17 ms·

Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

116 points by breitling 10y ago

overcast 10y ago
What's with the GIGANTIC title and header fonts on this page. The one on the bottom even has some bouncing animation associated with it.
- ravenstine 10y ago
  The page probably needed to "pop" more, so the designers added a little more zazz to it.
  - overcast 10y ago
    I could see that being in a management email, with "please advise" at the bottom.
  - lelandbatey 10y ago
    It's an unfortunate side effect of us humans leaning so much on visual stimulus. Huge text and a large image works great at catching peoples attention, which translates into more page views. If I remove the huge image and use a very "simple" stylesheet for this article, you get a very functional but much less catchy looking page: http://nacr.us/media/pics/screenshots/screenshot--11-20-16-2016.png http://nacr.us/media/pics/screenshots/screenshot--11-20-16-2... Thankfully, there are plenty of pieces of software for presenting web pages in these greatly simplified forms.
at-fates-hands 10y ago
One of my new favorite shows on Vice actually did a show about how abandoned Newfoundland is. They pointed out the over fishing of the area then the government banned fishing outright which started the collapse. https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/Newfoundland-Coast/57bddb99a39540ed4498faee https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/Newfoundland-Coast/57bddb...
- Unman 10y ago
  The way your (brief) sentence is written it sounds as though the government is given a good deal of credit for imposing the moratorium, whereas there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that they consistenly mis-managed it. It looks as though a combination of poor ecological models, concentration on simple resource production statistics, consulting only with large capital holders instead of small, local stakeholders led to this avoidable collapse. Over-fishing in the maritimes was mostly as a result of "free-trade" liberalisation including transferable/sellable fishing licenses which led to a decrease in small, family operations and an increase in massive, mortgaged industrial fishing operations. The small family business typically engaged in long-lining (single lines with multiple hooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing ) which did not require great capitalization/debt. These business became non-viable as larger operations flooded the market with fish caught by dragging -- a method which leads to the destruction of the seabed ecosystems which in turn decreases the catchable population. This is one of the good references on the topic, pretty readable (Dean Bavington, _Managed Annihilation_, 2010 UBC Press): http://www.ubcpress.ca/books/pdf/chapters/2010/ManagedAnnihilation.pdf http://www.ubcpress.ca/books/pdf/chapters/2010/ManagedAnnihi...
  - at-fates-hands 10y ago
    Thanks for the link to the book, it looks like an excellent read. I'll be digging into that tonight. Yes, the show points out exactly what you say. There was an increase in large scale, industrial fishing using huge trawling boats that quickly depleted the resources. It seems this is an ongoing theme - as humans we just think natural resources will never run out.
guessmyname 10y ago
TL;DR — Fishing villages [...] sent into a tailspin by a fishery collapse, oil-price slump and mounting debt that left it with Canada’s most severe fiscal and demographic crisis. The provincial government now is pushing to close places like Little Bay Islands altogether rather than service them, offering [...] at least C$250,000 ($189,000) each to leave—and spurring a bitter, three-year fight over whether to cash out or endure. (Actually, the article is not that long, but the title is clickbait) I thought the reason was going to be related to the increment of sea levels, as villages near the coasts will surely be affected sooner than later by the constant floods in the coming years. Anyway, I agree with the sentiment of the people mentioned in the article, it is not clear when the Canadian government will pay that money, some people with houses near the coast are retired, they just want to live a peaceful life near the sea, they don't want to relocate, so it is logical to think that this strategy of the government to offer money to leave the place will not work, at least not very well.
- msbarnett 10y ago
  It's not even "the Canadian government". This was purely a Provincial scheme to lower costs.
  - ersii 10y ago
    Isn't a province... government? Might not be the State/Federal government, but yet surely it's government one way or another?
    - msbarnett 10y ago
      > Isn't a province... government? Might not be the State/Federal government, but yet surely it's government one way or another? To me, saying "The Canadian government is doing X", is a statement about the activities of the Federal government. The use of the definite article implies singularity. A provincial government is not the Canadian government -- it's one of many in a federal system. It might in some narrow sense be technically accurate to rewrite the headline "Texas Urges Court To Ban Enforcement Of All Federal Pro-Transgender Restroom Policies In Workplaces" to read "the US Government Urges Court To Ban Enforcement Of All Federal Pro-Transgender Restroom Policies In Workplaces", but it's misleading to the reader and drops a lot of important context. It leads to an impression of a much broader situation than actually exists.
burnt1ce 10y ago
I actually live in Toronto and I agree real estate here is expensive. What I don't get is WAY more expensive in places like London, Hong Kong, New York and San Francisco but I don't hear as many complaints or alarms going off in those areas. Why? Is this just me being oblivious?
- ska 10y ago
  Much of the conversation is really about the rate of change. San Francisco has at least as many complaints and alarms, by the way - and for similar reasons. Some places have been very expensive for generations, so it has been normalized.
- throw20160915 10y ago
  It's because Toronto is in a state of transition. No one complains about NY, London, HK real-estate because it's already understood to be expensive in the mainstream. But Toronto real-estate being expensive is relatively new such that you have people who grew up in Toronto not being able to afford it in adulthood. People are slowly realizing that TO is now just another global city out of reach to the middle class unless you make heavy comprises. Give it some time, and soon people will stop complaining about being able to buy a house with a backyard here as well.
  - contingencies 10y ago
    It's so cold there, who needs a backyard? You can only use it 2 weeks a year, and you'd be better off sailing.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - sidek 10y ago
      Honestly, as a Canadian, this is what I find so dumb about our urban planning. People demand adequate house spacing, backyard space, etc... Only for it to be usable for 4 months of the year. Meanwhile, all that dead space makes our cities unwalkable in the other 8 months. I guess people are just so used to having to drive everywhere that they don't see how else it could be.
1024core 10y ago
What, no Newfie jokes? On a more serious note: there's a tectonic shift going on in the US too, it's just not as stark. Young'uns are moving to the cities enmasse, resulting in skyrocketing rents in places like SF, Seattle. The old American Dream of having a McMansion out in the 'burbs has largely died out. Now people prefer the urban areas.
- balabaster 10y ago
  It's funny, as a young'un I felt the draw to the city and have worked in some of the greatest cities in the world. Now I'm still not old, but I find myself drawn to places like this. I feel like they could turn their slump into a booming tourism trade. There's nothing like the ocean and the large majority of people only ever get to see it on vacation. I grew up next to the ocean and even in a city where we have easy access to the great lakes, it's not the same. With a remote-work job and the ability to provide your own food year round, it could be a beautiful place to live, and could even thrive on tourism during peak season meaning you're not so reliant on remote-work in the off-season.
  - jkaunisv1 10y ago
    I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones. Rent must be dirt cheap. I wonder how big a company (or collective of freelancers?) it would take to save a town like that.
    - msbarnett 10y ago
      > I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones. Rent must be dirt cheap. I wonder how big a company (or collective of freelancers?) it would take to save a town like that. It's tough. This isn't "the suburbs", this is way way off the beaten path. Six-and-a-half hours one way, by car, to St Johns, which at 70k people is still a pretty small and rural city by most standards. You're a couple of days away from anything resembling Big City living. The local talent pool is more or less non-existant, so you'd either have to accept remote workers (in which case you're not saving the town population-wise, but you're at least stabilizing the tax base), or you'd have to pay above SF rates to convince people to move out to the middle-of-nowhere instead of SF, where they'd have a much lower risk of finding another job if the company stops paying the bills. And access to actual amenities. The cheap housing will help a bit in recruiting, especially among people with young families or older Devs who aren't traditionally the target of startups, but the lack of anything remotely resembling a nightlife or entertainment options (maybe there's a local watering hole in town that doubles as the only restaurant) is going to turn a lot of people off. And that's not even getting into the one-room "school" situation, the fact that the nearest hospital is so far away they need to air-evac you if you become ill, etc. It's a tough, remote life unlike anything most urban dwellers would be used to. And god knows what kind of internet connectivity even exists out there.
falsestprophet 10y ago
"but the title is clickbait" Almost every Bloomberg title is clickbait [1]. Probably Bloomberg should be flagged for title correction. Perhaps: "Canadian government offering relocation to homeowners from some declining villages" Financial news readers may enjoy Reuters, which has far less irritatingly misleading titles. [1] source: Bloomberg.com
- msie 10y ago
  Yes, Bloomberg, I've hated them for a while now. Electrons not worth lining a bird cage.
- sctb 10y ago
  We've updated the title and detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557290 and marked it off-topic.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    The problem with doing it like this is that I was an inch away from replying to the very top comment that still calls the title clickbait. I had to reach the very bottom of the page to realize that was talking about a different title.
HillaryBriss 10y ago
> While she’s optimistic that the country can build a new economic base, she said it’ll happen only if Canadians “stop over-relying on the extraction of resources or, even worse, selling off our land.” This Canadian seems to believe that, in some real or legal sense, the land belongs to her and Canadians in general. But "Canadian land" truly belongs to anyone in the global real estate market with sufficient cash. This is also true in the US. I think people would be better off if they clearly recognized this reality. It isn't "your" country. Let that notion go. It's hurting you. There's no "you" there. Fly. Be free.
- greenleafjacob 10y ago
  Government is the guarantor of property rights. If the current government was overthrown do you think the new government would necessarily need to honor your deed?
  - hx87 10y ago
    Government guarantees property rights, full stop. It doesn't matter what the nationality of the owner is.
- stephenboyd 10y ago
  It's only reality because it's policy, which can change.
ryandrake 10y ago
> After appeals were settled, a total of 95 residents received ballots. Ninety percent of them needed to approve the move for it to pass. That’s 86 votes. They got 85. Seems kind of daft to make it all-or-nothing AND set such a high bar. Why weren't the 85 residents who wanted to leave allowed to participate on their own, taking the money and leaving those 10 trolls behind to enjoy living in Nowheresville?
- blackbagboys 10y ago
  Most likely it would be legally difficult for the government to shut off services to the area if any residents remained.
  - AdrianB1 10y ago
    What exactly are those services? There is no public education, no fire department, there is probably nothing, but they cannot just recognize "we give you nothing but we want you to pay taxes, so move somewhere else where we can give you something so you continue to pay up". It's a tax game, not a service game.
    - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
      Ferry service
      - AdrianB1 10y ago
        Lol, since when transportation is a social service? Is there any common sense left in Canada or socialism ate it all? What is NOT a social service in Canada, providing drugs and booze for the wealthy?
        NotSammyHagar 10y ago
        Building a road to my town, even if few people live there is a standard thing that taxes pay for. I'm pretty sure there is not enough traffic for regular ferry service there, yet the govt keeps running it. Maybe they reduce it in the winter, but its there. That island would probably hardly have anyone there if there wasn't regular ferry service.
emilecantin 10y ago
You see this on a smaller scale elsewhere in Canada, too. The global economy is changing, and this has a huge effect on small towns across the country. I know of a few towns that are mostly desert now that their main economic engine (either a large manufacturing plant or a mine) has closed down. A few of them are trying to re-center around tourism, but the most successful ones I know are attracting small tech companies. They offer a lot of support, and free / cheap office space, and it seems to work quite well.
- infinite8s 10y ago
  This has happened across a lot of the US (and is probably one of the reasons for Trump's popularity, given that he's promising those folks good jobs).
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  I'm surprised it works much at all. The main draw such places have is lower cost-of-living, but in my experience and observation, the companies that locate there pay significantly lower salaries, so you end up not having any more after-rent pay than living in a metro area. Worse, you're tied to this job, so if the job doesn't work out for some reason, now you have to pack up and move. Also, finding places to rent in such towns can be hard, and buying a house is probably a bad idea because if the town is that much on the brink, you don't want to buy something that you won't be able to sell if the company folds and the town implodes.
patmcguire 10y ago
The US still can't get the last people to leave Centralia, PA. Centralia has been on fire since 1962. So I think the answer is no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
- wnevets 10y ago
  >Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to only 10 in 2010 They're probably gonna be dead soon anyway.
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  I've always been fascinated by these decades-long coal mine fires. Too bad they can't harness that energy somehow.
- imaginenore 10y ago
  Kalapana, Hawaii had a bunch of houses directly in the potential lava flow. They only moved out when it became obvious there was no way to stop it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalapana,_Hawaii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalapana,_Hawaii https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/lava-approaches-homes-on-hawaii-residents-under-evacuation-a https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/lava-approaches-homes-on-hawai...
kazinator 10y ago
On the opposite end of Canada, in Vancouver, $250K CAD is enough of a down payment to get a parking spot where you can park a portable kids' play house from Home Depot or Rona, without having to pay mortgage loan insurance. However, in the maritime provinces, with $250K CAD you can actually buy (completely pay for) a fully detached property with a decent house in an urban location. I'd take the money and run while it's there for the taking. They are probably not going to up the offers for those who stubbornly wait it out.
mpatobin 10y ago
If anybody wants to see some dramatic pictures of past resettlement programs in Newfoundland check google images (https://www.google.ca/search?q=newfoundland+resettlement&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmlvLNzqPPAhVENSYKHYLyB6AQ_AUICCgB&biw=1369&bih=757 https://www.google.ca/search?q=newfoundland+resettlement&sou...). I wish I had seen many of these small towns when the fishing industry was thriving. They are beautiful places but they're just a shell of what they used to be. So many abandoned homes, businesses, stages. If you've got FU money there's plenty of cheap oceanview property.
agentultra 10y ago
They tried this in the fifties too with the out-harbour communities in Newfoundland like Fogo. Many communities disappeared but Fogo and others stayed and developed something called the Fogo Process. It's sad really. The Marconi Tower is there. Some of the earliest settlements in North America were founded in Newfoundland. It's one of the most beautiful places on Earth to boot. If you visit you can still find traces of the abandoned communities. Most would just float their houses towards the main island. Some were left behind. It makes for an interesting hike. Some people out there love it. Generations going back to the 1700's have made their life on those islands. I think some portion of the population will refuse no matter how much is offered.
smnplk 10y ago
And then, there is this http://www.offgrid-living.com/2016/09/canadian-town-will-give-you-lots-of.html?m=1 http://www.offgrid-living.com/2016/09/canadian-town-will-giv...
stephenboyd 10y ago
So Newfoundland has been paying to relocate communities since the 1950s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_(Newfoundland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_(Newfoundland) I'm looking through the government's publications to try to understand this better. Does anyone here know if the relocation assistance includes any help relocating the community intact to a new location, or are they simply being paid to dissolve the community and leave? It would be interesting to see these folks all given neighbouring properties in a city so they can hold onto their social capital together. http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/faq/faq_relocation.html http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/faq/faq_relocation.html http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/publications/relocation/Community%20Relocation%20Policy.pdf http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/publications/relocation/Community%20...
- colomon 10y ago
  My understanding is third hand at best, but certainly the stuff I've read / heard from the 80s talking about the first wave of resettlement was quite bitter. "The Government Game": http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/02/game.htm http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/02/game.htm "The Blow Below The Belt": http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/07/blowbelow.htm http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/07/blowbelow.htm "West Moon": http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/01/west.htm http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/01/west.htm "To a place called Placentia, well, some of them went, And in finding a new home their allowances spent; So for jobs they went lookin' but they looked all in vain, For the roof had caved in on the government game." "Now they're scattered like dried leaves from hell to high water..."
ttam 10y ago
Am I the only one to think "wow, those are some very scenic villages that would probably be great for tourism" ?

116 points by breitling 10y ago

What's with the GIGANTIC title and header fonts on this page. The one on the bottom even has some bouncing animation associated with it.

ravenstine 10y ago
The page probably needed to "pop" more, so the designers added a little more zazz to it.
- overcast 10y ago
  I could see that being in a management email, with "please advise" at the bottom.
- lelandbatey 10y ago
  It's an unfortunate side effect of us humans leaning so much on visual stimulus. Huge text and a large image works great at catching peoples attention, which translates into more page views. If I remove the huge image and use a very "simple" stylesheet for this article, you get a very functional but much less catchy looking page: http://nacr.us/media/pics/screenshots/screenshot--11-20-16-2016.png http://nacr.us/media/pics/screenshots/screenshot--11-20-16-2... Thankfully, there are plenty of pieces of software for presenting web pages in these greatly simplified forms.

at-fates-hands 10y ago

One of my new favorite shows on Vice actually did a show about how abandoned Newfoundland is. They pointed out the over fishing of the area then the government banned fishing outright which started the collapse. https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/Newfoundland-Coast/57bddb99a39540ed4498faee https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/Newfoundland-Coast/57bddb...

Unman 10y ago
The way your (brief) sentence is written it sounds as though the government is given a good deal of credit for imposing the moratorium, whereas there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that they consistenly mis-managed it. It looks as though a combination of poor ecological models, concentration on simple resource production statistics, consulting only with large capital holders instead of small, local stakeholders led to this avoidable collapse. Over-fishing in the maritimes was mostly as a result of "free-trade" liberalisation including transferable/sellable fishing licenses which led to a decrease in small, family operations and an increase in massive, mortgaged industrial fishing operations. The small family business typically engaged in long-lining (single lines with multiple hooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing ) which did not require great capitalization/debt. These business became non-viable as larger operations flooded the market with fish caught by dragging -- a method which leads to the destruction of the seabed ecosystems which in turn decreases the catchable population. This is one of the good references on the topic, pretty readable (Dean Bavington, _Managed Annihilation_, 2010 UBC Press): http://www.ubcpress.ca/books/pdf/chapters/2010/ManagedAnnihilation.pdf http://www.ubcpress.ca/books/pdf/chapters/2010/ManagedAnnihi...
- at-fates-hands 10y ago
  Thanks for the link to the book, it looks like an excellent read. I'll be digging into that tonight. Yes, the show points out exactly what you say. There was an increase in large scale, industrial fishing using huge trawling boats that quickly depleted the resources. It seems this is an ongoing theme - as humans we just think natural resources will never run out.

guessmyname 10y ago

TL;DR — Fishing villages [...] sent into a tailspin by a fishery collapse, oil-price slump and mounting debt that left it with Canada’s most severe fiscal and demographic crisis. The provincial government now is pushing to close places like Little Bay Islands altogether rather than service them, offering [...] at least C$250,000 ($189,000) each to leave—and spurring a bitter, three-year fight over whether to cash out or endure. (Actually, the article is not that long, but the title is clickbait) I thought the reason was going to be related to the increment of sea levels, as villages near the coasts will surely be affected sooner than later by the constant floods in the coming years. Anyway, I agree with the sentiment of the people mentioned in the article, it is not clear when the Canadian government will pay that money, some people with houses near the coast are retired, they just want to live a peaceful life near the sea, they don't want to relocate, so it is logical to think that this strategy of the government to offer money to leave the place will not work, at least not very well.

msbarnett 10y ago
It's not even "the Canadian government". This was purely a Provincial scheme to lower costs.
- ersii 10y ago
  Isn't a province... government? Might not be the State/Federal government, but yet surely it's government one way or another?
  - msbarnett 10y ago
    > Isn't a province... government? Might not be the State/Federal government, but yet surely it's government one way or another? To me, saying "The Canadian government is doing X", is a statement about the activities of the Federal government. The use of the definite article implies singularity. A provincial government is not the Canadian government -- it's one of many in a federal system. It might in some narrow sense be technically accurate to rewrite the headline "Texas Urges Court To Ban Enforcement Of All Federal Pro-Transgender Restroom Policies In Workplaces" to read "the US Government Urges Court To Ban Enforcement Of All Federal Pro-Transgender Restroom Policies In Workplaces", but it's misleading to the reader and drops a lot of important context. It leads to an impression of a much broader situation than actually exists.

burnt1ce 10y ago

I actually live in Toronto and I agree real estate here is expensive. What I don't get is WAY more expensive in places like London, Hong Kong, New York and San Francisco but I don't hear as many complaints or alarms going off in those areas. Why? Is this just me being oblivious?

ska 10y ago
Much of the conversation is really about the rate of change. San Francisco has at least as many complaints and alarms, by the way - and for similar reasons. Some places have been very expensive for generations, so it has been normalized.
throw20160915 10y ago
It's because Toronto is in a state of transition. No one complains about NY, London, HK real-estate because it's already understood to be expensive in the mainstream. But Toronto real-estate being expensive is relatively new such that you have people who grew up in Toronto not being able to afford it in adulthood. People are slowly realizing that TO is now just another global city out of reach to the middle class unless you make heavy comprises. Give it some time, and soon people will stop complaining about being able to buy a house with a backyard here as well.
- contingencies 10y ago
  It's so cold there, who needs a backyard? You can only use it 2 weeks a year, and you'd be better off sailing.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - sidek 10y ago
    Honestly, as a Canadian, this is what I find so dumb about our urban planning. People demand adequate house spacing, backyard space, etc... Only for it to be usable for 4 months of the year. Meanwhile, all that dead space makes our cities unwalkable in the other 8 months. I guess people are just so used to having to drive everywhere that they don't see how else it could be.

1024core 10y ago

What, no Newfie jokes? On a more serious note: there's a tectonic shift going on in the US too, it's just not as stark. Young'uns are moving to the cities enmasse, resulting in skyrocketing rents in places like SF, Seattle. The old American Dream of having a McMansion out in the 'burbs has largely died out. Now people prefer the urban areas.

balabaster 10y ago
It's funny, as a young'un I felt the draw to the city and have worked in some of the greatest cities in the world. Now I'm still not old, but I find myself drawn to places like this. I feel like they could turn their slump into a booming tourism trade. There's nothing like the ocean and the large majority of people only ever get to see it on vacation. I grew up next to the ocean and even in a city where we have easy access to the great lakes, it's not the same. With a remote-work job and the ability to provide your own food year round, it could be a beautiful place to live, and could even thrive on tourism during peak season meaning you're not so reliant on remote-work in the off-season.
- jkaunisv1 10y ago
  I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones. Rent must be dirt cheap. I wonder how big a company (or collective of freelancers?) it would take to save a town like that.
  - msbarnett 10y ago
    > I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones. Rent must be dirt cheap. I wonder how big a company (or collective of freelancers?) it would take to save a town like that. It's tough. This isn't "the suburbs", this is way way off the beaten path. Six-and-a-half hours one way, by car, to St Johns, which at 70k people is still a pretty small and rural city by most standards. You're a couple of days away from anything resembling Big City living. The local talent pool is more or less non-existant, so you'd either have to accept remote workers (in which case you're not saving the town population-wise, but you're at least stabilizing the tax base), or you'd have to pay above SF rates to convince people to move out to the middle-of-nowhere instead of SF, where they'd have a much lower risk of finding another job if the company stops paying the bills. And access to actual amenities. The cheap housing will help a bit in recruiting, especially among people with young families or older Devs who aren't traditionally the target of startups, but the lack of anything remotely resembling a nightlife or entertainment options (maybe there's a local watering hole in town that doubles as the only restaurant) is going to turn a lot of people off. And that's not even getting into the one-room "school" situation, the fact that the nearest hospital is so far away they need to air-evac you if you become ill, etc. It's a tough, remote life unlike anything most urban dwellers would be used to. And god knows what kind of internet connectivity even exists out there.

falsestprophet 10y ago

"but the title is clickbait" Almost every Bloomberg title is clickbait [1]. Probably Bloomberg should be flagged for title correction. Perhaps: "Canadian government offering relocation to homeowners from some declining villages" Financial news readers may enjoy Reuters, which has far less irritatingly misleading titles. [1] source: Bloomberg.com

msie 10y ago
Yes, Bloomberg, I've hated them for a while now. Electrons not worth lining a bird cage.
sctb 10y ago
We've updated the title and detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557290 and marked it off-topic.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  The problem with doing it like this is that I was an inch away from replying to the very top comment that still calls the title clickbait. I had to reach the very bottom of the page to realize that was talking about a different title.

HillaryBriss 10y ago

> While she’s optimistic that the country can build a new economic base, she said it’ll happen only if Canadians “stop over-relying on the extraction of resources or, even worse, selling off our land.” This Canadian seems to believe that, in some real or legal sense, the land belongs to her and Canadians in general. But "Canadian land" truly belongs to anyone in the global real estate market with sufficient cash. This is also true in the US. I think people would be better off if they clearly recognized this reality. It isn't "your" country. Let that notion go. It's hurting you. There's no "you" there. Fly. Be free.

greenleafjacob 10y ago
Government is the guarantor of property rights. If the current government was overthrown do you think the new government would necessarily need to honor your deed?
- hx87 10y ago
  Government guarantees property rights, full stop. It doesn't matter what the nationality of the owner is.
stephenboyd 10y ago
It's only reality because it's policy, which can change.

ryandrake 10y ago

> After appeals were settled, a total of 95 residents received ballots. Ninety percent of them needed to approve the move for it to pass. That’s 86 votes. They got 85. Seems kind of daft to make it all-or-nothing AND set such a high bar. Why weren't the 85 residents who wanted to leave allowed to participate on their own, taking the money and leaving those 10 trolls behind to enjoy living in Nowheresville?

blackbagboys 10y ago
Most likely it would be legally difficult for the government to shut off services to the area if any residents remained.
- AdrianB1 10y ago
  What exactly are those services? There is no public education, no fire department, there is probably nothing, but they cannot just recognize "we give you nothing but we want you to pay taxes, so move somewhere else where we can give you something so you continue to pay up". It's a tax game, not a service game.
  - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
    Ferry service
    - AdrianB1 10y ago
      Lol, since when transportation is a social service? Is there any common sense left in Canada or socialism ate it all? What is NOT a social service in Canada, providing drugs and booze for the wealthy?
      - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
        Building a road to my town, even if few people live there is a standard thing that taxes pay for. I'm pretty sure there is not enough traffic for regular ferry service there, yet the govt keeps running it. Maybe they reduce it in the winter, but its there. That island would probably hardly have anyone there if there wasn't regular ferry service.

emilecantin 10y ago

You see this on a smaller scale elsewhere in Canada, too. The global economy is changing, and this has a huge effect on small towns across the country. I know of a few towns that are mostly desert now that their main economic engine (either a large manufacturing plant or a mine) has closed down. A few of them are trying to re-center around tourism, but the most successful ones I know are attracting small tech companies. They offer a lot of support, and free / cheap office space, and it seems to work quite well.

infinite8s 10y ago
This has happened across a lot of the US (and is probably one of the reasons for Trump's popularity, given that he's promising those folks good jobs).
Grishnakh 10y ago
I'm surprised it works much at all. The main draw such places have is lower cost-of-living, but in my experience and observation, the companies that locate there pay significantly lower salaries, so you end up not having any more after-rent pay than living in a metro area. Worse, you're tied to this job, so if the job doesn't work out for some reason, now you have to pack up and move. Also, finding places to rent in such towns can be hard, and buying a house is probably a bad idea because if the town is that much on the brink, you don't want to buy something that you won't be able to sell if the company folds and the town implodes.

patmcguire 10y ago

The US still can't get the last people to leave Centralia, PA. Centralia has been on fire since 1962. So I think the answer is no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

wnevets 10y ago
>Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to only 10 in 2010 They're probably gonna be dead soon anyway.
FrancoDiaz 10y ago
I've always been fascinated by these decades-long coal mine fires. Too bad they can't harness that energy somehow.
imaginenore 10y ago
Kalapana, Hawaii had a bunch of houses directly in the potential lava flow. They only moved out when it became obvious there was no way to stop it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalapana,_Hawaii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalapana,_Hawaii https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/lava-approaches-homes-on-hawaii-residents-under-evacuation-a https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/lava-approaches-homes-on-hawai...

kazinator 10y ago

On the opposite end of Canada, in Vancouver, $250K CAD is enough of a down payment to get a parking spot where you can park a portable kids' play house from Home Depot or Rona, without having to pay mortgage loan insurance. However, in the maritime provinces, with $250K CAD you can actually buy (completely pay for) a fully detached property with a decent house in an urban location. I'd take the money and run while it's there for the taking. They are probably not going to up the offers for those who stubbornly wait it out.

mpatobin 10y ago

If anybody wants to see some dramatic pictures of past resettlement programs in Newfoundland check google images (https://www.google.ca/search?q=newfoundland+resettlement&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmlvLNzqPPAhVENSYKHYLyB6AQ_AUICCgB&biw=1369&bih=757 https://www.google.ca/search?q=newfoundland+resettlement&sou...). I wish I had seen many of these small towns when the fishing industry was thriving. They are beautiful places but they're just a shell of what they used to be. So many abandoned homes, businesses, stages. If you've got FU money there's plenty of cheap oceanview property.

agentultra 10y ago

They tried this in the fifties too with the out-harbour communities in Newfoundland like Fogo. Many communities disappeared but Fogo and others stayed and developed something called the Fogo Process. It's sad really. The Marconi Tower is there. Some of the earliest settlements in North America were founded in Newfoundland. It's one of the most beautiful places on Earth to boot. If you visit you can still find traces of the abandoned communities. Most would just float their houses towards the main island. Some were left behind. It makes for an interesting hike. Some people out there love it. Generations going back to the 1700's have made their life on those islands. I think some portion of the population will refuse no matter how much is offered.

smnplk 10y ago

And then, there is this http://www.offgrid-living.com/2016/09/canadian-town-will-give-you-lots-of.html?m=1 http://www.offgrid-living.com/2016/09/canadian-town-will-giv...

stephenboyd 10y ago

So Newfoundland has been paying to relocate communities since the 1950s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_(Newfoundland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_(Newfoundland) I'm looking through the government's publications to try to understand this better. Does anyone here know if the relocation assistance includes any help relocating the community intact to a new location, or are they simply being paid to dissolve the community and leave? It would be interesting to see these folks all given neighbouring properties in a city so they can hold onto their social capital together. http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/faq/faq_relocation.html http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/faq/faq_relocation.html http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/publications/relocation/Community%20Relocation%20Policy.pdf http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/publications/relocation/Community%20...

colomon 10y ago
My understanding is third hand at best, but certainly the stuff I've read / heard from the 80s talking about the first wave of resettlement was quite bitter. "The Government Game": http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/02/game.htm http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/02/game.htm "The Blow Below The Belt": http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/07/blowbelow.htm http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/07/blowbelow.htm "West Moon": http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/01/west.htm http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/01/west.htm "To a place called Placentia, well, some of them went, And in finding a new home their allowances spent; So for jobs they went lookin' but they looked all in vain, For the roof had caved in on the government game." "Now they're scattered like dried leaves from hell to high water..."

ttam 10y ago

Am I the only one to think "wow, those are some very scenic villages that would probably be great for tourism" ?