ROTHENBURGER – What’s so great about being third fastest growing city?
(Image: Mel Rothenburger)
GROW, GROW, GROW. We can’t stop talking about it. Growth is good. Growth is God. We must go higher, wider, bigger.
The growth bug hits Kamloops every once in a while, like now, when everybody gets excited about how quickly the city is expanding. We’re calling ourselves the third fastest growing city in Canada.
It’s in all the brochures and press releases and on the lips of local politicians. This is considered a big deal, as if the Tournament Capital should receive a medal. Maybe it’s got to do with our sports mentality.
Technically, “third fastest city” doesn’t tell the whole story. The numbers are from 2022 and Kamloops is third among metropolitan areas. In our case, the metropolitan area — or agglomeration, as the census also calls it — includes several communities in the region around the city.
It grew by 10 per cent between 2016 and 2021, to 114,142. That’s fast. Only Chilliwack and Kelowna grew faster.The city’s population by itself is currently on the brink of 100,000. That’s still significant growth in recent years, higher than both the provincial and federal averages.
But maybe the best thing about being third is that we aren’t first or second. When I wrote about growth and its challenges several years ago, I was thinking about infrastructure in general, and about the effect of always wanting more.
Quoting author Bill Bryson, I said we’re always in need of more streets, sewers, public amenities, shopping malls, gas stations, car dealerships and drive-thru burger places.
Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
When we moved up to The Deadman in ’93 Kamloops was a very much different place than it is now. It has changed from a smallish city that was fun to go to for the day to what it is today Not much fun anymore in nearly all respects.
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More growth is only auspicable if we are talking about the urban forest (bringing nature close to where we live) or walking/cycling pathways to lessen our dependence on the dreaded motor vehicle. Any other growth means more unsustainable use of resources. There is no magic number really, but less definitely means more nowadays.
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Can we please stop with the 3rd fastest growing city nonsense, we aren’t even the 3rd fastest growing city in the southern interior. Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country and Vernon are all growing faster than us. Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Langley, Surrey, Maple Ridge, Nanaimo are a few more examples. Yes, we are growing at the fastest pace since the 70’s but we are still only about 1/2% faster than the provincial average.
Also, no we don’t need the PAC soon because it’s a money loser, we need more ice rinks soon because they are money winners, they drive our winter tourism and it’s from these dollars that we can then afford to build the PAC, one which is also home to Visual Arts (VA) including the museum.
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