[Trevor3]

Acres Consulting out of Toronto did a large multi-phase development plan for Stephenville in 1967. It covered everything from which industries to pursue to how streets should be landscaped, crazy amount of depth, and the vast majority is still relevant today. One of the most interesting sections was that on population growth. The conservative estimate was 18,000 people by 1986, while the high end was 34,000 by the same year. Even more impressive is that we outpaced the high end estimate for a few years in the 1970s and nearly reached the 1986 estimate ten years ahead of schedule.

Then global markets shifted and Canada began to lose its advantage in manufacturing, which was the kingpin in our growth. Acres is the reason we have a neighbourhood called Area 13, they divided the town in 20 areas to identify different needs. Area 14 is actually the mall/middle school, not the new housing development on Gallant Street Ext.

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I'd expect to see a few places on the prairies that are good examples of micro cities, such as Beausejour. The big difference with prairie towns is that there is a different ratio of city residents to outlying residents than we have. Newfoundland is built along coastlines with regional service centres every so often. Towns here tend to rely on broader population bases than what are within their borders, but Beausejour will probably be more self-reliant. Stephenville needs the 30,000 people in the region, but Beausejour can probably get by on it's own.