Emergence of East Coast boomtown
Halifax lauded for short commutes, affordable homes, clean air and nearby beaches
Halifax is booming, its skyline awash with construction cranes, and Ontario native Jesse Rodgers can tell you why.
Rodgers, a veteran of Waterloo’s tech startup scene, moved to the Nova Scotia capital a year ago with his wife and four kids. They bought a big house on a quiet, tree-lined street a stone’s throw from the ocean.
The family bought a boat. They eat supper together almost every night. The kids joined sports teams, and Rodgers coaches hockey in the winter, baseball in the summer.
They are part of a convergence of factors — thriving manufacturing and construction sectors, healthy employment and income gains, strong housing and retail markets, off-the-charts population gains — that have made Halifax one of the country’s fastest-growing cities, and earned it the title of Canada’s fifth-biggest tech hub.
In a region that is largely consumed by a narrative of decline, Halifax stands out, and not just because of its fast-changing skyline.
“The startup community in Halifax feels like Waterloo 15 years ago and it’s going to grow,” said Rodgers, who helms the city’s start-up entrepreneur hub Volta Labs. “The timing is now for Halifax.”
Halifax has long been lauded for its short commutes, affordable homes, clean air and nearby beaches. It’s home to multiple universities and colleges, military bases, start-ups and a convenient time-zone and geography.
But the city’s charm may come from what it doesn’t have: Million-dollar teardowns, gruelling commutes to increasingly expensive, farflung bedroom communities, summertime smog warnings, crush-loaded transit. Halifax resonates as an anti-Toronto — many big city charms but few big-city headaches.
The city had a record population boom last year, economic growth has been strong, entrepreneurial activity is on the rise and housing starts are up.
The municipality’s planning department is processing more building permits than ever before. In 2011, for example, the city issued permits for 96 new residential units. Last year, that number soared to 1,040 units.
The city’s per capita population growth in 2016 outpaced Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa and, just barely, Toronto, according to recent Statistics Canada figures.
Much of the increase came from international immigrants, who made up three-quarters of the city’s 8,147 new residents. Even without a wave of Syrian refugees, it was still a record year.