Is it time for the Northeast Avalon to become a Regional Municipality like Halifax?
The a-word (amalgamation) is still very much a dirty word on the Northeast Avalon, which - as you can see - is home to fully half of our province's 10 largest municipalities (St. John's, Mount Pearl, Conception Bay South, Paradise, and Torbay):
In my opinion, the fact the City of St. John's and its suburbs are separate communities is having an extremely negative impact.
Each suburban city and town is rushing to cash in on our construction/population boom by erecting as many cookie cutter subdivisions of single-family, detached homes as they possibly can.
We are, as far as regional and urban planning goes, clearly in a race to the bottom.
Do you share this view?
If so, what do you feel would be an appropriate solution?
I'm especially curious if you believe we should follow Halifax's lead.
For the most part, I think we should. While a Regional Municipality is not perfect, it clearly leads to more regional cooperation and better regional planning than we have been able thus far to achieve here.
However, I think calling it the HRM instead of the City of Halifax was an unnecessary compromise meant to appease the unreasonable. I would still want ours to be called the City of St. John's, comprised of Wards.
What do you think?