There are two sets of numbers about Prince George that don't seem to add up - population and housing starts.
Prince George's population story, as told by Statistics Canada and B.C. Stats, are of a city in gradual decline. The population is slowly decreasing and rapidly getting older. The working-age population remained flat between the 2006 and 2011 census periods, while the 65-plus population increased by nearly 25 per cent and the school-age population declined by six per cent.
Those trends seem to be continuing, based on enrolment numbers from the school district and the surging demand for seniors housing and health care.
Yet with little overall population growth, fewer children and more seniors, housing starts somehow continue to grow in Prince George.
By the end of June, there were 81 new single-family homes in Prince George and area so far, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation numbers, up from 53 starts by the same point last year. There were 66 multiple-family unit starts in the first six months of the year in Prince George, compared to just five by the same point last year.
Looking further back shows Prince George home builders continuing to be busy, despite the population numbers and challenging economic times.
There were 1,775 new single-family homes built in Prince George in the last decade. Add that to 446 multi-family unit starts in the same time period for a grand total of 2,221 new homes without a corresponding increase in population.
A similar phenomenon has been seen across the country.
Last week, Ben Rabidoux fretted in the Globe and Mail about how Canada's working-age population wasn't growing yet two new houses were going up for every new person being added to that demographic.
What's going on, in Prince George and across Canada, is a collision of various social and economic factors.
There is plenty of statistical and anecdotal evidence to show the decrease in the number of occupants per household, fuelled by empty-nester couples, divorcees, widows and widowers on one demographic side and a growing number of permanent bachelors and bachelorettes, combined with modern couples having fewer or no children at all, on the other, younger side.
Factor in low and stable interest rates that have been in place for years with little change. Cheap borrowing has allowed young buyers to get into home ownership, even in red-hot markets like Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary, while allowing longtime owners to move up into new, big and modern places designed more for entertaining than child-rearing.
There are some additional factors at play in Prince George.
Previous generations of local retirees made a beeline for the Okanagan and the Island as soon as their pensions kicked in. Today, they are staying, thanks to a full-service airport, a regional hospital, a medical program, a cancer centre, and increased social, cultural and retail amenities.
Meanwhile, previous generations of young people who fled to Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton for work and school are now staying behind in growing numbers, kept here by a university, a college, cheap housing (in their parents' basement or on their own) and an active social and cultural scene.
Furthermore, there seems to be a surge in the number of young people who left who are making their way home, put off by the costs, travel time, crowds, lack of easy access to nature and open spaces, noise, sprawl, isolation and loneliness that comes with urban life.
Finally, add in an increasing segment of part-time residents - snowbirds who spent the winter in the American Southwest and transient workers who use Prince George as a home base but earn their living in work camps, other cities and even distant countries. Not only are there fewer people in Prince George homes, they are spending much less time in those homes.
Observers like Rabidoux are worried about a housing bubble and an impending collapse in prices and starts.
That should certainly be a concern nationally but less so in Prince George, where home construction is still nowhere near as brisk as it was eight years ago and it's half of what it was in the early 1990s.
The only problem is the current scenario can't last forever. Continued home construction activity in Prince George can't continue indefinitely without the support of population growth.
At some point, the numbers have to start adding up.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
