CITY OF NANAIMO IS NOT A RETAIL BUSINESS

 

The Growth Myth: Why Cities Aren’t Retail Businesses

There’s a persistent belief in modern city planning that a growing population is like a growing customer base — more people equals more revenue, just like in a successful business. But this mindset, borrowed from the private sector, falls apart when applied to municipal governance.

The Business-Minded Fallacy

In retail, more customers generally mean more profit. The cost of serving each new customer decreases over time, and the revenue scales up faster than expenses.

But for cities, more residents mean more roads, more sewers, more garbage trucks, more emergency services, and more infrastructure to maintain. These are not income-generating additions — they are long-term liabilities.

The Ever-Hungry City

When cities grow unchecked, they begin to behave like living organisms — or machines — that need to be constantly fed. They consume land, staff time, budget capacity, and public patience. And still they want more. More taxes. More development. More expansion.

Yet one question is almost never asked: Can the average resident still afford to feed this thing?

The Ignored Reality: Ability to Pay

City councils rarely ask what the average resident can realistically afford. They approve new staff, new buildings, and new subdivisions with the city’s 'needs' in mind, not the community’s capacity.

And because a city is a legally incorporated entity — a 'person' in the eyes of the law — it never tires, never retires, never stops expanding.

What Gets Lost

- The fixed-income senior being taxed out of their home
- The renter absorbing pass-through tax hikes
- The young family watching affordability vanish
- The tradesperson paying more in fees and utilities

A New Model

We need to stop treating cities like growth-driven corporations. Instead, we should ask:
- How many people can we afford to serve well?
- How do we stay healthy, not just big?
- How do we protect the taxpayer, not just the bottom line?

Final Thought

The city behaves like a corporation, chasing expansion. But that’s not sustainable. Not for the budget. And not for the people.

In the end, a city that always wants more will consume the very people who made it worth living in.