Oh no! The census is out, and Northern Ontario is losing population. Heads are scratched and teeth are gnashed. Hands are held out — demanding more money from senior levels of government so that we can do something, anything. We’ve got to figure out a way to grow Grow GROW — or we risk turning Northern Ontario into one giant ghost town.

OK, let’s step back for a moment. What do those numbers really tell us? The census shows Ontario’s north has seen an overall loss of population from 2011 to 2016 — down 2,600 people to 548,449 in total. The decline isn’t evenly spread out. Some areas, like Greater Sudbury and a few surrounding municipalities, have seen modest growth, while others like North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie experienced slight population loss. The census story is really more about population stagnation, rather than any significant decline.

The data isn’t making any values judgment. The numbers can’t tell us what’s good and what’s bad. And yet, time and again, our elected leaders, our media — and, I suspect, almost every one of us — view growth as both good and necessary for the health of our communities. We have so completely accepted the pro-growth paradigm that we rarely pause to assess whether it’s true.

We’ve been told that we need to grow our cities in order to grow our economy. With more money in our pockets and in municipal coffers, we can do more things, buy more stuff, fix more roads. Every new house on a formerly vacant piece of land means more property taxes collected by the municipality. And the occupants of that new home are likely to be employed, maybe even at a new job, adding their own wealth to our local economy.

But what if it’s not true? What if growth isn’t always a net boon to our community?

That new house on formerly vacant land was likely to have been built on the fringe of an urban area. Do the new taxes being paid cover the costs of extending services — roads, sewer and water pipes, school busing, maybe even transit? Is this kind of growth sustainable over the long term?

We often hear that growth pays for itself. That’s a myth. All growth comes with costs, as well as benefits. Denser development in areas where services already exist — especially where those services are being used at levels well below their capacity — has proven to be less expensive to service than low-density development on urban fringes. We know this — and yet the census shows that throughout Canada, we are ignoring this lesson.

Census data shows that Greater Sudbury experienced modest growth, adding 1,271 people since 2011. But growth didn’t occur uniformly throughout the city. Generally, inner city census tracts declined in population, while most of the growth occurred in Valley East, Valley West and Walden. Outside of the city, Markstay-Warren increased its population by about 10 per cent.

We clearly have a conundrum. The places in our communities that cost the least to service — existing urban areas — are the places that are losing population, while more expensive to service outlying areas are growing. And it’s happening not just in Northern Ontario, but throughout Canada.

Cities are confronting rising costs. Many, like Greater Sudbury, are facing the need to renew fixed infrastructure, likes roads, bridges and pipes. No one wants to see taxes go up. And yet we continue to dig ourselves into an ever-growing, increasingly costly hole by ignoring our urban areas, and concentrating new development on the fringes. The census can’t tell you that this kind of growth is unsustainable. But it is.

— Steve May is a member of the Green Party in Sudbury.