Last week, I was down in Vancouver and Squamish. Vancouver while my partner worked, and Squamish for a wedding.
In Vancouver, I had the day to myself in Kitsilano. It was a sunny day, so at one point I went to the beach. It was nice and close by, but it was also covered with people.
In Squamish, the same thing. We had some time and were told about a great lake. It was fun– you could dive off rocks and into the lake. But once again, it was covered with people. So much so that when we tried going out a second time, we had to park on the highway and hike our way in because there was no room in the parking lot.
This weekend, we’ve been going out around Prince George. On Saturday, we went out to a well-marked, well-mapped lake about twenty minutes away. It was one of the nicest Saturdays we’ve had all summer. No one else was there. You could hear the occasional piece of traffic, but other than that we were completely alone (aside from a couple of loons).
Circle Lake near Prince George on a Saturday
Yesterday, we decided to go see Hixon Falls. There were a few people at the main falls when we arrived, but they left soon. Further down, in the chutes, there was no one around.
I don’t mind people. I get a charge out of having them around me in the city. And I like the lakes and ocean around Vancouver and Squamish very much. I think it’s great there’s so many people who want to get outdoors, and that’s there’s so many places they have access to. I would never begrudge anyone access to the wilderness.
But I find it far more relaxing to explore lakes and woods when there aren’t dozens or hundreds of other people around me. Even better is when there isn’t an extremely busy highway just a few metres away. I think a lot of people up here feel the same way.
That’s one of my favourite things about living where I do. A short drive, and you can completely escape everyone. Few people, fewer traffic. You can just enjoy the silence and the experience of being alone.
That’s why I sometimes question the mantra of growth. I don’t want to stop people from living up here. But I don’t necessarily think it’s always a bad thing to pursue population stability rather than population expansion. If Prince George were to grow to the point that all these lakes and rivers around town became as busy as the ones around Vancouver and Squamish, I feel like the quality of life will have been negatively impacted. Maybe not in a tangible, measurable way, but in a real one nonetheless.
I know the economic arguments in favour of growth. But I rarely hear anyone take them to their logical conclusion. If population always expands, eventually you run out of room. Maybe not anywhere in the near future, but eventually. I don’t think mega-metropolises are ideal places for humans to live. But you rarely hear that conversation. Just the one about how to get more people to live here or there. Or in some cases, how to encourage more people to have more babies.
And that’s fine. Maybe we need growth in the short term, and even in the medium term. We’re in a relatively sparsely populated part of a relatively sparsely populated country. But I’d feel more comfortable if there was some conversation about what our target population is. What do we need to enjoy a comfortable level of living, have various services provided, and avoid a crushing mass of people everywhere? How do we hit our target and then plateau?
This is a topic I plan on researching in the coming months. But today is a sunny day off in a part of the world where we are lucky enough to be surrounded by getaways and the means to get to them. I’m headed out.
You may not like the idea of people living on top of others, but the urban lifestyle far outstrips the rural lifestyle in most measurable health statistics — especially in British Columbia where there are more smokers, obesity, diabetes and heart attacks in Northern BC versus the South.
The activity options provided by the metropolis standard also outstrips those of most rural areas, where — sure — you can go out and hunt, go out and hike and go to an isolated lake, but your options start to run dry from there… not that you’ll be dry.
But there is a nation where population control is already in effect: China. If that’s a nation you’d like to in well then Zàijiàn punk.
Posted by Illimart on 6 September 2011 @ 3am
I feel like you’ve missed my point.
At no point do I suggest population control. I simply question what target population sizes are. Generally, conversation is around how to get the population to grow, but I’ve never heard a conversation about how big we want to get before we stop growing.
Your points on the relative health of rural vs urban areas are not at all related to what I said. Your facts are true, but the correlation isn’t necessarily there. Living in rural areas doesn’t make you smoke. It also holds that in the case of an epidemic you’re probably better off somewhere remote. Superbugs aren’t coming from sparsely populated areas. But that’s very much a tangent.
Activities: each to their own. There’s very little I can’t do here that I can in Vancouver that I have a real desire to. On the other hand, I can afford a place to live.
And I’ve lived in China. First, the “population control” practiced there is far more nuanced and far less draconian than most people would have you believe (not that there aren’t issues, just that it’s not as intense as you seem to think). If I’m not mistaken, the one-child policy is now gone.
Second, I’d challenge you to live in an intensely urbanized portion of China and continue to think that we should be doing everything we can to encourage even more population growth.
Also, you forgot to mention that high population densities have lower environmental impact. I’m aware of the upsides of cities. That doesn’t make me think every city in the world should aim to be the size of Shanghai.
And to finish up: if the fact that smoking, obesity, and strokes occurs more in northern BC than in southern can be chalked up to population size, can we extend the same arguments to undernourishment in the slums of India’s large cities?
I remember once Dave talked about how he’d read a scholarly article that posited that the ideal population size for a city is either 100 000 or 200 000. I forget which. He’d remember. But anyway, based on certain criteria, that’s what a select group of people came up with.
I think a city should be big enough, and well-planned out enough, to have good public transit and a wide array of cultural and recreational activities, but not so big that it takes you an hour and a half to drive or commute to work in the morning, or so that you cannot enjoy the array of cultural and recreational activities. Whenever we go to the Lower Mainland, I’m so glad I don’t live in such a traffic-y place. My uncle’s commute to work in the morning can take anywhere from 30 to 120 mins, depending on traffic, even if he leaves at the same time. That’s bonkers.
I like busy beaches. You get a certain sense of community, even though you may be packed onto Third Beach in Stanley Park with hundreds of strangers. It’s kind of fun having all of those people around and being able to people watch.
Posted by Roxannabelle on 6 September 2011 @ 6am
I’m not sure it’s the same thing, but I’m fairly certain Plato or Aristotle came up with 100,000. But that was a thought experiment, rather than an actual survey.
I agree with your criteria, though.
I like people watching, too, but I’m glad I’m not forced into doing it all the time.
[…] already expressed by suspicion of the growth gospel in a previous post. In it, I wrote: “Maybe we need growth in the short term, and even in the medium term. We’re in a […]
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