Quote:
Originally Posted by ChampduLarge
Envision, I think your point about amalgamation in Saint John is a valid one. With my post I was responding to thoughts about Moncton, where I believe a forced amalgamation would be a loss to the area. Saint John could be considered more like Detroit, I would think, where a forced amalgamation would likely serve to benefit the entire urban area. I could support an amalgamation in Saint John for the very reasons you mention and my post should have been more specific.
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Thanks for your reply. It’s pretty frustrating how the city/suburb dynamic works here in the Saint John Region. The province has studied the issue multiple times in the past and the conclusion is always the same, that amalgamation would result in significant savings and be good for the long term macro economic stability of the region. Yet, it never actually happens.
Saint John is unfortunately very much analogous to the Detroit Metro Area… our CMA has consistently grown over the years, while the city proper population went through multiple periods of decline.
Valley residents are overwhelmingly represented in key positions of power within the structure of the city’s governance and key institutions, and a large majority of valley residents work in Saint John.
What’s good for Saint John is good for the valley, but the converse is usually not. Yet, that’s the reality that we face. The interests of residents of the valley seem to far outweigh the interests of city residents. KV residents will never willingly suggest or vote for amalgamation, so there’s no point even discussing any sort of vote on the issue, unless it was a region wide vote.
What I find interesting is how some posters here on this forum live in Saint John, say they don’t support amalgamation because it’s “not fair to the valley”, when the reality of the current situation is not fair to the city of Saint John.
I can’t think of a better thread to discuss this topic than this one, as the stats on Halifax’s growth are within arms reach to bolster the argument for why amalgamation should occur in the Saint John Region. Amalgamation was a resounding success for Halifax, and I think it would be a resounding success for Saint John too.
If amalgamation is to happen eventually, I strongly believe that the resulting municipality should go with a name other than Saint John. Like it or not, Saint John has a bad reputation, there’s all kinds of negative stereotypes about it being a smelly, dirty, poorly run city, and unfortunately many of those stereotypes are based on at least some half truths. KV residents want absolutely nothing to do with being forced to be a part of a municipality called Saint John, but I think going with a different name, even something as simple as Fundy Regional Municipality would make amalgamation a much less bitter pill for them to swallow.
Moreover, a name other than SJRM would help deal with some of the confusion between Saint John and St. John’s which has been unavoidable since Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. The confusion between the nearly identically named cities may not be a huge problem within Atlantic Canada, but it’s absolutely a problem for the purposes of branding and marketing when dealing with people and regions outside of Atlantic Canada. Considering tourism and immigration are top priorities for the Saint John Region, constantly being confused with another city in the same region with an almost identical name isn’t helping us— at all. A new name for the region, while the constituent communities retain their historical names is maybe our best chance for a new start.
Obviously though, the main reason for amalgamation is to bring about fairness within the region that has been sorely lacking over the past 50+ years that has seen KV’s demographic rise at the expense of Saint John’s demographic decline.
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