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Although councillors of the day approved what Babuk describes as workable but grandiose plans for Edmonton’s growth, the scheme was derailed by the collapse of the city’s real estate market and the big population drop when money was drained away by the First World War.

“Everyone’s forgotten about it … This is something to make Edmontonians aware of the history of their own city.”

Monica Roberts of the Edmonton Heritage Council, which provided nearly $10,000 in sponsorship for the project, said the production combines three-dimensional pictures and animation with a history lecture to give people an idea of what might have been.

“These are some of the first times these images have been seen,” she said.

“There’s beautiful architectural drawings done in watercolours … You can see what the vision would have been — large pastoral manicured lawns with great classically inspired buildings on either side.”

Although the plan was never enacted, vestiges of the ideas behind it survive in such historic structures as the Hotel Macdonald, the LeMarchand Mansion and parts of the University of Alberta, said Roberts, the council’s city museum strategy manager.

The two-hour presentation has a sold-out show Friday and another show Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Fort Edmonton Park’s Capitol Theatre.

It’s part of the Retrofutures series that considers what Edmonton might be today if various historic events had happened differently.

Edmonton would probably look better had the development plan gone ahead, Babuk said.

“I think we would have had a much more beautiful city … If Edmonton keeps going on the way we are, we will look like any random city the Soviets tried to fashion out of Siberia.”

gkent@postmedia.com

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