What’s Wrong With Saint John? Nothing, Really

The Saturday Huddle is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region. Mark Leger is the editor of Huddle and the Director of News Content for Acadia Broadcasting.

Years ago, I was chatting with a friend and fellow journalist over a beer in a Saint John bar. It was one of our many free-ranging conversations about the community and politics as it related to our own lives and personal ambitions.

At one point he said something that has stuck with me in the years since. “Someday, I want to work for a media outlet in a community that’s growing, not one that’s in decline.”

I’m paraphrasing here because, knowing him, he said something much more colourful and provocative about how much he loved Saint John, but was tired of covering stories about the state of the city and its economy back then.

My friend’s comment came to mind earlier this week when I read a series of Twitter posts by CBC reporter Robert Jones and former Saint John mayor Don Darling. Jones had shared recent data which showed how much the Fredericton and Moncton regions had grown, compared to the slower-growing Saint John.

In 2000, the Saint John area was the most populated urban region in the province. But it’s since been overtaken by Moncton and may one day find itself number three behind Fredericton. Between 2000 and 2021, the Moncton area’s population grew by 39,329; the Fredericton region by 23,683; and the Saint John area by 5,136.

The good news? Saint John is no longer shrinking. The bad news, says Darling, is that it’s not growing as fast as Moncton and Fredericton.

“While the [Saint John] results are better than decades of decline, this is a wake-up call,” said Darling on Twitter. “What is it that people find more attractive in Moncton and Fredericton. What does SJ need to change urgently to better position for growth? Data tells the story. How will SJ adapt?”

A Huddle reporter shared Darling’s Tweet in our office chat thread and it started a lively discussion amongst reporters and editors from different Maritime cities about “what’s wrong” with Saint John. The most often repeated criticism is its industrial character. “It’s dirty and smelly,” outsiders often say. Saint Johners like me always reply by saying, “Have you been here lately?”

It’s not the same city as it was in the 70s with that foul “rotten egg” smell that permeated the air. The landscape is still dominated by pulp and paper mills, a brewery and an oil refinery, but the 19th-century core is being restored and enhanced with newly constructed apartment buildings to accommodate a renewed interest in city living. The economy has diversified and includes a vibrant uptown and tech sector. The city also has parks and green spaces second to none in urban Atlantic Canada.

But that’s not really my point here: whether people think Saint John compares favourably to other cities in the region, even though there are characteristics about other cities that make them likely to grow faster. I just think comparing population data makes people in places like Saint John feel bad about their cities when there are forces shaping growth that are beyond their control.

I’ve done that myself at times. I’ve been living in and writing about this community for 25 years and, when I was in my early 30s, I’d write columns wringing my hands about the outmigration of young people to other cities and provinces.

Every time someone like my friend moved away (which he eventually did) I’d treat it as a rejection of the community itself, rather than it just being part of the natural migratory patterns of young people moving for jobs or communities that better suit them.

The truth is Fredericton and Moncton – and Halifax – have advantages over Saint John that spurred more rapid growth and have nothing to do with the virtues or failings of politicians, or business and economic leaders. Darling’s call to action in his Twitter posts is a commonly held view in Saint John; that our leaders must be doing something wrong if the city isn’t keeping pace with Fredericton and Moncton.

Over the last 20 years, Moncton has benefitted greatly from being the region’s hub city and from the influx of young francophones from the northern part of the province.

Fredericton has many characteristics that make it attractive. It’s the seat of the provincial government with a large, bilingual, educated workforce. It has the largest university in the province, which has helped fuel the growing tech sector in that city. It has a pretty, walkable downtown with urban amenities and easy access to extensive walking and biking trails.

Halifax is a regional supercity, leveraging the strength of having the provincial government, major universities, tech and traditional industries mostly concentrated in a single urban region. The city is making great population gains as a result, and for the foreseeable future will remain a much larger urban region than Moncton, Fredericton, and Saint John.

Of course, I understand our cities all need to keep growing and government and business leaders have a role in facilitating that growth. More people increase the tax base that allows us to pay for city services and infrastructure. New immigrants and people moving here from across the country make our cities more vibrant, entrepreneurial and they grow the labour pool for new companies and existing ones that want to expand.

But framing growth as a competition between cities is dispiriting and counterproductive. We need to talk about growth in a way that doesn’t make people feel bad if their city isn’t keeping pace with others.

What’s wrong with Saint John? Nothing, really.

Banner image: The Halifax and Saint John skylines.