why did saskatchewan never urbanize?

[thurmas]

Being from winnipeg I have never understood why saskatchewan (and the maritimes for that matter) never urbanize as quickly as the rest of canada. I mean half of british columbians live in Vancouver, 60% of manitobans live in Winnipeg, 2/3 of albertans live in Calgary and Edmonton. I always thought that Saskatoon and Regina should be 50-100% larger than their current sizes for a province of 1million+ people?

[CCF]

Largely based on the economy. The early part of our history our economy was largely dependent on agriculture, which is obviously rural orientated.

Our urban centres lack the manufacturing base of other cities like Edmonton, Winnipeg, etc.

[swilley]

Maybe you could do a research paper on the subject and enlighten us?

[vid]

Why hasn't Northern Ontario urbanized as well? We have almost 800,00 people and our cities are half the size of Saskatoon and Regina! (But take up almost as much land.)

Look on the bright side: Instead of only one city with a decent skyline, you've got two cities with decent skylines!

[rrskylar]

^ And your point is?

[joelpiecowye]

its vid there is never a point

jkjkjk

[vid]

Some regions (in our case, a province) just don't urbanize as much. Northern Ontario, Saskatchewan, and US states like Montana, Wyoming, or South Dakota don't have too many people or large cities because of their economy, geography or culture. Saskatchewan is much more spread out. Manitoba is quite small. While the entity of Manitoba covers a large area, the area which favours human settlement, the prairie, is only a small part of the province. Barely larger than New Brunswick. Saskatchewan on the other hand has a huge area that can be settled, and as such, it's population is more spread out than Manitoba's or Southern Ontario's. New Brunswick is similar--it's pretty evenly distributed and as a result, instead of having one city with more than half of the province's population, it has two moderately sized cities.

If Alberta didn't have oil, Calgary and Edmonton would likely also be smaller cities. Because of the mineral wealth in that province, the cities have attracted large populations.

And in terms of cities with more than 30,000 people, Saskatchewan has 4. Manitoba has 2. Saskatchewan's settled area is several times the size of Manitoba's. About 90% of that province lives in the south and southeast portions of the province. Saskatchewan is pretty much everything from the middle, down.

[Moe]

The main reason was the Settlement Act, it divided up the land into small 1/4 sections and gave it away to settlers. It was government policy to spread everything out. In fact, Regina is one of the only major cities that doesn't have a natural port or raison d'etre, it was willed into a settlement by Dewdney and the CPR. Everything about Regina has been artificially installed by people.

[Spocket]

Why didn't Saskatchewan ever urbanize to the same degree as other regions ? In a nutshell, because of Saskatchewan's neighbours.

For most of the 20th century, Winnipeg was the hub for agriculture (and in many ways it still is) so Regina and Saskatoon couldn't really get a foot in the door there. Considering that it's an agriculturally based economy, this means a lot to the potential for urbanization in Saskatchewan. Secondly, with westward expansion of settlement, both of Sask's main cities would normally have benefited from resource development further to the west. Unfortunately for Saskatchewan, Alberta struck oil and immigrants began skipping over Sask. to get to Alberta's oil party. As Calgary and Edmonton grew, Saskatoon, Regina, and even Winnipeg began to become less relevant as the population shifted. Now Alberta is the place where the decisions are made (instead of Manitoba/Winnipeg) and Saskatoon and Regina are less influential outside of Saskatchewan.

[Greco Roman]

Originally Posted by Spocket

Now Alberta is the place where the decisions are made (instead of Manitoba/Winnipeg) and Saskatoon and Regina are less influential outside of Saskatchewan.

For now. As the eastern Prairies become more dominants players and as their populations grow, this may change over time. But we'll see.

[vid]

I don't think Winnipeg is ever going to overtake either Calgary or Edmonton, and Saskatoon and Regina probably won't either. Alberta has more people than both provinces combined. Calgary has as many people as Manitoba and Edmonton has as many as Saskatchewan. You can't really compete with that.

[Spocket]

Yeah , it's certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Alberta has to run out of oil first and then something has to act as a migrant magnet in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Since big cities attract more immigrants (percentage-wise) than smaller ones , something pretty radical has to be created or discovered to lure people to Sask. and Man the same way oil did for Alberta.

Certainly things are looking up for Regina and Saskatoon (not to mention Winnipeg) but for the time being we're left with the crumbs off of Alberta's plate.

[Ruckus]

Economic factors, historically, the grass has been greener in Alberta.

If Saskatchewan plays it's cards right (utilizing the commodities boom), it could potentially see the beginning of a significant wave of "urbanization" and economic development, a wave of equal or greater proportions to which marked the early 20th century in Saskatchewan's history.

Or maybe I've read too deeply...

[CCF]

Saskatchewan's urbanization has been slow also due to the fact that we have had such an exodus of our population to Alberta.

[Nathan]

I believe before the depression hit, Saskatchewan was the 3rd most populous province in Canada. It was upwards of 800,000 back in the 20s. The depression hit VERY hard... and in my opinion, is a major reason why Saskatchewan stalled, and as a result, is a lot less urbanized. There was too big a population shift to recover from.

Saskatchewan was all agriculture at that time... There really was no manufacturing or anything of that sort to lean back on.

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by Nathan

I believe before the depression hit, Saskatchewan was the 3rd most populous province in Canada. It was upwards of 800,000 back in the 20s. The depression hit VERY hard... and in my opinion, is a major reason why Saskatchewan stalled, and as a result, is a lot less urbanized. There was too big a population shift to recover from.

Saskatchewan was all agriculture at that time... There really was no manufacturing or anything of that sort to lean back on.

Interestingly Alberta and Saskatchewan had roughly the same population until the 1940's if I am not mistaken. In 1947 oil was discovered in large quantities in Alberta and since that time Sask's population has pretty much remained static while Alberta's has tripled.

[eemy]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Being from winnipeg I have never understood why saskatchewan (and the maritimes for that matter) never urbanize as quickly as the rest of canada. I mean half of british columbians live in Vancouver, 60% of manitobans live in Winnipeg, 2/3 of albertans live in Calgary and Edmonton. I always thought that Saskatoon and Regina should be 50-100% larger than their current sizes for a province of 1million+ people?

There is an excellent series of tables from Statistics Canada showing the changing urbanization as far back as 1851.

Although the lowest of the prairie provinces, it is still higher than all the Atlantic Provinces.

Looking at the tables, there is actually an interesting story here. Alberta's rural population is the only prairie province to see a growing rural population, albeit far outpaced by its growing urban population. Manitoba's rural population has declined somewhat since 1941 (it's peak rural population); however, since 1951, there hasn't been a significant change.

Saskatchewan's peak rural population was approximately 631000 people in 1931. Since then, it has dropped to almost half that amount, to 350000 people. This is by far the most dramatic change in rural population in Canada (unless you consider BC's rural population doubling over the same period as more dramatic).

So, Saskatchewan has seen a huge shift away from rural areas; however, its urban centres failed to draw the exodus of rural dwellers. Despite the urban population doubling over the same period, the overall population has remained fairly stable at around one million since 1931.

I suspect the much larger centres of Calgary and Edmonton and to a lesser extent, Winnipeg, drew away most of the rural Saskatchewan population. It's only in recent years that we've seen the trend change. I wasn't able to find any breakdown for 2006, but I'd be interested in seeing how much of a change occurred in the rural-urban divide. As of 2008, Saskatchewan's population is approaching its 1986 population. If the rural population trend continues, the number may end up looking more like 67-33 instead of 64-36. In any case, as the scales balance out a bit between Saskatchewan and Alberta, I expect that Regina and Saskatoon will become far more competitive in attracting people, both from within Saskatchewan, and outside, and the rate of urbanization will likely increase significantly.

[The Bess]

there are some articles written on similar subjects. go to the website crerl.usask.ca/index.php

[someone123]

Based on their definition (population in centres > 1000) the older urbanization figures are totally incorrect. They have Prince Edward Island listed as being 100% rural in 1851 for example despite the fact that Charlottetown had a population of over 5,000. This is pretty significant given the fact that Toronto back then was the largest city in Ontario and still only had 20,000-30,000 inhabitants at the time. It's disappointing how StatsCan publishes such misleading statistics.

I'm not sure when those figures become reasonable, or if they even make sense today since so many people live in rural settings but either commute to cities or are employed in areas that have nothing to do with direct resource extraction, agriculture, etc.

[Andy6]

Saskatchewan is one of the most urban provinces in terms of the number of incorporated towns and cities. I think that it used to have, and may still have, more settlements than any province except Ontario and Quebec. The question here isn't about urbanization but about why Saskatchewan doesn't have a metropolis. There are a lot of reasons but one would be that the functions that would allow for big-city status were already carried out by Winnipeg, or on a larger scale still, Toronto and Montreal. It was difficult for Regina or Saskatoon, and to a lesser extent Calgary, to be anything more than regional service and/or government centers.