- by David Clark
“Nobody wants to go through 2020 again. It’s been hard on everybody; it’s hard on mental health. But, if you didn’t have that factor then I would say the city had a pretty good year,” [Mayor Boddy] said (Emphasis added to original). (Owen Sound Sun Times, 1st January 2021)
It is bizarre that the mayor could, in his mind, and as key representative of the residents of Owen Sound, separate the significant impact of COVID-19 had on residents and state it was “pretty good year” for Owen Sound.
But as I read through the interview, I realised that for the mayor, the city of Owen Sound is mostly “things”, not so much people. Many residents have lost jobs, had hours reduced, and struggle to pay rent and basic needs. But he (mostly) highlighted construction.
What follows is an evidence-based response to the mayor’s comments.
The interview article first highlighted the high value of building permits for construction which included the 10th Street bridge. Residential construction included 113 residential units.
Yes, there was a lot of construction but the residential construction is not something to brag about because approximately 74% of them are rental units. Right now Owen Sound has the highest rate of rental properties in Grey-Bruce at 42.9%, 232% higher than the average for Grey-Bruce. The average rate of rentals properties for municipalities within Grey-Bruce is 18.5% with a median 16.7%.
And, in 2021, another 349 apartment units, 325 various versions of houses, and 36 townhouses (which may be rentals) are to be built. Result: about 50% of new housing will be rentals. Good for landlords.
Owen Sound does not need more rentals; it needs affordable homes for young people who, the politicians and business people keep declaring, need to be encouraged to stay here to live, and work. If you can afford to only rent, why not head to the cities where there is a better choice of jobs?
The mayor stated that a new campaign will attempt to lure work-at-home (WAH) people from the big cities and other communities. For those for whom WAH will be a long-term situation, beyond the COVID-19 restrictions, this may be fine. But, let’s be clear, this is not bringing jobs to the area, it will simply in-migrate a handful of families’ incomes which is not a long-term economic development strategy that will help the existing Grey-Bruce workforce. Many of these people are on contracts, self-employed, or working for companies for whom employees are expendable, at the whim of the bottom-line - they are not employers. Their employment is very much precarious.
When COVID-19 restrictions are finally lifted how many city employees will continue to work at home? Will the city model what it is proposing for others? Will new employees be able to work from their homes in London, Toronto, or Barrie? Can existing employees move elsewhere and keep their city hall jobs?
Another factor to consider is that gentrification occurs when people move from large urban areas to smaller places, which drives up local house prices. This is fine for real estate agents, but not for the generally lower incomes of Grey-Bruce, especially Owen Sound. In the 2001, 2006, and 2016 censuses, Owen Sound’s median income was the lowest of the two counties. As a percentage of the Grey-Bruce median income, Owen Sound was at about 90%, and, for comparison, Kincardine was at 124%.
In response to COVID-19, the mayor stated: “Frankly, our Grey-Bruce record with COVID, compared to all the other municipalities we keep hearing about, should probably be a highlight. I think we’ve done well.”
I agree on this point, partially. At the end of July, out of 35 Public Health Units, Grey-Bruce ranked 13th from the bottom based on cases and 10th at the end of December. But this has been a function of population and density. Grey-Bruce has the 10th lowest density in Ontario.
Within Grey-Bruce, the situation looks like this for Owen Sound: At the end of August and December, it had the highest number of cases in Grey-Bruce. Another way to look at cases is to calculate whether the number of cases in a specific municipality reflects its population. In other words, if cases in a municipality occurred equally based on its share of the Grey-Bruce population what does it look like? Or the “we are all in this together idea”.
Well, at the end of July, Owen Sound had 311% more cases (the highest rate in Grey-Bruce) than would be expected based on its share of the Grey-Bruce population which is about 13%. By the end of December, the rate had dropped to 124%, mainly because cases soared in other communities that had more cases than expected based on their populations. (These are, in rank order, Southgate, Grey Highlands, Arran-Elderslie, Kincardine, and Town of Blue Mountains.) But Owen Sound still had the highest number of cases at 85.
COVID-19 is what the mayor says can be factored out, to be able to state: “But, if you didn’t have that factor [COVID-19] then I would say the city had a pretty good year.” I strongly disagree.
Other factors to consider in assessing Owen Sound’s “great year”: the highest unemployment rate (7.4%) and the lowest median income in Grey at 92% of the Grey County median income, and 85% of the Bruce County median income.
The mayor also stated that “We want to continue to attract growth to the city...” but since the 2006 census, Owen Sound has shown a loss of population, 412 people to be exact. What continued “growth” does he reference? Is it the 30,000 people by 2030 he espoused last year? Or is it the “things” such as construction.
According to the Sun Times interview with Mayor Boddy, “The city is also planning to launch early in 2021 a new marketing strategy for the downtown core.” The city has also approved new developments for the 16th Street east side area, containing restaurants and retail shops. So, the more the east-side is developed the more of a challenge for downtown retail and restaurants, especially in maintaining existing businesses and appealing to visitors, (i.e., tourists). Once 16th Street east-side development began some years back we saw a decline in downtown businesses.
Since 2015 I have undertaken three studies of the downtown, looking at its touristic appeal. I ranked each storefront on how it fit the ranking of tourism spending according to the wealth of tourism research and Statistics Canada data. The study area was from on 2nd Avenue East from 7th Street to 11th Street, and side streets. Tourism product demand research indicates tourism spending is on, in rank order, accommodations and entertainment, food and beverages, recreation/leisure, and various “other” products, in that order. Using these rankings, each storefront was coded from 1 (high demand) to 4 (low demand or none) and vacant stores were ranked as “5”. (Not reported here was a break out of just 2nd Avenue East from 8th to 10th Streets.)
Although no research exists to identify what the ideal business “mix” should be, and given that Owen Sound thinks of itself as a “tourist draw”, it is helpful to have a benchmark from which to gauge change. Between 2015 and 2020 the downtown business mix has changed very little, there has been an increase in vacancies. The mix at present is about 11% of high and medium appeal, 64% of low or no appeal, and 23% vacant. Although these percentages are for individual businesses, some store-fronts, especially services have large street presences, for example real estate, insurance, and financial. Two art/crafts-oriented store-fronts have large street presence but these have touristic appeal, hence are key anchors. Prior to 2015 study, downtown was slowly becoming focused on services.
Maybe the detailed marketing strategy will enlighten us how further deterioration will be avoided.
My initial interest was in challenging the mayor’s comments which attempted to take COVID-19 out as a factor to be able to declare Owen Sound had a “pretty good year”. (COVID-19 cannot be taken out as a factor - it is embedded in 2020, was a factor in everything that happened in Owen Sound and will be a considerable factor in 2021, as far as we know at the time.) As I read through the interview article I felt I needed to challenge other comments that seemed to contradict stated goals (e.g., continued growth; marketing strategy for downtown) with facts (e.g., population has declined, so no growth; retail development on the east side that will cause significant stress on downtown businesses).
I get that politicians use hyperbole - a need to promote hopefulness and the wonderful things they have done for (to?) us and what they have planned for us - but what we hear from them must be based on what Thomas Homer-Dixon (Commanding Hope, 2020) calls “honest hope. Honest hope is based on empirical evidence to “rigorously challenge our theories and our claims about what is true.” He further states: “If our hope is to be honest, we shouldn’t ignore the facts or deny or avoid well-grounded predictions that a future we might want is impossible...”
And just as important - maybe more so - we citizens must engage in our own empirical research to be able to judge the merits of what we hear from politicians, and many others. Daniel Levitin (A field guide to lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age, 2016) wrote “Don’t just accept a claim at face value; work through it a bit.”
Start here and empirically check, and challenge if necessary, what I have presented.
David Clark is a Research Consultant based in Owen Sound. Data was compiled by author from sources at Statistics Canada, Owen Sound Sun Times newspaper, and various Public Health Units.
