Posted on 12/06/2016 9:41:06 AM PST by SouthernerFromTheNorth
I know the general area, but I’ve never been that far north in Ontario. The closest I came was on a few trips along the northern route of the Trans-Canada Highway through Dryden.
Red Lake is a few hours north of Dryden. Dryden has a big paper mill and a better grocery store. The concrete road essentially stops at Red Lake. There are logging roads that go much farther north.
“Cities always have an advantage of economies of scale.”
Part of the problem is that this concentration of people is also a concentration of power.
For example, here in the DC metro area, there are enough people to force the rest of Maryland and Virginia, and even the rest of the country, to pay for and subsidize the riders of the subway system. I can see the need for it, but I have a hard time accepting that all of this is built and run on expectations of receiving funds from outside the service area, but with little input from the outsiders. I understand roads in rural areas are beneficial, too, but the population centers control the spending for those also.
What we’re talking about is called “internal colonization”, where the cities control the distribution of wealth gained from the entire country.
Lot choose the well-watered plain; close to Sodom & Gomorrah.
Genesis 13:10-12
Service businesses locate as close as possible to their customers (and employees) so that's the advantage of locating in a city rather than the exburbs despite the much high location costs. Not everyone in the city needs a triple bypass so in that case locating within reasonable reach of a national airport might be better. In fact, it would be cheaper for the taxpayers to have most uninsured patients report to the Southwest Airlines check-in desk to be treated in their home countries rather than treating them in the big city.
In the case of Toronto, you have to be a millionaire to afford to comfortably live there these days without roommates or crowded conditions. A single family home - on a small lot - easily costs over $1 million anywhere in commuting range.
The Canadian Shield also penetrates into parts of the Upper Midwest (Upper Peninsula of Michigan, northern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota), and they have been struggling but not nearly as much, as energy costs are lower and they have more (relative) power in their states
On HGTV here they run some househunting show that was shot in Toronto. It is truly shocking.
Little rundown 2BR row houses that you can find around here
for $40-50K are pushing $1 mil. Canadian.
Agricultural areas have been losing population for a long time.
Nothing new there and it's not the result of some recent policy change.
Or on “goodly lands” located on fault lines near oceans!
Southern Ontario between Windsor and Toronto is definitely not in the Canadian Shield, but rather resembles northern Ohio or the Michigan “Thumb”, which are rich soil growing regions.
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