What do you think of this project?

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ChazYEG said:
I get what you both area saying, and I dare say I agree, while not disagreeing entirely with @thommyjo

It might be too much, saying that MOST young people leave Edmonton, but there's evidence of a lot of them doing so, which is something that we should aim to reduce as much as we can.

While I agree with @The_Cat that remote work and affordability are two things that can keep/attract people here, we need to sell it around, or it's worth nothing. Recently I've come to believe that what summarizes most of Edmonton's problems as to attracting/retaining people and businesses is that the city suffers from a severe PR problem.

Edmonton is a GREAT city, I love it here and were not for circumstances very particular about the career we both chose, me and my wife would probably spend the rest of our lives here (until retirement, then Manhattan can wait for me). We take it upon us to sell the city as the great place it is to all of our friends who want to immigrate to Canada, move inside of the country or even visit. But it seems like we're fighting an uphill battle, because most of them haven't even heard of it, or have just heard as "close to Calgary", not on its own merit. Even for people inside Canada, it's not too different. We have a few immigrant friends who've been in the country for 10, 15 years (most of their adult lives), as well as a few Canadian friends from eastern provinces, and they have NO IDEA that Edmonton is within the top 5 largest cities/metros in Canada. Hell, one of my best friends is from Ottawa, moved here for her PhD, and was shocked to learn that Edmonton is as large as Ottawa and Calgary, but didn't believe it until she got here, because in her mind, we were not too different from Halifax, or Victoria, or Saskatoon. We need need to hire a Public Relations Manager.
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It's something to work on for organizations like Edmonton Global for sure. But it's also the fault of provincial education curriculums not spending much time on civics and Canadian social statistics. Compared to the US, most Canadians don't learn much about their own country in school. Especially not about cities in their own country. Other social issues are prioritized. So most Canadians just assume that media narratives are true (e.g. Calgary is much larger than Edmonton).
 
The data seem to suggest that young people compared to the rest of Canada are not leaving the City. If anything the opposite is true. In a fast growing City (as Edmonton has historically been), it is natural for older beings lagging on the graph scale. I can remember when Winnipeg was a larger City (population-wise) as was Ottawa. Edmonton has caught up and passed them both... and now with Calgary's office deficit, Edmonton may overtake that City as well. In 1921 Edmonton joined the top 10 at #10, in 1931 it moved up to #9, in 1951 it moved up to #8, in 1956 it moved up to #6, in 1961 it moved up to #4, (all of these for population within respective City limits (e.g. if you compare the urban population of Cities themselves and not the metropolitan area surrounding the City, Edmonton is about 1/3 larger than Vancouver -- putting the big E solidly in the number 4 position behind Toronto, Montreal and just barely, Calgary. Now if you take in the metro area of Vancouver (which includes all of the jurisdictions in the Fraser River Delta, North Vancouver, etc.) then Edmonton is smaller, but also gaining quickly.
POP_orig.png
 
FWIW I graduated from the U of A less than five years ago. Now, I was never a supremely ambitious student and so I didn't always hang around those that were supremely ambitious, but I knew a lot of them from all different backgrounds--finance, comp sci, engineering, accounting, law and beyond. Scrolling through my LinkedIn, yeah there are a couple out in Calg, Van, Toronto, and the odd other location, but the brain drain hasn't been that real.

I'd say easily less than 20% are in a different city than Edmonton currently, and half of those are Calgary. Oddly, I also know a couple guys that shot for the stars out in TO/Van, and are back already in Edm.
 
The_Cat said:
Edmonton has grown to close to the provincial average, even with Covid.
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From 2016 to 2020, the City of Edmonton AND the Edmonton CMA have both grown more than the Calgary CMA, believe it or not.

2016-2020
Edmonton City % increase: 8.6
Calgary City % increase: 6.5

Edmonton CMA % increase: 7.42
Calgary CMA % increase: 7.14
 
occidentalcapital said:
It's something to work on for organizations like Edmonton Global for sure. But it's also the fault of provincial education curriculums not spending much time on civics and Canadian social statistics. Compared to the US, most Canadians don't learn much about their own country in school. Especially not about cities in their own country. Other social issues are prioritized. So most Canadians just assume that media narratives are true (e.g. Calgary is much larger than Edmonton).
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Exactly! And not only that: I've came across some people, for example, that have misconceptions about the city regarding several other things, including that it is an extremely conservative place, just as rural Alberta, or that the U of Calgary is bigger/better and is the top Uni in the province (usually from people that don't have interest in universities, in general, simply because Calgary sells their university as an asset, and rightly so. And we should do the same, considering that the U of A is consistently superior to all but 3 other Canadian universities in almost every aspect and field)., and things of the sorts. I come back to my assessment: Edmonton suffers from a severe PR problem.
 
Avenuer said:
From 2016 to 2020, the City of Edmonton AND the Edmonton CMA have both grown more than the Calgary CMA, believe it or not.

2016-2020
Edmonton City % increase: 8.6
Calgary City % increase: 6.5

Edmonton CMA % increase: 7.42
Calgary CMA % increase: 7.14
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We're closing the gap, that's for sure. And I agree with @archited that we'll probably overtake Calgary's metro as 4th largest within a decade or so (the city will be much, much harder, but that doesn't matter much, as Vancouver proves to us).
Estimates for 2021 are that Edmonton CMA will end the year with 1.491M and Calgary CMA with 1.589M, which has ben corroborated by data regarding the working age population that someone posted around (Edmonton CMA reached 1.2M recently).
I also believe we currently have more space (metaphorical) to grow, because of the "blank canvas" aspect that we have.
 
Calgary’s Metro Area is growing rapidly. Cochrane and Okotoks are over 30,000 people, and Airdrie is about 75,000.
 
For your reading pleasure -- blended from Statistics Canada and MacLeans magazine -- the 15 fastest growing Cities in Canada:
1. Airdrie, Alberta -- population 75,395 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 5.7%)
2. Milton Ontario -- population 132,508 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 5%)
3. Chestermere Alberta -- population 23,360 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 4.6%)
4. Spruce Grove, Alberta -- population 40,484 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 4.5%)
5. Beaumont, Alberta -- population 20,339 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 4.3%)
(notice 4 of the top 5 are in Alberta)
6. Bradford West Gwillimbury, Ontario -- population 41,055 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 4.2%)
7. Greater Vancouver (growth communities lumped together) -- population 18,851 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 3.9%)
8. Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta -- population 28,041 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 3.9%)
9. Mirabel, Quebec -- population 56,984 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 3.5%)
10. Langford, British Columbia -- population 39,476 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 3.4%)
11. Saint-Colomban, Quebec -- population 17,717 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 3.3%)
12. Leduc, Alberta -- population 34,100 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 3.2%)
13. Saint-Lin-Laurentides, Quebec -- population 23,213 (5-year growth rate annualized = 3.2%)
14. Winkler, Manitoba -- population 14,165 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 3.2%)
15. Steinbach, Manitoba -- population 17,797 (5-year growth rate -- annualized = 3.2%)
(of the 15 fastest growing Cities in Canada, 6 are in Alberta and of those six 4 are in the Edmonton Metropolitan region)... tell me again that the City is losing population to Toronto and Vancouver?
In fact, when Ian moves to Vancouver, he is bound to be replaced by two moving to Edmonton.
 
thommyjo said:
For being a lawyer, your lack of understanding nuance is confusing me...

Edmonton can both not be a major hub for tech and finance and lose thousands of young grads to major cities AND still have good reasons to live here and still have people stay.

But the MAJORITY of young people leave edmonton. Its just the facts. University educated people leave edmonton, especially if you remove the medical and government sectors. Tech, finance, etc leave edmonton. That was the original argument and I have no idea why people are pushing back on it haha. It shouldn't be offensive. Its just reality. And its not hating on edmonton to acknowledge it. The first step in change is seeing the need for it. Hiding ourselves from seeing the need doesn't make it go away.
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i'm not sure if it's a majority of young people that leave or not but whether it's an acual majority or not, why would that surprise anybody? of course young people leave edmonton - they leave because that's what young people do.

and they leave edmonton just like they leave high level or red deer or vancouver or toronto or london or chicago or austin...

the key isn't to keep our young people from leaving edmonton, it's:

(a) to be considered a potential destination for those young people leaving high level or red deer or vancouver or toronto or london or chicago or austin, and

(b) to be considered a potential location for those young people from elsewhere or from here when they're ready to settle so they can bring what they've been exposed to and the best practices they've learned elsewhere and apply them here.

attempting to "keep your young" is not dissimilar to eating your young and it's as likely to perpetuate mediocrity as excellence.
 
^^^^ Not to start a competition, Ian, but I have had actual living situations as follows, in order:
1. Seven miles north of Evesham, Saskatchewan on a 1 1/2 section farm (2 years plus 1/3 of a year up to age 13)
2. Edmonton -- 11 years
3. Cold Lake -- 1 year
4. Zweibrucken, Germany -- 4 years
5. Paris, France -- 8 months
6. Edmonton -- 2 years
7. Ottawa -- 2 1/2 years
8. Edmonton -- 18 years
9. North Vancouver 6 months
9. Palm Springs, SoCal -- 2 years
10. Los Angeles -- 3 years
11. Rancho Palos Verdes -- 5 years
12. Redondo Beach -- 4 years
13. Arroyo Grande -- 5 years
14. Ojai -- 11 years
and now about to split my time between 3 locations -- Temecula, Socal; Edmonton; and NYC.
From a travel perspective I have been to all ten provinces in Canada; 42 of the fifty states; every country in western Europe, the UK (in total), Mexico, and South Africa.
I have worked for one company for just under 2 years -- all of the rest of the time I have owned and operated my own companies -- an Architectural firm, a pub and dining entity, a petite women's clothing store, a home furnishing outlet, and two tech companies.

Edmonton is among the places that I have seen with the greatest potential for development and it is the next location on my radar. When I arrive there, post COVID I am going to invite every Sky-riser to a night on the town -- my treat, even though some of the youngsters will have to drink coca-cola, it will still be a blast!
 
I
archited said:
^^^^ Not to start a competition, Ian, but I have had actual living situations as follows, in order:
1. Seven miles north of Evesham, Saskatchewan on a 1 1/2 section farm (2 years plus 1/3 of a year up to age 13)
2. Edmonton -- 11 years
3. Cold Lake -- 1 year
4. Zweibrucken, Germany -- 4 years
5. Paris, France -- 8 months
6. Edmonton -- 2 years
7. Ottawa -- 2 1/2 years
8. Edmonton -- 18 years
9. North Vancouver 6 months
9. Palm Springs, SoCal -- 2 years
10. Los Angeles -- 3 years
11. Rancho Palos Verdes -- 5 years
12. Redondo Beach -- 4 years
13. Arroyo Grande -- 5 years
14. Ojai -- 11 years
and now about to split my time between 3 locations -- Temecula, Socal; Edmonton; and NYC.
From a travel perspective I have been to all ten provinces in Canada; 42 of the fifty states; every country in western Europe, the UK (in total), Mexico, and South Africa.
I have worked for one company for just under 2 years -- all of the rest of the time I have owned and operated my own companies -- an Architectural firm, a pub and dining entity, a petite women's clothing store, a home furnishing outlet, and two tech companies.

Edmonton is among the places that I have seen with the greatest potential for development and it is the next location on my radar. When I arrive there, post COVID I am going to invite every Sky-riser to a night on the town -- my treat, even though some of the youngsters will have to drink coca-cola, it will still be a blast!
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Including me?
 
kcantor said:
i'm not sure if it's a majority of young people that leave or not but whether it's an acual majority or not, why would that surprise anybody? of course young people leave edmonton - they leave because that's what young people do.

and they leave edmonton just like they leave high level or red deer or vancouver or toronto or london or chicago or austin...

the key isn't to keep our young people from leaving edmonton, it's:

(a) to be considered a potential destination for those young people leaving high level or red deer or vancouver or toronto or london or chicago or austin, and

(b) to be considered a potential location for those young people from elsewhere or from here when they're ready to settle so they can bring what they've been exposed to and the best practices they've learned elsewhere and apply them here.

attempting to "keep your young" is not dissimilar to eating your young and it's as likely to perpetuate mediocrity as excellence.
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Thank you. We are a relatively free country in terms of mobility - people can move around as they wish and do so. So, some people leave and other people come here. Some people who leave here come back and some people who come here go back or go to other places.

Short of putting up checkpoints and gates at the city limits we are not going to stop all this and I think we don't want too. I think the net movement is probably the more important part, although that will fluctuate from year to year and perhaps depending on the current economic opportunities.
 
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