P.G. Among Top Entrepreneurial Cities In B.C.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013 @ 4:01 AM
Prince George, B.C.- The City of Prince George has been ranked as 37 out of 107 cities in the country when it comes to being an “entrepreneurial” city. The ranking is even better when you look at B.C. cities, as Prince George is in third place, behind only Penticton and Kelowna.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has released it’s “Communities in Boom “ report. The report ranks cities based on 14 factors that grouped into three categories which the CFIB describes as follows
· Presence is a representation of the scale and growth of business ownership, as well as its industrial diversity.
· Perspective covers indicators associated with optimism and growth plans.
· Policy represents indicators associated with the actions local governments take with respect to business taxation and regulation.
Points are awarded for each category, with Prince George scoring:
9.8 out of 25 for Presence,
17.6 out of 35 for Perspective, and
29.4 out of 40 for Policy.
The Prince George total was 56.8 out of a possible 100 points.
The only B.C. communities to score higher than Prince George were Penticton which was ranked 25th, and Kelowna which came in at 28. Kelowna also made it to the list of top ten large cities ranking 8th on that list.
“While we recognize communities that do this well, it’s important to acknowledge that all Canadian cities could do much better, particularly in addressing fairness issues around business property tax” said Ted Mallett, CFIB Vice-President & Chief Economist
The overall top ten entrepreneurial major cities (populations greater than 150,000) in the country are:
1. Greater Calgary 68
2. Saskatoon 67
3. Greater Toronto 65
4. Greater Edmonton 64
5. Sherbrooke 62
6. City of Edmonton 61
7. Regina 61
8. Kelowna 59
9. St. John’s 58
10. Saguenay 58
You can read the full report here.
Comments
Interesting how prince george has over 100,000 sq. ft. of empty office spaces.
I guess if we tell everyone that there all full, they will believe us. Just saying.
Years ago when the Husky station at the “BC Rail” site was being torn down and rebuilt I was there during the grand re-opening. The guy there said to me that they wanted to make their restaurant larger but the city said no. IMO city hall is not very pro-business. I have also walked from one end of George St. to the other recently. Dilapidated, empty,dirty under used, and bleak, unappealing storefronts. And then their are the local denizens who personify George Street. That’s downtown. Paint me unconvinced but we are anything but “top”. But for some reason I still cannot fathom why I still prefer to live here. Be it ever so. Must be the people I know and 99% of the businesses.
The official population for the City of Kelowna based on 2011 census is 117,312
The Census Metropolitan area is 179,839 from the same source and year.
So, the term entrepreneurial major cities should really be entrepreneurial major census metropolitan areas.
Actually, to be more accurate in terminology it is the CA or Census agglomeration. :-)
PG = 71,273 for city and 88,043 for CA
If they were handing out letter grades, Prince George would get a D and the Calgary’s top score of 68 would get a C+ … about right … on the global stage, Canada is not known as very entrepreneur friendly …
The other thing to note is that it is not the Calgary Census Agglomeration which is #1.
It is the areas surrounding the city limits which are #1. The City of Calgary is listed separately and is 48th in the list, with an index of 55.1.
I have not read the full report yet, so am not sure why they did this. Splitting number crunching hairs is only reason I can see.
So, reading further, the 2012 rankings are included in the report. Seems PG moved up 2 spots but moved down in the index. So, that means that the indices for the first 40 or so actually dropped, on average, from the previous year.
Why are cities getting worse rather than better?
Can we get some better perspective by looking at similar cities in the USA? After all, the USA has traditionally been seen as the entrepreneurial country of the world.
It is funny how one sided people view is when they want to complain. Yes PG has issues and some of council are less than competent. But what city doesn’t have issues. I have lived here my whole life, and I have NEVER seen growth like we have seen in the past 5. Take a drive out west, or even North for that matter. New subdivisions everywhere, and they are selling fast. More big stores, more industry and more brand new vehicles on the road. New Regional cancer center at the University Hospital, new engineering programs and medical programs at the University. The list goes ON and ON. Something must be going right in this town.
Guess you were not here during the boom years of mid sixties to late 1970s.
1,000 housing units per year in the seventies.
Every single high rise apartment building, and there are about 5 of them, was built over 40 years ago. None since then. Most 3 storey walk-ups date from that time.
Those “high rise” offices downtown … all at that time.
The BC Hydro building they are tearing down now and replacing with a new one .. same time period.
3 pulp mills, a refinery. Many sawmills, a plywood plant.
CNC, hospital addition which increased the hospital to more beds that are there now, an extended care unit, three new high schools and probably close to 10 new elementary schools.
Spruceland, Parkwood, and Pine Centre.
The Delta Inn of the North and several other hotels downtown.
You think today is development? … LOL
“But what city doesn’t have issues”
Some cities have lack of population base growth issues, such a PG.
Other cities have excessive growth issues.
We went from the latter to the former.
The issues are management of costs related to revenue.
With increasing costs to provide the same service to people that they used to get and services received in most cities our size or large in Canada, we are faced with insufficient revenue due to a stagnating population.
Much of North America is has been living off perpetual growth. I do not believe that there are any cities with an annual growth of say 2% plus or minus a bit that have a major revenue problem with the exception of metro areas such as the GVRD which has a phenomenal growth rate which has been showing that they have never invested enough in transportation infrastructure. That failing has been showing up loud and clear for some time.
We are lucky that are getting some help by offsetting the job losses in industry (forestry based) with jobs in the public sector such as health care and post secondary education.
Engineering, BTW, is not a major influence in job creation yet since there is only an environmental engineering transfer program here at the moment.
Maverick posted: “It is funny how one sided people view is when they want to complain.”
Gus counters with: “It is funny how one sided people view is when they want to praise.”
;-)
“It is funny how one sided people view is when they want to complain. Yes PG has issues and some of council are less than competent. But what city doesn’t have issues. I have lived here my whole life, and I have NEVER seen growth like we have seen in the past 5. Take a drive out west, or even North for that matter. New subdivisions everywhere, and they are selling fast. More big stores, more industry and more brand new vehicles on the road. New Regional cancer center at the University Hospital, new engineering programs and medical programs at the University. The list goes ON and ON. Something must be going right in this town”
Here are the population counts for the City of PG based on recent census results (outlying areas not counted):
1991 69,653
1996 75,150
2001 72,406
2006 70,981
2011 71,974
It’s easy to interpret retail development, infrastructure projects and stuff like that as “growth”, but at the end of the day you have to count people living in the city to interpret what’s happening.
This isn’t to say that development isn’t good, because obviously it is, but we can’t confuse the two as being the same thing because they aren’t.
In the past few years the following mills were closed permanently.
1. Rustads
2. Clear Lake
3. The Pas Lumber
4. North Central Plywood (Burned down)
There are a lot of business’s in Prince George that are hanging on for dear life.
A few years ago you could not find a parking spot at the Pine Centre Mall. Now you can basically park anywhere you want. Their business must be down by at least 25%.
Parkwood Mall has 11 spaces that are closed, and I am sure that those business’s that are left are not doing as good as they used to.
New business opens and some business’s close. The new construction makes it look like growth, however it is in fact what is referred to as **churning**
As an example.
1. Build new Hydro building. Close old one.
2. Cdn Tire moves to Westgate, old building is used by the College.
3. The Bay moves to Parkwood. The Brick moves into the old Bay building. The Brick moves to new shopping centre and the furniture store from second avenue moves into the old Brick building. Surplus Herbys moves into the furniture building.
4. The City moves its operation from the Carter Light Industrial area, to the East end of 4th Ave. Then moves back to the Yellowhead Road and Bridge buildings across the street from where they were. Then they build new office buildings on 18th Ave. and close down the whole operation at the East end of Fourth.
It goes, on, and on, and on. Is there any real growth in all of this.?? Highly unlikely.
All good points but there are arguments against all of those points as well. 60’s and 70′ all of North America was in a BOOM, now USA is almost bankrupt. Yes the population may not be in town but include the outlying area’s and people from northern BC just coming in on the weekend to shop. That is all Due to growth. And sure those mills all shut down, but how many mines have opened, all of which are service by companies in PG and have employees who live in PG still. Despite what anyone believes we are moving toward truly becoming the Northern capital of BC and a Hub for business.
In the past few years the following mills were closed permanently.
1. Rustads
2. Clear Lake
3. The Pas Lumber
4. North Central Plywood (Burned down)
Oh yeah and further to this, it has nothing to do with the city and everything to do with the Vancouver base corporation which manages those sites. Many many of those employees still live and work here. Although many have left.
And many of those examples are industry related, not entrepreneurial business related. Almost every Tom Dick and Harry runs a private small/medium size business now.
Gee, I don`t have to do any research on anything to do with Prince George. I can get all the real facts right here. Excellent.
The real fact is the only category they gave PG any kind of passing grade on was policy. By policy they mean tax breaks for companies operating in the downtown core. The author of the report above speaks of property taxes for businesses being of special importance.
So if you build downtown PG then they give the city a pass in the policy column… and PG can be among the ‘top’.
Report says nothing of potential entrepreneurs sticking around to pay the tax risk for a colossal city debt.
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