Calgary as the next Detroit

[lio45]

Originally Posted by speedog

TIL that Toronto, Vancouver and maybe Montreal and Halifax are suburbs of Calgary.

I think you need to re-read more carefully the post of mine you had originally replied to, if you don't agree that my answers are the most likely main destinations for "fleeing Calgarians" in a post-oil Canada (that's what your question was, after all).

[wave46]

Detroit is very much an outlier in urban decay. It had a series of events occur that is unlikely to happen in a Canadian city.

To wit:
- extensive labor-intensive auto manufacturing industry that relocated to the suburbs (and other states) leaving a huge hole in the employment market
- inability of certain segments of society to relocate with the jobs that were moved
- the riots of 1967/68, which helped encourage whites to move to the suburbs
- the suburbs of Detroit are not part of the city proper - when the residents and industry fled, they took tax revenue with them. This started a vicious cycle of cuts to city services, increases in crime and departures of residents.

Canadian cities tend to lack the race element, are better integrated with their suburbs and I don't think there's anything like the long, hot summers of 1967/68 the US faced.

As for Calgary itself, while the oil/gas industry does provide a fair amount of employment, it is the headquarters of CPR, Shaw, Telus and Westjet, among other notable companies. It has a greater economic diversity than most people give it credit for.

I stand by my comparison to Houston/Dallas, at least in a Canadian sense. Yes, those US cities are more diversified overall, but Calgary occupies the same niche in the Canadian context as they do in the US. They're the home of large energy producers and suffer economically when oil prices are low (albeit less than they used to in the 1980s).

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lio45

Thing is, there are generally two types of use for petroleum products: the type that can't be recycled but can be replaced by renewable energy, and the type that can't be replaced by renewable energy but can be recycled.

Pretty much. It's quite realistic to envision a medium-term future with very little petroleum extraction.. and in such a future, high-cost oil like what Canada has (unconventional crude + first world labour costs) won't be well suited to compete for the tiny market that remains.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

https://futurism.com/scientists-plan...usion-by-2030/

As of 2017, scientists at ITER in France and the National Ignition Facility in the US have not been able to produce a net positive amount of energy in fusion reactions.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/informa...ion-power.aspx

While maybe a potential source of energy in our lifetimes, I wouldn't bet on it yet. In the 1950s, nuclear power was to be the wave of the future, but we're still (mostly) generating electricity with coal/natural gas and hydroelectricity.

[ue]

Nuclear (fission) was big in the '50s. But then Three Mile Island and Chernobyl happened and now developed countries are leery of investing further into nuclear and are even decommissioning plants.

I only know a cursory amount about nuclear fusion, but are meltdowns a major concern? I know the radioactive materials in fusion do decay quicker somehow, if that makes a difference.

Originally Posted by wave46

Detroit is very much an outlier in urban decay. It had a series of events occur that is unlikely to happen in a Canadian city.

To wit:
- extensive labor-intensive auto manufacturing industry that relocated to the suburbs (and other states) leaving a huge hole in the employment market
- inability of certain segments of society to relocate with the jobs that were moved
- the riots of 1967/68, which helped encourage whites to move to the suburbs
- the suburbs of Detroit are not part of the city proper - when the residents and industry fled, they took tax revenue with them. This started a vicious cycle of cuts to city services, increases in crime and departures of residents.

Canadian cities tend to lack the race element, are better integrated with their suburbs and I don't think there's anything like the long, hot summers of 1967/68 the US faced.

As for Calgary itself, while the oil/gas industry does provide a fair amount of employment, it is the headquarters of CPR, Shaw, Telus and Westjet, among other notable companies. It has a greater economic diversity than most people give it credit for.

I stand by my comparison to Houston/Dallas, at least in a Canadian sense. Yes, those US cities are more diversified overall, but Calgary occupies the same niche in the Canadian context as they do in the US. They're the home of large energy producers and suffer economically when oil prices are low (albeit less than they used to in the 1980s).

Telus is based in Vancouver.

[ssiguy]

This is absurd.

Detroit's car industry was booming in the 50s and 60s when car ownership rates were going thru the roof and GM, Ford, Chrysler, and AMC had 95% of the market. Despite this, Detroit was already a shrinking city.

In 1950 Detroit peaked at about 1.87 million and has declined every single year since that time to it's current 675k. Even by 1970 the population had plunged by over 300k from it's peak. The decline has been so massive that 2015 was the first year since the Civil War that Detroit was no longer one the 20 largest cities in the country.

As noted from others, Detroit's decline began due to "white flight" and the race riots of the 1960s. The whites left taking their wealth, spending power, and tax base with them leaving Detroit ever more poorer and blacker leading to plunging government services, poverty, violence, and unemployment and this just built upon itself and continued for decades until Detroit could no longer sustain itself and hence it's recent bankruptcy. Not surprisingly Detroit's black population went from 16% in 1950 to 82% today.

Detroit's scandalous corruption and civic government incompetence helped add flame to the fire. Calgary is a polar opposite. Calgary has a low crime rate, tied with Ottawa as the most highly educated population in the country, excellent urban infrastructure, probably Canada's most competent civic government, strong immigration, a high level of social cohesion, Canada's youngest population, a strong work ethic, and a "can-do" attitude when it comes to business.

Throughout the booms and busts that typify a commodity based eonomy, Calgary has perservered and always come back. The big booms may be fewer and smaller but Calgary's future is fr brighter than many Canadian cities.

[Spocket]

Depends on what you mean by being like Detroit.

It's unlikely you'll get the same sort of social situations that arose in Detroit. Nevertheless, Calgary is very likely going to see a decline of some sort once oil and gas reduces its relevancy to nothing.

People talk about how diversified Calgary's economy is but really it's oil and gas that underpin the whole thing. It's got a strong high tech sector and financial as well so it's unlikely that the place would just empty out overnight or anything. Nevertheless, it's the seat of the provincial economy more so than Edmonton. In fact, in the case of an oil and gasless economy, mostly I expect Edmonton to benefit. The economy, in the end, is what makes Calgary such a great place and without the key it's difficult to say how dramatic the effect would be on Calgary.

Calgary has done a lot to diversify its economy and with continuing headway a total collapse of the oil and gas industry in Alberta could be mitigated. We all know it's coming (assuming we don't nuke the planet before then) and time is running out but we should expect stagnation rather than any sort of flight out of Calgary.

One thing that people have trouble with is accepting that a city's fortunes can change dramatically in a very short period of time. It happens all the time and I'm sure few of us need to think that hard about once-boomtowns that went bust forever. Long time residents of any city will be the toughest people to convince because it represents such a shock to their own world.

In any case, I'm not saying that Calgary is going to empty out any time soon. It's still the largest city on the prairies and that alone makes it economically attractive. Nevertheless, in a country where the economy is so resource driven, unless there's some viable alternative to oil and gas, there's little reason to think that Calgary won't be impacted heavily by a collapse in that industry.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by wave46

If I had to compare Calgary to an analogous US city, I'd suggest Dallas-Fort Worth or Houston.

Dallas would be great. By some measures, it is now the second largest US corporate center. It moved on from cotton, ranching and oil by enacting extremely attractive tax and regulatory regimes, mostly in the 90's.

[Blitz]

Detroit's decline was more fueled by race and crime as opposed to job losses in manufacturing. The 1967 riots in Detroit were especially devastating for the city. Today, people are still fleeing from the city to its inner-ring suburbs but it's not because of manufacturing job losses, it's because of the condition of the neighbourhoods (and especially the schools) in the city. Overall, the metro population is stable.

There is no way the same thing could happen in Calgary or any other Canadian city because no city in Canada has those same issues. Yes, Windsor becomes stagnant during downturns in the auto industry (i.e. 2008) but it's not like we have to worry about white flight or violent crime. It's more of a boom-bust kind of thing and right now Windsor's economy is booming.

[Marshal]

What hell-child brought this thread to life?

Vancouver will eventually depopulate and as sea levels rise, it will become the next Kampala. An occurrence that involves no sense at all.

[balletomane]

Originally Posted by Spocket

Depends on what you mean by being like Detroit.

It's unlikely you'll get the same sort of social situations that arose in Detroit. Nevertheless, Calgary is very likely going to see a decline of some sort once oil and gas reduces its relevancy to nothing.

People talk about how diversified Calgary's economy is but really it's oil and gas that underpin the whole thing. It's got a strong high tech sector and financial as well so it's unlikely that the place would just empty out overnight or anything. Nevertheless, it's the seat of the provincial economy more so than Edmonton. In fact, in the case of an oil and gasless economy, mostly I expect Edmonton to benefit. The economy, in the end, is what makes Calgary such a great place and without the key it's difficult to say how dramatic the effect would be on Calgary.

Calgary has done a lot to diversify its economy and with continuing headway a total collapse of the oil and gas industry in Alberta could be mitigated. We all know it's coming (assuming we don't nuke the planet before then) and time is running out but we should expect stagnation rather than any sort of flight out of Calgary.

One thing that people have trouble with is accepting that a city's fortunes can change dramatically in a very short period of time. It happens all the time and I'm sure few of us need to think that hard about once-boomtowns that went bust forever. Long time residents of any city will be the toughest people to convince because it represents such a shock to their own world.

In any case, I'm not saying that Calgary is going to empty out any time soon. It's still the largest city on the prairies and that alone makes it economically attractive. Nevertheless, in a country where the economy is so resource driven, unless there's some viable alternative to oil and gas, there's little reason to think that Calgary won't be impacted heavily by a collapse in that industry.

This is what I believe as well, in all the new, shiny office towers built in Downtown Calgary in the past decade, I'm sure at least half of them are anchored by oil and gas companies, Cenovus, Husky, Suncor, Shell, you name it. Even if oil remains important for the next century, it won't be the primate player in the energy sector, and that is going to really start changing in the next two decades.

If we were to say what were the top two factors that caused Detroit's decline, it would probably be the weakening auto sector (unable to keep up with the competition, another potential threat to Calgary oil and gas industry) and the race tensions/social dynamics of that city. This is why I was also saying that Winnipeg could be at a "boiling point" in some respects, are we "Canada's Most Racist City" as MacLean's says, if you can quantify it maybe, but it is an issue, probably more than Canadians would expect or like to admit.

A weakening economy might be Calgary's issue in the coming decades, but at least it doesn't have the stark race tensions that Detroit had. Winnipeg arguably does have those race tensions, where its apparent mainly in inner city neighborhoods, but its saving grace is a stable economy.

[balletomane]

Originally Posted by Marshal

What hell-child brought this thread to life?

Vancouver will eventually depopulate and as sea levels rise, it will become the next Kampala. An occurrence that involves no sense at all.

Sorry...

[flar]

Why was this locked? I like this thread.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

This is absurd.

Detroit's car industry was booming in the 50s and 60s when car ownership rates were going thru the roof and GM, Ford, Chrysler, and AMC had 95% of the market. Despite this, Detroit was already a shrinking city.

In 1950 Detroit peaked at about 1.87 million and has declined every single year since that time to it's current 675k. Even by 1970 the population had plunged by over 300k from it's peak. The decline has been so massive that 2015 was the first year since the Civil War that Detroit was no longer one the 20 largest cities in the country.

As noted from others, Detroit's decline began due to "white flight" and the race riots of the 1960s. The whites left taking their wealth, spending power, and tax base with them leaving Detroit ever more poorer and blacker leading to plunging government services, poverty, violence, and unemployment and this just built upon itself and continued for decades until Detroit could no longer sustain itself and hence it's recent bankruptcy. Not surprisingly Detroit's black population went from 16% in 1950 to 82% today.

Correct. As I pointed out, for this thread to make sense, you really have to look at Metro Detroit and Metro Calgary, not the municipalities themselves; the former's economy only started to lose steam, relatively speaking, in the 1970s and 1980s as the Big Three's issues with the UAW and burgeoning Japanese competition started to combine to cause problems.

The white flight and hollowing out of the core is an entirely unrelated phenomenon, which took place decades earlier (that fact alone should drive home the point that they're unrelated!)

[lio45]

Originally Posted by balletomane

This is why I was also saying that Winnipeg could be at a "boiling point" in some respects, are we "Canada's Most Racist City" as MacLean's says, if you can quantify it maybe, but it is an issue, probably more than Canadians would expect or like to admit.

A weakening economy might be Calgary's issue in the coming decades, but at least it doesn't have the stark race tensions that Detroit had. Winnipeg arguably does have those race tensions, where its apparent mainly in inner city neighborhoods, but its saving grace is a stable economy.

Are there even enough aboriginals out there for Winnipeg to conceivably be ~85% aboriginal within city limits in the foreseeable future...? I really wouldn't think so, at first sight.

[geotag277]

I'm curious if in the more than half century since Detroit became "America's Detroit", if in that time there is any other possible city in the world that can probably be called "the next Detroit"? Anyone?

Personally I don't think Calgary has the national importance, the gravitas, the standing, or the stature to become "the next Detroit", because it was never as important as Detroit, or as symbolic as Detroit, in the first place. Calgary is a relatively small city, with relatively small city problems, and will continue to exist in that frame of reference. None of the problems that Calgary has overlap with Detroit in any way shape or form, outside of the problems that ALL cities have, with one industry going through boom and bust cycles.

As far as I can tell, this "Calgary is the next Detroit" talk was started by some two bit writer for the Huffington Post, and it somehow has captured the national attention such that arm chair commentators from across the country who have never stepped foot here feel empowered to share their two cents in an authoritative manner. It may pass muster as water cooler chat, but under scrutiny, the intellectual level of commentary surrounding the topic might be better suited to dissecting a Real Housewives episode.

As a Calgarian, at most I can say we are flattered in the way that people like to talk about us, but I am starting to realize how people from Montreal feel with people from the rest of Canada feeling the need to chime in regarding their own city's history and current affairs. Ignorance repeated in an echo chamber, with people patting themselves on the back for their contributions.

[mistercorporate]

Originally Posted by lio45

Are there even enough aboriginals out there for Winnipeg to conceivably be ~85% aboriginal within city limits in the foreseeable future...? I really wouldn't think so, at first sight.

I can see it now, triggered by non-organic banock and muktuk sold in stores, the First Nations of Winnipeg riot, forcing the white people to huddle for safety in Walmart stores in the suburbs! Downtown suddenly becomes 90% native, where increasing brutalization caused by watching endless reruns of Riders games creates a new era of criminality and decline. Oskaweewee!!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by geotag277

None of the problems that Calgary has overlap with Detroit in any way shape or form, outside of the problems that ALL cities have, with one industry going through boom and bust cycles.

Oil isn't exactly something we can safely say will continue to have boom cycles, though. It is likely to bust and then stay there, just like what happened to most farrier / horseshoe maker businesses when the automobile arrived, or what happened to Blockbuster video rental stores when the internet started to let people watch movies.

There's a pretty big difference between knowing there'll be boom/bust cycles in the future, vs a resource that basically ceases to exist.


P.S. I'm in agreement with you on the rest.

[balletomane]

Originally Posted by lio45

Are there even enough aboriginals out there for Winnipeg to conceivably be ~85% aboriginal within city limits in the foreseeable future...? I really wouldn't think so, at first sight.

No, not within the current City limits. Winnipeg's population is over 10% Aboriginal and are growing much faster than the city average. Of that 10%+, over half would be living in the inner city neighborhoods that comprise the Former City of Winnipeg (North End, West End, River Heights, Downtown and Elmwood), which is akin to the City of Detroit in its urban area.
This area is significantly poorer than the rest, and the inequality is growing. I think the fact that demonstrates this contrast most starkly is that the life expectancy in the inner city neighborhoods is close to two decades less than the non inner city neighborhoods in some cases.
I'm not trying to paint an ugly picture if Winnipeg, the city, at least to the suburbanites and to the young professionals moving downtown is improving. But for those disadvantaged groups, not so much.

[balletomane]

One other thing to consider in Winnipeg's case is that the crime rates are not even comparable to American cities unless the former city limits are used. But, by Canadian standards the city's reputation is like that of Detroit's in the United States. Consider that recent poll by Mainstreet, where Canadians were polled and believed Winnipeg to still be the most unsafe city in Canada. Perception plays a major role in a city's longterm success.

https://www.scribd.com/document/3213...ity#from_embed