There is a belief that borders faith among most people that the health of the local economy and growth are connected at the hip. Population growth, job growth, business growth, wealth growth, infrastructure growth. More is good and the more, the better.
Small-c conservatives, in particular, embrace this view of the world and view anyone with the nerve to question this basic tenet of the way world works with disdain. They frame their drive to accumulate personal wealth as something contributing members of society do. People who don't embrace this ethic are idiots, social parasites living off the affluence of our modern welfare state or both.
Yet Prince George's history over the past 30 years is actually a bright and shining example of a city that has not only survived but thrived with zero population growth. You wouldn't know it listening to Lyn Hall and Don Zurowski, the two mayoral candidates, at Thursday night's forum at UNBC.
Both men subscribe to growth is good and more is better. Hall would like to see the city's population grow by seven to 12 per cent in the short term while Zurowski is mirroring the goal of Heather Oland and her staff at Initiatives Prince George to get the city to 100,000 inhabitants.
The forum's moderator, Prof. Tracy Summerville from the political science department at UNBC, challenged both candidates on exactly how they plan to deliver those goals, particularly since they are the current flagbearers of any idea waved around by mayors, city councillors, local business leaders and community boosters since Miami Vice was still on the air. Neither of them could really articulate how to get there besides everyone working together but both were adamant that is the path to prosperity.
If that was truly the case, then how does one explain the incredible amount of public and private sector development over the past three decades? With the population numbers stagnant, Prince George built a university, a medical school, a hospital expansion, a cancer centre, a 6,000-seat arena, a new swimming pool, an airport expansion, a new art gallery, a new courthouse and a new police station with public dollars. Private investment, meanwhile, developed the entire Highway 16 retail corridor - Superstore, Costco, the Brookwood Plaza and up Peden Hill to Westgate. Private dollars also fuelled several new residential neighbourhoods across the city, numerous new and successful businesses and CN's inland port at the downtown railyards.
While all this was happening, the city's economy diversified to include health and education as major employers, alongside manufacturing and transportation. That diversification softened the blow as sawmills closed their doors and/or slashed staff due to the modernization of their production facilities.
In other words, the city "grew" without physically growing in population. Age and affluence fuelled that growth - the average city resident is older and wealthier than he and she was 30 years ago - but so did a better educated population that took advantage of UNBC and CNC to acquire the skills needed for good paying jobs in a healthy, diversified economy.
The growth Prince George experienced in the past 30 years may or not be sustainable, depending on how one views the demographic changes going forward. The median age of city residents can't keep aging like it has without serious repercussions, which the school district has already felt with 8,000 fewer students and the school closures that came with it. It is also foolish to expect the average wealth of city residents to continue to increase, based solely on the slippery notion that it's been doing that for the last 30 years so, of course, it's going to continue.
Zurowski even brought up Fort McMurray as a shining example of a city's growth and it went unchallenged by Hall. Fort Mac is a boomtown in all of the worst ways. Its sudden affluence and soaring population also brought rampant substance abuse, rising crime, unaffordable housing, overloaded infrastructure, unfilled jobs in the service sector, environmental damage and a host of other issues.
Growth can be good for communities but rapid growth for its own sake is not. Furthermore, Prince George's recent history has shown that there are different ways for a city to grow and evolve, ones that are deeper and more meaningful than how many people call this city home.
