"Peripheral" Ontario potential growth?

[eternallyme]

I know I have discussed this in several other threads, but I decided to bring it up in a separate forum.

Several studies in the last week (combined with the interest rate drop) show that housing and business costs in the GTA are becoming out of reach for most people. It seems to me it is unsustainable for two scenarios may develop, both bad:

1) With costs out of reach for housing and electricity, families not desiring a condo are forced beyond commuting range. They would more likely rather move to another region or another metropolitan area altogether than commute enormous distances each way to work each day. In time, that would be a big shift for jobs as well to move where things are cheaper.

2) The housing prices continue to rise rapidly, and then hit a crash. That would be catastrophic to the regional economy.

While it is likely, if the crash or outmigration is significant, a lot of the jobs and people would leave Ontario entirely (to Quebec, Western Canada or the US), at the same time many would just rather set up shop 2 to 5 hours outside of Toronto. So it begs the question, can other cities work this to their advantage and use the overpriced GTA/GGH to attract their people and jobs? If they can provide electricity cost breaks and tax breaks, that would be a huge benefit.

When I think of "peripheral" Ontario, I am thinking of the southwest (from about Woodstock westward), east (from about Trenton eastward) and near northeast (from Muskoka northward to Sudbury and North Bay), outside the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

I know I have discussed this in several other threads, but I decided to bring it up in a separate forum.

Several studies in the last week (combined with the interest rate drop) show that housing and business costs in the GTA are becoming out of reach for most people. It seems to me it is unsustainable for two scenarios may develop, both bad:

1) With costs out of reach for housing and electricity, families not desiring a condo are forced beyond commuting range. They would more likely rather move to another region or another metropolitan area altogether than commute enormous distances each way to work each day. In time, that would be a big shift for jobs as well to move where things are cheaper.

2) The housing prices continue to rise rapidly, and then hit a crash. That would be catastrophic to the regional economy.

While it is likely, if the crash or outmigration is significant, a lot of the jobs and people would leave Ontario entirely (to Quebec, Western Canada or the US), at the same time many would just rather set up shop 2 to 5 hours outside of Toronto. So it begs the question, can other cities work this to their advantage and use the overpriced GTA/GGH to attract their people and jobs? If they can provide electricity cost breaks and tax breaks, that would be a huge benefit.

When I think of "peripheral" Ontario, I am thinking of the southwest (from about Woodstock westward), east (from about Trenton eastward) and near northeast (from Muskoka northward to Sudbury and North Bay), outside the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

Many parts of Ontario would welcome the opportunity to bring in employees and companies moving out of the GTA. Nearly stagnant cities like London, Kingston, and Sudbury would kill for the kind of growth that the GTA has had in recent years. Toronto has sucked so much talent and money out of the rest of Ontario, it would be a welcome change for the rest of us who have companies that can't hold onto good talent that keeps moving to Toronto, or those of us who want to advance in our careers but absolutely do not want to live in the GTA (myself included). There's definitely a big marketing opportunity for many of these municipalities.

Unfortunately, municipalities in some parts of Ontario don't work together on regional issues, and try too hard to compete with each other on things that are mutually beneficial to both municipalities. London is currently involved in a dispute with neighbouring Thames Centre over that municipality trying to attract new industrial growth, and these kinds of disputes benefit no one as the new developments get delayed and potential employers move on to greener pastures.

[1overcosc]

Not to mention the total failure of some of the peripheral cities to leverage their often strong assets. The most glaring examples I can think of are Kingston's & London's failure to leverage their prominent universities into economic growth like what K-W did.

[1overcosc]

In terms of this sort of 'high cost in the centre driving business & people out to the periphery' scenario, from what I've heard this is happening in Israel where high costs in the Tel Aviv core area are driving growth in the more underdeveloped Galilee & Negev regions, although from what I gather this is deliberately encouraged by government policy. I wonder if there's anywhere else in the world where this is happening, this sort of economic decentralization is rare.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Not to mention the total failure of some of the peripheral cities to leverage their often strong assets. The most glaring examples I can think of are Kingston's & London's failure to leverage their prominent universities into economic growth like what K-W did.

Last I heard, 97% of Queen's graduates leave Kingston after graduation. Kingston's city council and the people of Kingston would rather continue to foster the "us versus them" attitude between the university and the rest of the city, which does not help. I can't speak for every university in Canada, but the lousy attitude Kingston residents have towards Queen's is nothing short of astonishing compared to some other university cities I've lived in, including London.

If it weren't for St. Lawrence College, Kingston would have zero young talent available to local employers. The province made a great decision to develop community colleges in cities throughout the province 50 years ago.

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Not to mention the total failure of some of the peripheral cities to leverage their often strong assets. The most glaring examples I can think of are Kingston's & London's failure to leverage their prominent universities into economic growth like what K-W did.

I'm not sure they aren't trying. It's just that ideas like Open Text or Blackberry don't come around everyday.

[eternallyme]

Any such move would need to be led by employers to move their offices away. Some other positives they would encounter by relocating 2 to 5 hours from Toronto:

* In many of these municipalities, taxes are lower. If they are willing to subsidize or give breaks on hydro, it adds an even greater advantage, especially for lower-tech industries.

* Cost of living is often much lower, especially on housing and land costs, which have become exorbitantly expensive in the GTA.

* We may all love the Places to Grow Act, but these distant areas have more liberal land policies, which may be attractive to them too.

* In most cases, they don't have anywhere near the congestion of the GTA.

[1overcosc]

The GTA has high prices for a reason though, precisely because so many businesses & people want to live there. If prices started to drive people out, then the prices would naturally drop making any peripheral boom short lived. Economics 101.

[Beedok]

Considering the slow growth rates in the Niagara Region and other parts of the southern GGHS I think it will be a while before growth spreads out to a substantial level.

[swimmer_spe]

Lets look at all of the cities of northern Ontario:
Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Sault St. Marie, North Bay and Timmins.

They all have rail lines connecting to the rest of the country.
They all have major highways going to them, some are even 4 laned.
They all have tons of land to build on.

They all have housing prices that are much more affordable. A half million dollar house up here is on a lake!

[vid]

Thunder Bay has a plane to Toronto every hour, or so, seven days a week. 6am to 11pm.

Thunder Bay's Neebing neighbourhood has a bus every 65 minutes, or so, for six days a week. 7am to 9pm.

I'm better connected to Toronto than Neebing.

Ignoring the fact that I can drive to Neebing in 10 minutes...

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

Last I heard, 97% of Queen's graduates leave Kingston after graduation. Kingston's city council and the people of Kingston would rather continue to foster the "us versus them" attitude between the university and the rest of the city, which does not help. I can't speak for every university in Canada, but the lousy attitude Kingston residents have towards Queen's is nothing short of astonishing compared to some other university cities I've lived in, including London.

If it weren't for St. Lawrence College, Kingston would have zero young talent available to local employers. The province made a great decision to develop community colleges in cities throughout the province 50 years ago.

wow, worse than London? That is saying a lot.

I passed through downtown Kingston a few weeks ago, and I was very impressed. Much, much nicer than the downtown in far larger (3x) London. Very few of our grads stay local...one year, I heard that absolutely fucking zero IVEY MBA grads stayed in the city. Of course, we have no Bay Street.

[1overcosc]

Kingston does have a trickle of Queen's students who remain after graduation. It's not a high number, but it's a number.. I believe I've heard its at least few hundred per year. Interestingly, a disproportionately high number of prominent Kingstonians (almost always including at least 3 of our 12 city councillors), are retained Queen's students from out of town.

The number would be much higher if the city had the opportunity available to them. There is a push from both the university and the city to facilitate student startups in Kingston. A number have succeeded.. for example, Ravenous, a video game company.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

wow, worse than London? That is saying a lot.

The Homecoming riot of 2008 at Queen's gave the school a black eye in its community relations that it has never fully recovered from. Of course, London had the same issue with Fanshawe College in 2012, but at least Fanshawe has a strong contingent of graduates in the city who will defend the school. Queen's doesn't have that kind of local support.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I passed through downtown Kingston a few weeks ago, and I was very impressed. Much, much nicer than the downtown in far larger (3x) London. Very few of our grads stay local...one year, I heard that absolutely fucking zero IVEY MBA grads stayed in the city. Of course, we have no Bay Street.

London has Dundas & Richmond instead.