Life in Edmonton keeps getting better
By GRAHAM HICKS - Edmonton Sun
Last Updated: 4th October 2009, 3:08am
POLITICALLY CORRECT
A politician was once asked about his attitude toward whisky.
"If you mean the demon drink that poisons the mind, pollutes the body, desecrates family life and inflames sinners, then I'm against it.
"But if you mean the elixir of Christmas cheer, the shield against winter chill, the taxable potion that puts needed funds into public coffers to comfort little crippled children, then I'm for it.
"This is my position, and I will not compromise!"
REALISTIC OPTIMISM
It's not something the media puts in big headlines -- LIFE IN EDMONTON IS GETTING BETTER BY THE YEAR!
Nor will the city stage a special celebration in Churchill Square.
But it's true! Life IS getting better! Quantifiable, statistically verified ... better.
In 1989, The Edmonton Social Planning Council (ESPC) put out the first Tracking The Trends report.
About every other year since, the council has done a remarkable job gathering statistical indicators as to how we are doing as a city -- things like high school graduation, families in poverty, suicide, crime and so on.
Just about every trend in Tracking The Trends 2009 points to improvement.
As a non-profit social research organization, the planning council usually has a natural social activist/social justice bent. Good news: this report shows next to no ideological bias.
ONE BIG CITY
I like the fact that wherever the data is available, the social planning council has gone with the CMA (Census Metropolitan Area), i.e. Greater Edmonton. It's so sensible. For all intents and purposes, the region functions as one big city.
In 30 years, Greater Edmonton's population has grown by almost 50%, from 700,000 to 1.1 million. (All numbers are rounded off for simplicity's sake.)
Thirty years ago, we had a bulge in the 20- to 29-year-old demographic -- about 20% of the population falling in that age group. Today, the age bands (divided by decades, i.e. the 20- to 30- year-old age band) are just about equal at 10% to 15% each, up to 60 years old.
FAMILIES
Despite population growth, the number of individuals living in one-parent families has stayed consistent at around 50,000. In 1979, that'd be 7% of the population. Today, it's 5%.
A little worrisome, depending on your point of view, is the number of couples without kids. That statistic has grown dramatically in 30 years, from 52,000 (actual individuals) to 200,000.
Kind of encouraging: the percentage of divorced or separated persons has remained constant through the years at 11% to 12% of the population.
SOCIAL INDICATORS
Here are reasons to celebrate.
High school completion (in Edmonton) within three years has jumped from 60% to 80% of students in 20 years.
Individuals with post-secondary education (trades, diplomas, degrees) have jumped from 32% of high school graduates in 1986 to 50% 20 years later.
Here's a biggie: families living in poverty (as defined by Statistics Canada) have dropped from a high of 25% of all families in 1992 to 8% of all families in 2007.
Life expectancy from birth also keeps rising. In just 16 years, the average lifespan in Edmonton has risen from 79 to 81 years. If this trend continues, our kids can expect to live until they are 90!
Suicide has dropped dramatically, from 17 per 100,000 people in 1993, to 12 per 100,000 today.
Teens 15 to 19 have far fewer babies, from 31 per 1,000 girls in that age group in 1993 to 16 per 1,000 today.
FEWER CRIMES
While it may be scary every time you walk by some hardened punks,when the newspapers seem full of dramatic crime, the numbers claim otherwise.
Property crime statistics show a dramatic decline. In Edmonton, the property crime rate per 100,000 people has dropped from 8,000 through the 1990s to under 6,000 of late. (Is this because citizens have given up and just don't bother reporting minor property theft?)
Violent crime stats are down from 1,400 reports per 100,000 people in the 1990s to 1,100 projected for this year.
The one negative thing about poverty that Tracking The Trends spotted was the growing gap between high-income and low-income neighbourhoods. Of course, this was what most media highlighted in covering this report. Sometimes I do wonder about my profession.
Congrats to the Edmonton Social Planning Council, especially social analysts Anette Kinley and John Kolkman, on a job extremely well done.
Parts of this report -- the graphs but not the analysis --are available for public viewing at
www.edmontonsocialplanning.ca. If you want the whole thing, you have to pay about $30.
TODAY'S BLOG
More Tracking The Trends analysis: trends in immigration, house prices, rents and underweight babies.
The Hicks on Six blog can be accessed at edmontonsun.com/hicks
Graham Hicks can be contacted at 780-468-0290 or
[email protected]
http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/colu...85351-sun.html
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