Funeral and Celebration of Life for Edie Frederick
And is Prince George a bit too big to be small?
Honouring an elder
Lheidli T’enneh elder and language teacher Edie Frederick has died, as has another elder and language holder, her mother, Josie Paul.
Is Prince George too big to be small?
I was in Quesnel this weekend and was again struck by the things it has that we do not. Put aside the more complext things, like a river trail connected to the downtown and let’s look at the amenities we should hypothetically be able to have — and, in some cases, used to. A large coffee shop/restaurant that has people coming and going and greeting each other. A downtown grocery store. A bakery. A hardware/department store with different sections and people in those sections offering customer service, very much like the Northern used to be. And I want to try out a theory I’ve been mulling over for a while: Prince George is too big to be small, but not big enough to have small places.
Here’s what I mean: take, maybe, the bakery. We used to have a bakery, too. Multiple, in fact. They were quite good. But then we got a Cobb’s, and then another one. We have multiple large grocery stores with in-house bakeries. None of these are as good as a genuine, locally owned and made bakery like Quesnel and Vanderhoof have. But they are good enough, for most people, most of the time. And they are cheaper, and open longer and in high-traffic areas that a local shop might not be able to afford. So the odds of a smaller bakery surviving or opening here are lower than a much smaller city where there aren’t going to be 5-10 national franchises looking to compete.
The same goes for the hardware store: yes, Quesnel has a Canadian Tire but it doesn’t have a Canadian Tire AND a Home Depot. If you’re a place the size of Vancouver you might have these things, too, but you’re also big enough to sustain the small ones. Here, though, we’re big enough for the big things, and multiple of them, but maybe not big enough to get the big things and also keep the small things.
And I know we have some very good small things — coffee shops and restaurants and a great book store (which has expanded to Quesnel) but we are missing some key ones and this is the best reason I can think of why.
And I know people will say the downtown — and I won’t disagree — but I can also tell you that people in Quesnel have issues with their downtown, too, quite close to some of these stores that are doing well for themselves, and they are still going. I do think we have some lessons to learn from Quesnel’s very deliberate work to brand itself and make its downtown a destination but I also am not sure we could have the same success, in part because of how big we are… without being quite big enough?
Again, this is just a theory I’m playing around with, nothing that I couldn’t be talked out of.
News roundup:
It’s city council night — Mr. PG and a new playground, etc — I wrote about it last week.
Northern Lights Estate Winery is set to produce its one millionth bottle.
Alex Cuba, or as they called him in the email, Dr. Alex Cuba, is performing at UNBC in November.
Antiques and Collectibles fair returns for the 32nd year in Prince George.
Editorial: How two newspapers can connect UNBC and the city.
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Send feedback by emailing northerncapitalnews@gmail.com. Find me online at akurjata.ca.
I think your line of thinking is correct!
Mid-sized cities, like Prince George, are in an unenviable position.
Decades of suburbanization (which comes with the typical national or global chains) undermine the health of the downtown, and opportunities for local businesses to thrive. More recently it was the "big box stores" but in previous decades it was Pine Centre, Spruceland and other like development.
Compare this to the "small city" like Quesnel where suburbanization has occurred at a much slower pace, and as a result, the downtown has not endured as many threats. Although, the pace of more recent developments at the southern periphery of the city, suggests it is following the same trajectory of Prince George.
While there are no doubt a variety of factors at play, consider another small city, Nelson, BC. Over its history, it has resisted the forces of suburbanization. The result is a thriving downtown and city with a strong local business scene (again, I acknowledge there are other factors playing a role).
While "large cities" also face the impacts of suburbanization, they have unique features including well-developed transit systems, major employers, institutions, and a concentration of high-density housing in the downtown that helps to counter the impacts of suburbanization - which continues to draw development into the downtown. Moreover, they are in the enviable position of having reached the "tipping point" where they have created a downtown environment that people want to be in (while not a "large city," it seems to me that Kelowna is on the verge of getting there). This continues to fuel further change.
I’m from Quesnel. And I go to PG regularly because it is a medium size city with medium city amenities I don’t have in my small town…. International airport, medium venue that hosts all sorts of shows (guaranteed Ice Cube not playing Q), a Costco. I don’t think PG is small, by Canadian standards anyway. And I totally agree, Quesnel is just the right size of town, we have a bit of most things that I can drive to in 10 minutes or less. And free parking, another small town indicator.