Saskatoon deals with growing pains as population increases

Watch the video above: Staying ahead of the growth curve

SASKATOON –   It’s a major milestone for Saskatoon, as the population has reached more than a quarter of a million people.

As of March 1st , city planners estimate our population has soared to 253,000 people.

“When you’re under 250,000 they kinda say when you get to that number give us a shout so I think for retailing and for a lot of other people that would be very good for our city,” said Mayor Don Atchison.

“Again, we’ve had this tremendous growth, that’s going on, lots of prosperity and so I can see it continuing for some time. In fact the Conference Board of Canada says we’re going to have prosperity here for the next 25 to 50 years.”

According to University of Saskatchewan Urban Planning Professor Aiv Akkerman, there are two components to this growth.

“One is natural increase which means basically that births quite exceed significantly deaths in the city and the other component is immigration,  due to most likely the economic boom that we have experienced recently,” said Akkerman,

Growth that comes with both opportunities and challenges, but needs to start with the heart of our city, the downtown core.

“Enhancing it in way that we can bring our aboriginal community and integrate it with the main stream community. Urban design is very important and unfortunately I have to say that walking downtown is not the most pleasant experience,” said Akkerman.

Akkerman says the problem with the downtown district is there isn’t enough foot traffic, we need urban design to human scale or buildings with one-way glass.

“In the sense of not only not inviting pedestrians but deterring pedestrians from walking by it. You cannot see inside into the building but you know that everybody from the building can watch you, that’s not a pleasant feeling.”

In 2009, the city began it’s process of developing a strategic plan for Saskatoon and surrounding area. Seven strategic goals would be settled on after more than 10,000 people provided input on where they would like the city to be in the next 50 years.

According to Akkerman, if that means building out, we’re heading in the wrong direction.

“Continuing to build bridges and spending money on our infrastructure in the suburbs without looking at the redevelopment of urban design in the downtown area is really counterproductive and we should be looking at change that.”

Aside from redeveloping the downtown, Akkerman says more educational opportunities need to be offered to one of the fastest growing populations in the area, first nations youth.

“If we do not provide them with these opportunities what we will be facing instead of positive potential we will be facing a demographic bomb,” said Akkermann.