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Calgary needs to control its growth

Dear Editor, There have been a few editorials and comments in local newspapers in regards to growth of towns and annexation plans. These have been in part triggered by the setting up of Rocky View growth task force.

Dear Editor,

There have been a few editorials and comments in local newspapers in regards to growth of towns and annexation plans. These have been in part triggered by the setting up of Rocky View growth task force. It is good to see the municipality thinking about this growth problem. However, will this task force really get to grips with the underlying problem, which is too many people and declining resources?

One rationale for growth and annexation is to deal with the explosive increase in Calgary’s population (there was a small and probably transient reduction last year, but that is likely to be an anomaly).

Calgary must sort out its own growth problems and not pass them on to the surrounding area. Calgary needs to come to grips with its appalling suburban sprawl. Building new roads and freeways only offer a temporary solution to traffic woes and every new freeway inevitably encourages yet more urban sprawl and uncontrolled growth in the surrounding areas. It is unacceptable for Calgary to export its problems to the areas around it.

We must all accept the underlying problem; which is the out of control population explosion in the Calgary region and this is in part driven by a frightening and steady rise in global population. Why are so few people talking about this? Why is no one talking about limiting growth?

The only local municipality to seriously attempt to do something is Okotoks with its plan to cap its population, and even they are under pressure to cave.

With this uncontrolled population growth come many serious problems, which must be addressed and solutions implemented before it is too late.

For instance, in this area, and in most of North American Continent, water resources are limited and the supply of fresh water will continue to decline. Towns and cities already need enormous quantities of water, and as they grow, so too do demands on shrinking supplies of fresh water.

Where is the water going to come from to feed this growth?

Another problem; look at Calgary and every town in the surrounding area. What do you see? New subdivisions and shopping centres gobbling up valuable food-producing farmland. Once this land is destroyed it is gone forever and when it has vanished where we are going to get our future food supplies?

With the increases in global population, decreasing soil fertility, rising cost of energy to produce food, where is our food going to come from? We must seriously address the questions of what is the “carrying capacity” of our land mass and how big a population can we sustain?

Municipalities naively think that they can solve the problem brought on by growth by encouraging building of yet more subdivisions thus increasing the tax base, which in turn is supposed to pay for the deteriorating infrastructure. In fact, it’s the existing population that subsidizes the new subdivisions at about $10,000 per new lot as the recent controversy between the City of Calgary and the development industry just revealed. This approach is short-term thinking, does not solve anything and simply leads to a downwards spiral of uncontrolled growth with all its problems. You don’t solve the problems of growth by encouraging yet more growth.

Rather than getting concerned when Calgary’s population did not grow last year we should celebrate that this spiral has temporarily leveled off and we will have a chance to improve our quality of life (and catch up the quality of the urban infrastructure). Unrestrained rise in local and global population must be stopped. The very least we can do is to get all levels of government to honestly address the problem and start planning how we could deal with the problems brought about by population growth.

David Mayne Reid, Calgary




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