Quote:
Originally Posted by counterfactual
First off, I don't think Halifax and Nova Scotia, should take slowing urban development trends in other NA or even Canadian cities as a necessary comparator for our own policy trajectories (ie slowing intense densification), simply because NS/Halifax-- by virtue of economic history, city policy, and a federal/provincial politics oriented towards rural NS-- has not experienced the same level of urbanization over the last half century.
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We are getting a little far from the topic of this thread, but I agree with this, and I think the idea of looking strictly at other cities with the same population to see how well Halifax is doing is problematic.
The population can go up or down depending on the level of economic development and a bunch of other factors. Had the economy better better during parts of the 20th century, Halifax would probably have turned into a city of 600,000 or 800,000 or 1 million people by 2013. The fact that it was passed by secondary towns in Ontario (that have fewer amenities because they are secondary towns) is a negative consequence of the poor economic climate in the Maritimes.
I think the more revealing thing to look at is the fact that the Maritimes have around 2 million people but no major cities and are missing a bunch of things that you can find in every other region in Canada. Unless Halifax grows, the region will continue to lose out.