CALGARY—Everyone knows where the nearest walk-in clinic in their neighbourhood is. Or where the best coffee shop and shawarma joint is. But what about the hidden elements that are not so common knowledge?

Crescent Heights Community Association created an interactive community asset map to help residents learn about their community.

“Crescent Heights has actually preserved its history and a lot of it is untouched,” Kevin Jesuino, community engagement co-ordinator of the association, said.

“Now it’s about resurfacing that stuff and making those historical spots and landmarks more prominent and communicate those to our residents and to the rest of Calgary.”

It started on a paper map of the area during a few place-making sessions that the Crescent Heights Community Association hosted this spring.

“We rolled out an analog version of this map and started asking the participants of these workshops to start listing off secret spaces, green spaces, non-profits, business,” Jesuino said.

Richard Lee-Thai, a summer student at the community association, took all the points on the printed map and digitized it.

“It’s trying to capture how each community has its own unique identity,” Lee-Thai said.

He said he worked closely with a local historian who dug up light on the community's past to add more information to the locations.

One of the dental offices plotted on the map, used to be a public library and before that, a dine and dance. Another location is a parking lot that used to be a fire station.

Lee-Thai said it’s not just the typical things you’d expect to see on a map, like restaurants, doctor's offices and parks, but also creative displays on people’s front lawns.

“One of the residents have these little tiny fairy doors and they have a mini tea party that’s going on in their backyard,” he said. “If you just look very closely there’s this gathering of fairies and gnomes that are having a tea party.”

Lee-Thai said he’d take weekly walks with one woman who’d lived in the area for years and she would point out things to include in the map.

“One of the walks she took me to this back alley where there’s this old wooden barn...it used to be owned by a city of Calgary employee back in the day and it housed horses which plowed the side of the centre street.”

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There’s a lot of things you’d miss out on, if you didn’t know they were there Jesuino explained.

“Like I don’t know a lot of people knew we had a Michael Jackson tribute plaque in our community,” he said.

The map has been a hit on social media, with other community organizations considering starting similar projects. On Twitter Coun. Druh Farrell called the project a “fantastic idea.”

During a phone interview on Friday, Farrell said these projects rejuvenate a community.

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“I think that just because of the release of that cool little map that other communities are continuing with idea,” said Farrell.

“There are so many delightful things in neighbourhoods that you don’t really see until you pound the pavement.”

The map on the community associations website includes a Google form for the public to add their own suggestions and changes to the map.

“I created the infrastructure for this to exist but from now on I really do want residents to take ownership of it,” said Lee-Thai. “Because ultimately its representation of what their community is.”

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