Calgary

Calgary seems to me to be the quintessential, contemporary, useful city. It doesn't appear to be a tourist attraction but a city populated by the people who work and live there and as such it bustles with energy and purpose. Traffic congestion, construction, pedestrians darting between cars, parks and the essential closed off "mall" in the midst of it all. While we were there, the mall housed a farmers market (yes, a farmer's market not a junk market) selling bread, veggies, fruit, flowers etc and between the canvas canopies covering the goods, people rushed by on their way to work, eat, hang out on the patio restaurants jutting into the bustle.
There is nothing unique about Calgary unless this type of lively city is unique, one that thrives on the locals and isn't dependent on tourism. When I think of San Fran or NYC or Chicago's downtowns, the needs of tourists are so apparent. there was little of that in Calgary except for the rather ugly monstrosity of the Calgary tower jutting high above the skyline in the middle of the city.
Calgary is a relatively new city, starting as a fort in 1876 for the Canadian Mounties, serving trappers and traders through the end of the 1800's, and morphing into a town in 1894. But, it didn't really begin to grow until oil was discovered in 1902 and then everything changed. What was once a cow town became a bustling metropolitan area (and this is somewhat horribly evident when you attempt to get to Calgary's airport from the west side of the city which requires you to drive through suburb after suburb on local roads at speeds approaching someone on a bike and we weren't driving during rush hour).
Apparently, in the 1980's like cities in the United States, Calgary was hurt by the drop in oil prices, perhaps more so than many cities because of its dependence on oil. The downtown apparently declined rapidly but Calgary was able to diversify its economy in the 1990's and begin to grow again.
For the visitor, there wasn't much to do downtown if you didn't want to shop (once you visited the museum, which seemed suitable for Calgarians as much as for out of town visitors). But it was a great place to soak of the energy of a living, breathing metropolitan area (even if I could only stand if for a couple of hours).