Quote:
Originally Posted by Drybrain
By an objective measure, Halifax is a good and clearly improving city, and for a city of this size, it's fantastic. (Some) Haligonians' weird insistence to the contrary is such a baffling local quirk.
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I only get back every year or two. I'd describe the changes 10 years ago as slow and steady. These days it seems like the downtown area at least improves by leaps and bounds with each visit, because there's something new like the library or Argyle Street plus some new development on practically every block it seems.
The other good thing in Halifax so far is that the growing pains are almost nonexistent compared to Vancouver or Toronto. Maybe this will change if Halifax keeps growing by 2% a year. But the cost to buy or rent in Halifax hasn't gone up much. There's also a lot more new broadly appealing middle class stuff opening up, whereas the bigger North American cities mostly seem to be overshooting that sweet spot now.
Unless something suddenly changes I think Halifax is going to be something like Austin TX in the long run, a smaller city that has a lot of appeal as a place where you can have a good standard of living even if you're not unusually wealthy. Standing in the way of this is perhaps high tax rates and a weirdly inaccurately modest or negative reputation, something that's probably not helped by the attitude of locals, although that seems to be changing in a positive way.
Another challenge is that the municipality and provinces will need to get into more of a growth mindset if the 2% a year increases continue. They will need to build more ambitious infrastructure projects. Another 5 years of indecisiveness will mean 40,000 more people on the roads, which will have a real impact.
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