One Million Stars ...
Tonight is the night. In about 5 minutes, the one-millionth Calgarian will be welcomed into this world at one of our three hospitals (three hospitals for one million people? Don't get me started ....)
When I arrived in 1994, Calgary had a mere 750,000. That was a nice size. I liked it back then. Oh, and we had one more hospital then too (but it was blown up - by the Government .... really ...) I heard on the news that from April 2005 to April 2006 alone, 35,000 people moved to Calgary. That's a small town. Heck, isn't that the population of PEI??? Would someone please check to see if anyone is left on that island?? Or did they vote everyone off? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
So I suppose it's no wonder there's a housing boom on - housing is a precious commodity in a high demand market. Officials are actually warning people not to come to Calgary unless you have both a job AND accommodation in place. Wow. So this is a boom economy.
And still we need more infrastructure - you know roads and overpasses and all that (not hospitals, that would make too much sense.) Calgary continues to gobble up vast areas of land surrounding it. Development, expanse and growth are the norm. More, more, better, better.
Shame my bank account isn't expanding at the same rate. Methinks I really don't understand booms at all.
When I arrived in 1994, Calgary had a mere 750,000. That was a nice size. I liked it back then. Oh, and we had one more hospital then too (but it was blown up - by the Government .... really ...) I heard on the news that from April 2005 to April 2006 alone, 35,000 people moved to Calgary. That's a small town. Heck, isn't that the population of PEI??? Would someone please check to see if anyone is left on that island?? Or did they vote everyone off? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
So I suppose it's no wonder there's a housing boom on - housing is a precious commodity in a high demand market. Officials are actually warning people not to come to Calgary unless you have both a job AND accommodation in place. Wow. So this is a boom economy.
And still we need more infrastructure - you know roads and overpasses and all that (not hospitals, that would make too much sense.) Calgary continues to gobble up vast areas of land surrounding it. Development, expanse and growth are the norm. More, more, better, better.
Shame my bank account isn't expanding at the same rate. Methinks I really don't understand booms at all.
Comments
I do a considerable amount of driving in and around Calgary and I tend to notice things like the differences between the communities. Each one has its own identity and feel. Driving through Kensington has a whole different feel than driving through Forest Lawn... (I won't go into why...) So when I go driving, I travel from "town to town" as opposed to "across the city of a million people".
...and there DOES seem to be a vast influx of folks from the East... maybe Calgary has some kind of attraction right now, but it reminds me of a time several years ago when I was applying for my Radio Broadcast course. I had to write a paper on the affect of Digital Audio Broadcasting on the Broadcasting industry. The bottom line was it would be really cool to get feeds from far and wide, but sooner or later folks would miss that "local flavour", and would return to a want for a "real and local" personality. I think the same will happen with people and where they want to live. Eventually the boom will have come and gone, and people will spread back out to smaller communities to get away from the craziness of city life.
Nothing lasts forever - except maybe one's mortgage.
Oops. I forgot. We don't have those in Canada, do we?