Estevan has been a city since 1957, but I continually hear local citizens and community leaders refer to it as a town. There is no real harm in that, in fact, it's probably a good thing we still think of our city as a smaller centre. There is something real about small town values that get lost in cities.
We would still like to think of our community as one that is able to retain those smaller town features where you probably know everybody, if not intimately at least in passing. Towns are where you cross paths frequently at post offices, school functions, arenas and ballparks or at the local bar. If you live in a big town, there might be two bars and two schools.
Small towns are where you have just one coffee row so you better get along. That's where you played a silly numbers game to see who would pay for the coffee and fools weren't tolerated.
We'd like our city to be a town in many respects, but we can't.
According to a recent online report, Tilt Cove, Nfld, is considered to be Canada's smallest town (not village or hamlet but still an official town). Tilt Cove has a population of seven with the youngest resident being 53 years of age, so there is no need to talk about reopening a school.
Tilt was a one-industry town since 1860 when gold and other ore mines opened. Through the 1920s to late 1950s it grew nicely to 1,300 people and had a number of expected amenities.
Now a gravel road is all that connects Tilters to the rest of the province. The nearest work site is 45 minutes away, but the seven citizens say they have advantages and don't intend to move, and they all get along. They also realize that as they age, they'll have to move. They think that other people should look at Tilt Cove as a potential retirement spot, but with services being 45 minutes away, that probably won't happen. It will just fade.
There has been a slow trend in Canada regarding rural to big city population shifts.
Statistics Canada points out that in 1951, just 45 per cent of Canadians lived in major cities, now it's 70 per cent and growing.
So we cannot lament the passing of our small-town atmosphere in the Energy City. We have been pursuing growth consistently since 1957, looking for more investments, more industry, more blue collar and professional employees and employers. We finally got them, and there is a lot to celebrate about that.
Estevan has a diverse workforce and population base now. There are investment dollars stirring commercial pots. We have strong infrastructure to support retirement communities and growing protective services and, simply put, more action.
Some would still prefer to cling to the good old days when the old Estevan had a couple of layers of local citizenry who were used to move us forward one cautious step at a time. That's how we built the first schools with local school boards, along with local churches and local businesses and a local hospital.
Now we have regional concerns to address whether it be health, education or economics. Who knows the local bank manager anymore, if they still exist? Regionalism has taken over. Who serves on your local health board and school board?
Well, nobody, because there are no local boards.
We get a couple of representatives on regional boards.
So as we grow as a city, we also become diminished on the grand scale as things get bigger and bolder across the province.
Maybe that's what we regret about not being a small town anymore. We relinquish that local autonomy we used to have.
That's just one price we pay for growth.
