NBers moving to large urban centres, researcher says
 

Published Thursday April 28th, 2011 A5
By MEGAN MACKAY For The Daily Gleaner

With an aging population and younger demographics moving to larger urban centres, it would seem that New Brunswick has a population bomb ready to explode, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing, says researcher Michael Haan.

Haan's lecture, Can New Brunswick's Population Bomb be Defused? was held at the Charlotte Street Arts Centre on Wednesday night and featured the beginnings of his research agenda at the University of New Brusnwick.

The lecture focused on the causes of population decline and why people are moving out of New Brunswick. His research has shown that people tend to migrate to larger urban centres - of which New Brunswick has none. The good news is Moncton and Fredericton are continuing to grow.

"It's the rural populations moving into these cities that is driving the population up," Haan said. "Investments in recruitment and retention are likely to have different levels of success for each (age demographic)."

Akshay Mohan is a sociologist interested in immigration issues and how to attract new people to New Brunswick. He moved to the province from Boston 21/2 years ago with a plan to settle here.

"It's got a good quality of life with balance between urbanization and rural areas. I would say the value system here is really good in terms of people, in terms of being family and community focused," Mohan said. "And there are a lot of opportunities that could be created and being an entrepreneur, I felt this was a good place to do this."

He said the lecture provided him useful information.

"He presented a lot of valuable data and the fact of where people are moving to. It can lead to a lot of more informed policy decisions that are based on evidence and also for us to be able to make choices in terms of where we want to focus our resources," Mohan said.

The lecture was the fourth in a series called Ideas that Matter, put on by UNB. Bob Skillen was one of the original organizers behind the series. He said the idea was to hold a lecture series to promote the 2001 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences on May 28-June 4 in Fredericton.

"It started out with, what can we do around congress to help promote humanities and social sciences? and it grew into the Ideas that Matter series," Skillen said
With the support of 25 local businesses, the lecture series is free.

"The faculty of arts is very interested in continuing the series," he said. "This is a great way to engage the community."

The fifth and final lecture of the series in 2011 will be held Sept. 28.