[beyeas]

Wasn't sure where to put John's article, but I thought here was as a good a thread as any:

DeMONT: There’s a sense of confidence in the air
John DeMont (jdemont@herald.ca)

I’ve been reading the grim stuff about our prospects — that our population is old, our skill sets passé, our future woeful unless something dramatic happens — for so long that I almost missed the good news late last week: that, even if we’re not flourishing Ontario, vigorous Alberta or booming B.C., more folks than ever in history have found reason to make their homes between Freeport and Bay St. Lawrence.

Like our premier who tweeted breathlessly about those Statistics Canada population figures being “another positive sign that brings optimism for our future,” I felt like doing the chicken dance, like jumping up and chest bumping total strangers.

Even if, let’s be honest, close to half of that increase — from over 909,000 in 2013 to nearly 951,000 as of right now — is from people moving into Halifax, the province’s standalone city state where the living is said to be easy.


Now I’ve spent the majority of my working life right here. After all of this time I feel like I know Halifax about as well as a person can know a place.

But I do concede that there is also something to seeing a thing with fresh eyes, to being away from somewhere long enough that the changes that the years have brought are obvious.

My suspicion is that Halifax isn’t just the biggest it has ever been, but that it is also the best it has ever been, with caveats, in my lifetime.

But I fear that I may be too close to the story. So I decided to ask someone with the perspective that distance can bring.

Fortunately, I have just the guy.

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/ne...he-air-246473/