Re: “Airdrie parents, students plead for classroom space,” July 2
Dear editor,
There was an interesting analogy presented at the Council of School Councils meeting. The correlation was made between a growing child’s need of larger shoes and a growing Airdrie’s need for more schools. That is a very good analogy for the problem Airdrie faces.
Parents are proud as their children grow. Infants are weighed to make sure they are growing as that is a sign of good health and vitality. When they reach school age, we switch to height and mark off milestones on the wall or door frame. When they reach 18 and leave school, we expect they have reached their adult size. If they continue to grow larger in their early 20s, it is no longer healthy. If their weight triples in 12 months at age 20, like it did in their first year, that would be major cause for concern. If they continue to grow two-and-a-half inches per year through their 20s and 30s, we would seek help instead of celebrating.
What we expect of children we should expect of communities - that they stop growing when they’ve reached a physically healthy size and then switch to improving intellectually, economically, and spiritually. Our economic prosperity is not helped by population growth. Our economic prosperity is actually hindered by the needs of an increasing population.
In my discussions with other attendees after the meeting, I would outline the downsides of growth: crowded schools, traffic problems and infrastructure costs. People would tell me, “you cannot stop growth,” and, “you cannot stop people from having babies.” Maybe we cannot, but we should be trying to stop growth rather than encouraging it. There are many things that society has not been able to stop: smoking, drunk driving, teen pregnancy, graffiti, drug abuse, crime, high school drop out and racism. We cannot entirely eradicate these behaviours, but with consistent effort we try to minimize them.
Population growth is unsustainable and undesirable. Population growth is not inevitable. The City of Airdrie can solve the schools crisis faster than the Province and with no government spending.
John McMurray, Airdrie
