Liberal (Minority/Majority) Government 2025 - ???

[Czech_pivo]

The Premier and the Mayor want to double the size of the province in 20 years. With 500K more in Halifax, making it a million person city.

Depends on economic and political factors and the actual delivery of these defence announcements but it might be possible...

Seriously?!
That’s 25,000/yr, that’s like 8-11,000 new homes in the greater HRM region per year. Can you build out the infrastructure to handle that every year?
Adding 100-150k over 20yrs would be quite the achievement.

 

[PrairieFella]

The Premier and the Mayor want to double the size of the province in 20 years. With 500K more in Halifax, making it a million person city.

Depends on economic and political factors and the actual delivery of these defence announcements but it might be possible...

Its honestly a good thing. We need to spread the population around Canada more. No reason Halifax shouldnt be Winnipeg size in 30ish years. A million seems a stretch though.

 

[Good2Golf]

Seriously?!
That’s 25,000/yr, that’s like 8-11,000 new homes in the greater HRM region per year. Can you build out the infrastructure to handle that every year?
Adding 100-150k over 20yrs would be quite the achievement.

That’s 3.5% annual growth. Is that unreasonable?

 

[daftandbarmy]

Its honestly a good thing. We need to spread the population around Canada more. No reason Halifax shouldnt be Winnipeg size in 30ish years. A million seems a stretch though.

Good luck with that

 

[PrairieFella]

Good luck with that

View attachment 101199

Yes and? Whats your point? IRCC has plenty of incentives to get people to move places. Thats how they get immigrants all the way to Yellowknife. If there's a will and jobs, there's a way.

 

[MilEME09]

Good luck with that

View attachment 101199

And if we had a modern cross country transportation network, that line would mean much. When below that line was first settled, getting to BC could take weeks, now its a 3 to 4 day drive. 3 days by train or a few hours by planes. Just imagine it if we put a high speed rail route from toronto all the way to calgary for example. Would change movement patterns quickly.

 

[Czech_pivo]

That’s 3.5% annual growth. Is that unreasonable?

That sort of growth rate would be less than Calgary's growth from 1996 - 2016 in the middle of its oil boom when it saw around 150% growth.

There are 3 modern examples in Canada of that sort of growth - Brampton, Calgary and Milton, Milton having the lowest at 30%. All 3 of those locations had 3 features that allowed them to grow that rapidly. The surrounding land to grow on as overwhelming flat, agricultural land that help facility rapid build out. All of them had access to large amounts of fresh water. All of them had soil conditions that allowed for easy of use to insert water/gas/sewer lines. In the case of both Brampton and Milton, large scale home builders were already located in the GTA, with all the workers/skills/resources already in place for rapid build out. I do don't believe that the HRM area has any of these conditions available to them.

I'm not saying that its not possible, I'm saying that the odds are stacked against them as it currently stands. Major amounts of cash is required for the needed infrastructure build out. I would love to see it happen though.

 

[dapaterson]

It's the underlying infrastructure that's key - together with intelligent land use planning. Unfortunately, water, sewers and electricity aren't sexy, so they're easily ignored or done on the cheap. The City of Ottawa, for example, was amalgamated, and at least one former suburb (Nepean) was notoriously cheap, so their electric grid is fragile and prone to failure, and even the water main failed prematurely.

(Sidebar: there are similar issues manifesting at CFBs now as well, where new construction is curtailed by the lack of service capacity.)

 

[YZT580]

That sort of growth rate would be less than Calgary's growth from 1996 - 2016 in the middle of its oil boom when it saw around 150% growth.

There are 3 modern examples in Canada of that sort of growth - Brampton, Calgary and Milton, Milton having the lowest at 30%. All 3 of those locations had 3 features that allowed them to grow that rapidly. The surrounding land to grow on as overwhelming flat, agricultural land that help facility rapid build out. All of them had access to large amounts of fresh water. All of them had soil conditions that allowed for easy of use to insert water/gas/sewer lines. In the case of both Brampton and Milton, large scale home builders were already located in the GTA, with all the workers/skills/resources already in place for rapid build out. I do don't believe that the HRM area has any of these conditions available to them.

I'm not saying that its not possible, I'm saying that the odds are stacked against them as it currently stands. Major amounts of cash is required for the needed infrastructure build out. I would love to see it happen though.

Which introduces another factor: the farmland, at least that around Brampton and Milton was at one time green belted. It was superb growing soil. If we are going to keep feeding more people we have to look at building where the land is of poor quality which is the exact opposite to where our cities are. Most of our cities are built around farming communities which of course were founded to meet the needs of farmers. Muskoka, Haliburton, north of Kingston would be better as the land there seems to grow rocks and lakes but there is no infrastructure. Perhaps maintaining our current centres as industrial cores, designing a half a dozen livable towns of around 100000 complete with proper rail links would be a better way to go. If your farmland is frozen as farmland its value will go down would be one major problem to resolve and specifying land use would certainly start a lot of arguments. Just a thought/

 

[daftandbarmy]

Yes and? Whats your point? IRCC has plenty of incentives to get people to move places. Thats how they get immigrants all the way to Yellowknife. If there's a will and jobs, there's a way.

Just that, since Louis Quatorze, those in power in Canada have been trying to figure out how to get more people 'out West'.

Initially, to establish a strength of claim to the territory they said they 'owned' and latterly for other, largely economic, reasons.

Of course, as we can see, those (many expensive) efforts have been largely futile.

 

[dapaterson]

Just that, since Louis Quatorze, those in power in Canada have been trying to figure out how to get more people 'out West'.

Initially, to establish a strength of claim to the territory they said they 'owned' and latterly for other, largely economic, reasons.

Of course, as we can see, those (many expensive) efforts have been largely futile.

Yeah, look at the kind of folks who settle in BC...

 

[Czech_pivo]

It's the underlying infrastructure that's key - together with intelligent land use planning. Unfortunately, water, sewers and electricity aren't sexy, so they're easily ignored or done on the cheap. The City of Ottawa, for example, was amalgamated, and at least one former suburb (Nepean) was notoriously cheap, so their electric grid is fragile and prone to failure, and even the water main failed prematurely.

(Sidebar: there are similar issues manifesting at CFBs now as well, where new construction is curtailed by the lack of service capacity.)

I would add that in HRM's case, being on the ocean, in today's world, means very strict pollution controls on new waste water facilities.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Seriously?!
That’s 25,000/yr, that’s like 8-11,000 new homes in the greater HRM region per year. Can you build out the infrastructure to handle that every year?
Adding 100-150k over 20yrs would be quite the achievement.

The city council, which is really just an arm of the NS NDP, want high density housing. Not single family homes.

I know a developer has proposed that my whole neighborhood of single family homes should be knocked down and all high density housing put up in their place.

But we have an issue with not building infrastructure to correspond with the growth in population.

Very much what @dapaterson says below:

It's the underlying infrastructure that's key - together with intelligent land use planning. Unfortunately, water, sewers and electricity aren't sexy, so they're easily ignored or done on the cheap. The City of Ottawa, for example, was amalgamated, and at least one former suburb (Nepean) was notoriously cheap, so their electric grid is fragile and prone to failure, and even the water main failed prematurely.

(Sidebar: there are similar issues manifesting at CFBs now as well, where new construction is curtailed by the lack of service capacity.)

 

[Good2Golf]

I would add that in HRM's case, being on the ocean, in today's world, means very strict pollution controls on new waste water facilities.

Victoria laughs in “raw-sewage-into-Pacificese.”

edit to add: “during-storm-drain-overflow…”

 

[Czech_pivo]

The city council, which is really just an arm of the NS NDP, want high density housing. Not single family homes.

I know a developer has proposed that my whole neighborhood of single family homes should be knocked down and all high density housing put up in their place.

But we have an issue with not building infrastructure to correspond with the growth in population.

Very much what @dapaterson says below:

This high density push is extreme in a number of cases.

Just a few blocks up the road from where I live in Burlington there is a proposal to fit 14% of the city of Burlington's entire population (25,000 people) at a single major intersection. The proposal calls for the removal of an entire plaza of small businesses (Sports bar, McDonald's, Mary Brown's Church, Service Canada outlet, neighhbourhood library, numerous other small businesses), as well as 2 mid-sized manufacturing buildings all to be replaced with mid-to-high rise condo's. The people in the immediate area are 100% dead against it. On 51 acres of land they want 25,000 people crammed onto it.

https://www.insauga.com/25000-people-could-move-into-revisioned-burlington-neighbourhood/

25,000 people could move into revisioned Burlington neighbourhood​

 

[Jarnhamar]

25,000 people could move into revisioned Burlington neighbourhood​

That sounds pleasant.

 

[Halifax Tar]

This high density push is extreme in a number of cases.

Just a few blocks up the road from where I live in Burlington there is a proposal to fit 14% of the city of Burlington's entire population (25,000 people) at a single major intersection. The proposal calls for the removal of an entire plaza of small businesses (Sports bar, McDonald's, Mary Brown's Church, Service Canada outlet, neighhbourhood library, numerous other small businesses), as well as 2 mid-sized manufacturing buildings all to be replaced with mid-to-high rise condo's. The people in the immediate area are 100% dead against it. On 51 acres of land they want 25,000 people crammed onto it.

https://www.insauga.com/25000-people-could-move-into-revisioned-burlington-neighbourhood/

25,000 people could move into revisioned Burlington neighbourhood​

The 15 minute city idea is not a conspiracy theory. It's a real thing.

 

[Czech_pivo]

That sounds pleasant.

Its about greed -

These will not be 3-4 bdrm condo units priced under under 650k (which around here, 3/4 bdrm is well below mkt prices). There will be 1-2 bdrm units overwhelmingly priced whatever the mkt will bear at the time of actual construction, which will be 450k for a 1bdrm 1ba. These will not be for 'family units'.

 

[Czech_pivo]

The 15 minute city idea is not a conspiracy theory. It's a real thing.

I'm well aware of the concept.

But in this case they are 'blowing up' existing small businesses to drop people into an area that has no services left because they removed what was already available.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I'm well aware of the concept.

But in this case they are 'blowing up' existing small businesses to drop people into an area that has no services left because they removed what was already available.

Doesn't sound like something I would want to be a part of.