Allison Sparling is leaving Halifax and has bid a thoughtful adieu to the city on her website.
Sparling is a 25-year-old blogger, community organizer and communications specialist who has tried to make a go of it in her native Halifax, but the economics just didn’t work out. You can find the details in her own well-chosen words at alwaysalwayssomething.blogspot.ca.
“Twenty-five years in this city have made me an exceptional planner, mastering a transit system that is neither consistent nor logical, preparing for work that won’t last, finding new best friends every year because no one stays,” she writes.
“In Halifax, it’s hard to be present; if you’re not thinking ahead, it’s your fault for not being prepared.”
Halifax blogger Allison Sparling has tried to make a go of it in her native Halifax, but the economics just didn’t work out.
Her reasons for leaving boil down to five main points: bad transit; high rents; the insistence that entrepreneurship will fix everything; a lack of tolerance for people doing different things; and no Bruce Springsteen. (On this last point, Sparling and I are on the same page. But if she doesn’t like high rents in Halifax, she’s really going to hate the price of a Springsteen ticket in Toronto in February.)
The entrepreneurship item certainly caught my eye, given that I spend much of my time preaching that gospel. Sparling says entrepreneurs are wonderful.
“But if an upper-middle-class white person with a pension never says the word hustle again, it will be too soon.”
Fair enough. The truth of the matter, as I see it, is that there are limits to modern entrepreneurship, by which I mean the lean development of disruptive innovation to quickly move into a global market. In Atlantic Canada, it so far has not benefited three groups of people most displaced by economic and technical trends: those in rural areas, blue-collar workers and people with a background in the arts or humanities.
So Sparling is right that entrepreneurship is great, but it’s not a cure-all.
Her points about bad transit and high rent in Halifax are tied together because young people with high student debt loads are hamstrung. They struggle to find decent pay, so most of their income goes to rent. That means they can’t afford cars, and the bad transit limits opportunities to get around for shopping, employment and recreation.
The odds are slim that entrepreneurship would solve those problems. Even if an entrepreneur succeeds, and that’s always a big if, there are a few lean years when it’s really hard to make ends meet.
Does it shake my belief in entrepreneurship? Not in the long term. The greatest economic problem in the Maritimes is that we have too few high-growth businesses exporting into the global market. Hopefully, in a few years, there will be more of these companies providing a greater range of opportunity.
My one piece of advice for Sparling is the same I give all young people who tell me they’re planning to leave Atlantic Canada for Toronto: Don’t stop at Toronto.
Young people should live in other places, but you’re limiting the experience by staying in Canada. The real growth and fulfilment comes from living in foreign countries (note the plural). So think of places like Asia, Europe, South America or others. Halifax will always be here if you want to return.
The fact that Atlantic Canada is losing another talented young person is tragic, but my wish for Sparling is that it’s the beginning of a great personal adventure.
