Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
The 50,000 population centre sounds objective but you can get wildly different results depending on how the borders are drawn. I am not sure what the borders look like inside CBRM. The census divisions around metro Halifax are wacky, with some suburbs being sliced in half while others encompass huge empty areas. They are what they are for arbitrary historical reasons.
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There were several boundary changes to the areas population centres in at least the last two censuses that definitely seemed arbitrary, at least on the surface. Combined, CBRM has over 70k within "population centres", but this is split up in 4 different centres, all within what would be otherwise considered the CMA boundaries (Sydney ~33k, Glace Bay ~20K, North Sydney/Sydney Mines ~15k, New Waterford just under 10k).
It sounds simple enough to attract more of the internal population into Sydney to get to the 50k threshold, but there's a level of neighbourhood pride in the area that in some cases is as specific as the street you grew up on, which makes this more challenging with the short commute times between population centres. This also is slowly changing, but is still very evident overall.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Charlottetown "won the race" on this, even with what appears to be an easier route for Sydney including the feeling of a turning of the corner of sorts with respect to the economy and the area's population.