from not being born-and-raised here. At the same time, I feel deep meaning in making a contribution of my time and energy to the community at large. My personal involvement with community leagues is fairly recent, just when we moved to our house about five years ago. Learning about the concept of community leagues, an idea that originated in the US that had a Canadian and Edmonton-based modifications to it is quite remarkable.

I understand and appreciate better the idea that there are different levels of involvement: from the volunteer who comes at events to help set up and take down the furniture at the hall, the volunteer who tracks the mail for the organization and pays the utilities, the one who helps with fundraising and financial grant applications, the big-picture people who helps with decisions and bylaws, and more. The book repeatedly talked about the “unnamed volunteers”, thousands of them, that are the real heroes of this movement. I hope to do the same in my own way.

100th Anniversary of the Featured Organization

2021 is a significant year, as it is the 100th anniversary of the organization featured in the book, the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues. There has been some projects that are in progress to memorialize this milestone. Discovering this book could not have come at a better time. An update of this book as it written in 2005, is a great idea for sure, since the past 15 years had made a lot of changes in Edmonton and how people and communities function.