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Originally Posted by someone123
What does "foundation of the regional boom" even mean?
There is a lot of irrational exuberance in St. John's lately. It has had some good years, but that doesn't mean that other places have been doing badly. I think Newfoundland and New Brunswick still have about the same GDP. Newfoundland is nowhere near the GDP of all the Maritime provinces combined. Many of the predictions for GDP growth in 2012 actually have Newfoundland below Nova Scotia because of declining production in one of the offshore projects. More generally, a lot of excitement seems to come from GDP figures, but GDP isn't necessarily a great indicator of money in the local economy, particularly when you are talking about a small province dominated by some major energy companies that are likely taking profits somewhere else.
At the end of the day with a retailer like IKEA they look at the number of people who can reasonably be expected to visit a store and how much money those shoppers have to spend. As we can see from the statistics, there are about twice as many shoppers in the Halifax area and the incomes around the same so we can expect there to be about twice as much money. The true gap is larger than that because within about an hour of a store in Halifax there would be more population than there is in all of Newfoundland and Labrador. This is why the Halifax area has a wider diversity of retailers than anywhere else in the region.
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I don't think it's irrational at all. Our economy is great and we, as a city, are doing exceptionally well for ourselves - every week the papers have a story or two about ho we're leading Canada in this way or that.
We have one of the most beautiful cities in the country, by far, and the largest and best-preserved old town core and commercial district east of Quebec. We have the largest university east of Quebec City, a world-famous entertainment district, our own distinct culture, dialect, history, traditions, identity...
There seems to be this misconception in Halifax that it is, beyond compare, the best city in every category in Atlantic Canada. Or that it's closer to, say, Toronto than to Moncton. It's not. Pointing that out, even with objective facts, seems to not go over well. And then if you get into the subjective ("I don't think Halifax is a very pretty city"), it gets even worse. There seems to be a Halifax attitude, especially as it relates to St. John's, that's instantly recognizable. I've mentioned before, for example, that I've lived in most provinces between here and Manitoba and Halifax is the only city where people ever said Newfie jokes with obvious cruel intentions; the only place where it was very clear from their tone that they didn't expect me to laugh but were just being mean.
There's lots of
OMG we're OBVIOUSLY the BEST in St. John's as well but not to the same degree. My guess is we're not used to being No. 1 so we're less inclined to be unable to accept it.
So, yes, Halifax is a bigger city, it's going to have more exclusive chains. Lots of people from the Maritimes will go there to shop. That's all great for the whole of Atlantic Canada. But it's not as though we're suffering. We've got a great little city. And it's doing very well, punching far above its weight right now. And we're thrilled about it. It's not irrational at all.