According Statscan the population of NS is shrinking, which is not news. But, what is news is that this is actually all that bad or something to be reversed. Our province has the second HIGHEST population density in Canada at 17.4 people per square km, behind only PEI (tiny speck of a province 24.7). Why politicians and anyone would think we could jump start the province’s economy with land (i.e. provincial) resources are out of their mathematical/economic mind. This is just one of the reasons why things are expensive here – 17.4 population density and no opportunity for land environmental exploitation (which, really does pay big bucks). Ocean – of course, belongs to the feds.
You know who does have room for growth?
Alberta (5.7 people/km^2) and Saskatchewan (1.8 people/km^2) and the northern territories – tons of unexploited SPACE, tons of land area and low human population densities. These places have room to grow be it in terms of environmental exploitation or just pure human population growth. A leveling off in here at home because of population/economic carrying capacity should not surprise us. That’s the price of living in a small province, in a young country. You don’t grow when there’s no room to grow. But, you know what you can do – relax! And be content that you live in a province with a small land mass that is relatively stable for the moment. —Loving the assymptote – hating the “G” word.
This article appears in Sep 26 – Oct 2, 2013.
“no opportunity for land environmental exploitation” – Whaaat the fuck? NS is ripe with undeveloped land and natural resources. We’re certainly not taking advantage of the majority of them, as a province, but they’re still there.
Compare our population density to any European Union country. Go ahead, pick any EU country, there’s only one country in the union with a lower population density than NS. And they don’t seem to be throwing in the towel on the development and expansion fight.
so who benefits from ‘growth’? certainly not our planet. we don’t need growth, we need a vigorous pandemic.
Or, you know, we know we have a lack of space and don’t want to exploit it willy-nilly or without foresight since once it’s fucked, it’s fucked.
Even the populous areas of Alberta suck to live in, Fort Mac’s a shithole, Edmonton’s nothing but a grid of grey blocks. If it was that fantastic to live in shit flat prairie nowhere with the ability to support a population, we would’ve clogged it up already.