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It’s taken some time to recover, and I’m sure I’m not alone, at least in the northern half of the province, from that tough game seven a few weeks ago. We’ll say that’s why a new piece hasn’t come out. As much as it hurts, getting your life back from the anxiety and excitement of playoff hockey takes some time, and it is nice not to have that hanging over your head. At least for another few months until it all starts again.
I also plan to return to a more proper newsletter format in the fall. Until then, things might be a bit more haphazard. It is too damn hot to think enough to write anything profound right now, anyway.
The last post was about how Alberta is purpose-built for the summer road trip.
There are many reasons why. Space, though, is at the top. Alberta is big, and that provides the ultimate driving condition. You can really open it up at times if you want to.
As Albertans, we tend to take space for granted. Most of us live in urban centres, so we may not realize just how much empty space there is in the province. Alberta may be the only province with significant population density beyond 100km from the U.S. border (just imagine the line you can draw by looking at this map below), but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some pretty big, empty spaces.
Nature abhors a vacuum, but as the province grows it isn’t the empty parts that are filling up. Part of this is good. It would be painful to see good farmland eaten up by cities. But not doing so is contributing to a housing affordability problem that, while less acute in Alberta compared to other provinces, isn’t getting better. Failing to fill that open space also contributes to affordability by concentrating population in a few major centres, which draw in more people and resources from smaller communities, creating even more space.
I’ve talked before about having to spread out our population growth beyond the Edmonton and Calgary regions if our growth is going to be sustainable. With the province looking to add 10 million people by 2050, that is becoming a more pressing issue. Of course, you can’t force people to live somewhere. But what you can do is provide incentives, from tax breaks to just highlighting those areas outside the QEII corridor in future Alberta is Calling campaigns.
Hopefully, as equilibrium is found between remote work and in-office time, more and more of these smaller communities will become more attractive to people—not just for affordability reasons but because smaller communities come with their own appeal, from community closeness to just being able to do things a bit different; variety is the spice of life.
Humanity naturally looks to fill up space. Even in places where it may not make sense to set up shop and build a life.
So maybe there’s no need for governments to do anything (except keep making the places attractive by running things well), and these places will naturally fill up as our province grows. Incentives, good governance, and strong local economies providing many and varied services will help. But the natural way of life will also play a pretty big part.
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