Quote:
Originally Posted by josh_cat_eyes
I think let’s start with Rothesay & Quispamsis amalgamating. As for the idea that Saint John is justified to be enormous because HRM is enormous. That’s ridiculous, Halifax shouldn’t even be that big. No city should be that big and include that much rural area!
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Only amalgamating Rothesay and Quispamsis together would be some seriously low hanging fruit, and really wouldn't change much. Also amalgamating to become a "town" with over 30,000 people would be even more ridiculous than the situation at the moment, where Rothesay and Quispamsis are suburbs or bedroom communities of Saint John that are masquerading as towns of their own.
It's not Rothesay or Quispamsis that have systemic issues of economic inequality and disparities between their communities. It's
Saint John that has the issue with the KV suburbs and other "towns by the bay" not paying their fair share towards a regional budget. The whole point of amalgamating is to bring about fairness and representation in the entire region by creating a municipality with a single budget, that funds multiple, distinct communities within the Regional Municipality.
In the Halifax Regional Municipality, the
city's borders are actually pretty small, I think even smaller than Saint John's actually, with far less rural areas. It's the Halifax Regional Municipality that is geographically huge, not the
city of Halifax.
The
city of Saint John's borders could actually shrink after amalgamation, while the overarching regional municipality's borders could cover close to the entirety of the CMA.
No city in Canada should have outlying suburbs composing close to 50% of the CMA's population that aren't funding close to 50% of a
regional budget. However, that's exactly what is happening here in the Saint John Region... not only are the "towns by the bay" not funding their fair share of the a regional budget, their residents have embedded themselves into positions of power and influence within the region and even within Saint John City Hall itself.
All cities have suburbs, but here in the Saint John Region,
the suburbs have a city. I'd like to think it's possible for this reality to change one day.
I see regional amalgamation as the best long term solution for solving systemic regional issues, and the best solution for bringing about greater cooperation between the city and surrounding communities.