Boomtowns and busts around B.C. As rural areas decline, B.C. has become the most urba

[SpongeG]

Boomtowns and busts around B.C.
As rural areas decline, B.C. has become the most urban province in Canada
We think of ourselves as living in a province of forests and fish, mines and ranches, with towns and cities to match.

But we're really city and suburban people surrounded by mostly empty mountains, according to the census snapshot from Statistics Canada.

B.C., which has broken the four-million mark in population, is the most urban province in the country, according to the 2006 census statistics released Tuesday.

Only 15 per cent of its population now lives in rural areas, and residents are draining steadily away from the former thriving resource towns of the northwestern B.C. and the central coast.

The province has grown by 5.3 per cent, thanks mainly to immigrants from outside Canada, since B.C. has the lowest birthrate in the country.

However, those immigrants, along with younger people from the declining northern towns, are going almost exclusively to B.C.'s growing urban regions, with places like Kelowna and Abbotsford among the fastest-growing cities in the country.

The result is that most of the people in this huge province are increasingly shoehorned into a few valleys along major highways: The Greater Vancouver region, which has now gone over the two-million mark, the Central Okanagan, and the Vancouver Island east coast from Victoria to Nanaimo.

The Yamashitas of Terrace see that story played out in their family.

Their ancestors came to B.C. at the turn of the century, settling in Port Essington near Prince Rupert with other Japanese immigrants to fish the Skeena River.

Tosh Yamashita, a child of the post-war generation, worked in Terrace as a planner for the past 25 years.

Now, his three boys, all in their 20s, are living in the Vancouver region: Jason is studying law; Kasel is working at a lumberyard; and Kory, the youngest, is finishing his engineering degree.

Only Kory plans to return, wanting to live where the traffic and house prices are reasonable and where he knows everyone in town.

But he's an anomaly, says his brother.

"People don't go back because there's no jobs there. The pulp mill is suffering, the sawmill is closed," says Jason, now 28. "The vast majority of my graduating class is in Prince George, Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto."

That's a story being told throughout the north, with Kitimat, Prince Rupert, Quesnel, Terrace and Williams Lake showing the biggest population losses of all mid-size cities in Canada.

University of B.C. geography professor David Ley says that north-south divide in B.C. is the most striking story in the statistics.

"This is quite a novel demographic moment," said Ley, noting that cities have seen striking changes, with Prince Rupert losing 12 per cent of its population and Kelowna gaining 10 per cent.

"These are big numbers in a very short time. It does tell a tale about job loss in the resource industry. There's quite an inequality between the two regions."

One area of northern B.C. that is bucking the trend is the northeast corner, where population grew slightly because of jobs in the oil industry. That likely helped, in part, reverse the trend that showed up in the 2001 census, which saw B.C. losing population to other parts of the country.

This time, B.C. went back to its traditional pattern of attracting people from other provinces.

The trend of population movement toward cities is prevalent across Canada.

Canada's six largest cities -- Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary and Edmonton -- are home to 14.1 million people, or 45 per cent of the total population.

Just over two-thirds (68 per cent) of the population lives in Canada's 33 census metropolitan areas.

But B.C. is slightly more urbanized than the national trend, with 85.4 per cent of people living in urban areas here compared to an 80-per-cent average for the country.

That's likely due to the province's geography, economic context and its immigration pattern, experts suggest.

B.C. is more dependent on overseas immigrants than any other part of the country, says Ryan Berlin, an analyst with the Urban Futures Institute.

"We're not seeing immigrant families going straight to Kitimat," said Berlin. Instead, they are clustering in particular sectors of the Lower Mainland.

Statistics Canada noted that "between 2001 and 2006, an average of 25,000 immigrants a year settled in the Vancouver area. Because of international immigration, Vancouver continued to experience a higher population growth rate than the provincial average in the 2001 to 2006 period (6.5 per cent versus 5.3 per cent)."

As well, B.C.'s mountains produce a different population distribution.

People here aren't spread out on the kind of farmland that southern Ontario or the Prairies have.

"We are seeing all the growth being concentrated along the Trans-Canada Highway corridor and the Island Highway," says Berlin.

Finally, rural cities and towns have always been more dependent on the fluctuations of the resource industry, rising and falling with the ups and downs of mining, forestry, fish and oil.

The northeast sector is booming now. "But if oil falls back down to $30 a barrel, there'll be an exodus," said Berlin.

The Greater Vancouver region saw 6.5-per-cent growth, lower than in Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, but higher than the national average.

Its growth was uneven, however, with suburbs like Port Moody and Surrey gaining population at Calgary-like rates, while others -- Delta, West Vancouver, Langley city, Coquitlam, and North Vancouver -- showed little or no growth.

Like the province, its growth is shaped by its geography and transportation lines.

"The urban spread in Vancouver is uniquely influenced by our terrain and the SkyTrain and West Coast Express," said Jerry Page, the director for Statistics Canada's western region.

B.C. GAINERS

Biggest gainers in actual population

2006 2001 Change % change

Surrey 394,976 347,820 47,156 13.6%

Vancouver 578,041 545,671 32,370 5.9%

Kelowna 106,707 96,288 10,419 10.8%

Richmond 174,461 164,345 10,116 6.2%

Burnaby 202,799 193,954 8,845 4.6%

Abbotsford 123,864 115,494 8,370 7.2%

Langley 93,726 86,896 6,830 7.9%

Chilliwack 69,217 62,567 6,650 10.6%

Maple Ridge 68,949 63,169 5,780 9.2%

Nanaimo 78,692 73,000 5,692 7.8%

B.C. DECLINERS

Biggest decliners in actual population

2006 2001 Change % change

Prince Rupert 12,815 14,643 -1,828 -12.5%

Prince George 70,981 72,406 -1,425 -2.0%

Kitimat 8,987 10,285 -1,298 -12.6%

Terrace 11,320 12,109 -789 -6.5%

Port Hardy 3,822 4,574 -752 -16.4%

Quesnel 9,326 10,044 -718 -7.1%

Mackenzie 4,539 5,206 -667 -12.8%

Fort St. James 1,355 1,927 -572 -29.7%

Lillooet 2,324 2,741 -417 -15.2%

Houston 3,163 3,577 -414 -11.6%

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/n...9065d7&k=32890

[weezerfaninfreddy]

The stat numbers have been under debate in Prince George as many can't believe that our population is still dropping. BC stats has indicated that the population has been increasing, their appears to be a lot more economic activity and housing starts have turned the corner. This could just be a demographic issue or perhaps the outflow of people between 2001 and 2004 was more than one thought.

[Jarrod]

^ Yeah, i keep on hearing that PG is growing a lot too.

It's sad, my hometown used to be over 16,000 people now it's 12, 815

[Hot Rod]

the numbers for Vancouver and Metro seem low balled to me.

[Lee_Haber8]

Originally Posted by Jarrod

^ Yeah, i keep on hearing that PG is growing a lot too.

It's sad, my hometown used to be over 16,000 people now it's 12, 815

That should change with Prince Rupert becoming a major cargo port

[raggedy13]

^I'm really interested in seeing how the port affects the region.

[subdude]

Census numbers tell a discouraging tale for NDP-held ridings

Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, March 17, 2007

VICTORIA - The latest population figures for B.C. hit some New Democratic party members of the legislature where they live -- quite literally.

Charlie Wyse, Opposition member for Cariboo South, led off a series of comments the day after Statistics Canada put out the current census snapshot.

"This government is doing nothing to encourage families to stay in our communities or to settle there in the first place," Wyse complained.

His riding includes Williams Lake, which recorded a 3.7-per-cent drop in population between 2001 and 2006, according to the census. It's also home to Clinton (-8.4 per cent), Ashcroft (-8.3), and Cache Creek (-1.8).

Next on his feet was Bob Simpson, from the neighbouring riding of Cariboo North.

The big centre in his community, Quesnel, saw a 7.1-per-cent population decline over the five years and, as Simpson underscored, there's good reason to fear the trend will continue.

The forest industry, mainstay employer for many Interior communities, is under siege from the pine beetle infestation.

"In my community, the annual allowable cut right now is 5.3 million cubic metres," he advised the house. "The council of forest industries says it may go down as low as less than 500,000 cubic metres." The largest of 10 mills in his riding consumes three times as much wood as that all by itself, Simpson noted.

Then it was Robin Austin, whose Skeena riding includes both Kitimat (-12.6) and Terrace (-6.5).

He rattled off a string of government-induced service reductions and office closures, all of them depriving his communities of "valuable jobs that we needed most."

Harry Lali picked up the theme in the next day's question period. He sought a government-appointed facilitator to help Lillooet (-15.2), one of several troubled communities in his Yale-Lillooet constituency. Others are Lytton (-26.3), Merritt (-1.3), and Logan Lake (-1.1).

The responses from the government side were about what you'd expect. Booming economy. Record low unemployment. Opposition interested only in government jobs, not private sector ones.

Plus some communities may not be as deprived as the federal numbers suggest. The provincial statistical agency paints a brighter picture of Prince George, as that city's Citizen newspaper reported this week.

StatsCan has the city population declining by two per cent between 2001 and 2006. BC Stats says no, it grew by the same percentage.

The difference -- about 7,000 people -- was attributed to different statistical methods, census filings by people who neglected to say where they lived, and other factors.

But presuming the undercount (or overcount) is evenly distributed across the province, the census figures nevertheless suggest that there are more declining communities represented by New Democrats than by B.C. Liberals.

North Coast MLA Gary Coons has Stewart (-25), Port Clements (-14.7) Prince Rupert (-12.5), Port Edward (-12.4) and Queen Charlotte City (-9.3).

For New Democrat Claire Trevena, her North Island constituency includes Tahsis (-39), Port Alice (-27.1), Port Hardy (-16.4), Zeballos (-15.6), Sayward (-10), Port McNeill (-7.0) and Alert Bay (-4.6).

Norm Macdonald, Columbia River-Revelstoke: Canal Flats (-7.2), Golden (-5.2), Kimberley (-5.3) and Revelstoke (-3.6).

Katrine Conroy, West Kootenay-Boundary: Rossland (-10.1), Greenwood (-6.2), Montrose (-5.2), Trail (-4.5), Castlegar (-4.3) and Midway (-2.7).

Corky Evans, Nelson-Creston: Silverton (-16.7), Nakusp (-10.2), Salmo (-10.1) and Slocan (-6.5).

Scott Fraser, Alberni-Qualicum: Ucluelet (-4.6) and Port Alberni (-1.1).

By comparison, ridings held by the B.C. Liberals included a smaller number -- about half as many -- of communities recording a population decline.

Most were confined to the home ground of just three government backbenchers: Bill Bennett (East Kootenay), Dennis MacKay (Bulkley Valley-Stikine) and John Rustad (Prince George-Omineca.)

Many (though certainly not all) of the fastest-growing communities were in Liberal ridings.

Communities that are doing well are more inclined to vote for the government. Those feeling left out of the boom will lean toward the Opposition.

But the distribution of growing and declining communities could have consequences for future elections.

An independent commission is already drawing up a new set of constituency boundaries to recognize the changes in provincial population.

It has already identified the areas that were most likely to gain representation and those that were most likely to lose it, based on preliminary census data.

Eight of the 10 fastest-growing constituencies are currently represented by B.C. Liberals. Six of the 10 slow-growth ones are in the NDP column.

The latest census figures, reinforcing the earlier trend, point to more potential gains from electoral redistribution for the Liberals than for the NDP.

vpalmer@direct.ca