Coupla late comments (you can imagine who I'm directing them towards):
1. I've lived in a stagnant city. No growth, no new development, nothing new at all. It STINKS. Change is good, period. Embrace it, because the alternative quite frankly SUCKS. Stability is only good when you're 75 and new things scare you.
2. Most people moving to Alberta ARE NOT low-wage, can't afford the housing oilrig workers. Does anyone seriously think tens of thousands are coming here each month and working at Tim's? With the average house pushing HALF A MILLION dollars, that's a heck of a lot of well-paid people moving here. We moved here for the change, for the excitement, for the money - but we definitely didn't come to work some piddly no-pay job and not be able to afford anything. If anything, the people "left behind", that find property values and other expenses just ridiculous - those are the folks who already lived here, and haven't ridden the boom.
You don't get 100,000+ people moving in a year to somewhere they cannot afford it. How else do you explain the rapidly escalating property values? People are paying these mortgages somehow!