Is Nanaimo in a recession?

[IslandStyle123]

What confuses me to no end is this...

There are construction sites all over town, building new residential and commercial units. However, I also see endless "For rent" and "For lease" signs all over town.

The downtown is an embarrassment, with the "crown jewel" conference center hemorrhaging tax-payer money and dilapidated buildings rotting on every block. Wander downtown at 5:00pm on a summer's eve and you will find almost every business closed.

Front street has more vacancies than open businesses. The old A&B sound building is the biggest eyesore in this city, and it will continue to decay since no one would dare setup a business in this economy. City Hall continues to spend recklessly and insanely, ever-growing the bureaucracy by setting up the new tax-payer funded NEDC (which will fail) and other unaccountable entities that exist only to provide a few cronies with six figure paychecks.

Nanaimo was far better 10-15 years ago, and the downtown is now in a state of de facto collapse.

The fact that Commercial Street was voted the "Best street in Canada" by some random magazine article clearly illustrates the severity of the gap between reality and fantasy. Commercial street is a hole, with vacancies galore and stores largely surviving because the owner is prepared to leverage to the hilt to squeeze a few more months of life before bankruptcy.

[vanislandrev]

Well aren't you the optimist today! The economy is indeed cyclical and the economy is definitely not as great as it was prior to 2009, but guess what - it will always get better! Besides, in down times in the economy there are always great opportunities, you just have to take off the pessimist blinders.

[prairieboy]

The writer of this thread does have a point, and with several downtown restaurants closing in the past couple of months one has to wonder. I'm not sure if the local economy is officially "in recession", but it's certainly not booming either! I agree with vanislandrev that it will get better, but we'll have to be patient. Personally I feel that the removal of HST and restoration of PST will have a positive impact, certainly for restaurants ... but also for other business that were impacted by the introduction of the tax. I hope/pray that it will be a catalyst for all of us to feel more confident about the economy and that we won't have to be constantly worrying about money.

[gmlacruz]

It sounds more like an opportunity for small business growth in the downtown sector. Small business is leading the way in many Canadian cities and great for employment.

[nza]

Nanaimo isn't just downtown. There's little attractive economic incentive or growth model for investments to go there. The demographics aren't right to sustain development in that area. Look to other areas for growth.

I'd like to see what you define as 'reckless' and 'insane' spending is.

[click]

it might be a stretch for some of you but selling out our natural resources is one of the root causes to the financial decline in the area. First forestry now oil resorces. Yes it is complicated but dropping a message to your MP might help slow the death of one thousand cuts which is our economy and national identity.