Living in Edmonton provides you with many things. For instance, I’m able to earn enough money living here to actually afford living in the city (and I’m not talking about slumming it with a roommate until you’re in your 30s like in Vancouver/Victoria). However, the city of Champions (by the way, time for a new motto city council) does have it drawbacks. For example, Edmontonians get to enjoy roughly eight weeks of nice weather per year (give or take). Contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t make you appreciate the nice weather even more. Rather, it forces you to drop $2,000 every winter to escape to the tropics. True, we have the Athabasca River to visit during the spring and summer, but my idea of a day at the beach doesn’t include a brown river roughly three feet deep at its deepest point that smells to holy hell in the summer (I can see everybody in Victoria silently nodding while reading that part. However, as nice as Willows Beach is, keep in mind that you recently had a turd run for Mayor of Victoria). Long story short, living in Edmonton has made me appreciate Victoria to a degree not possible when I lived there.
Despite Edmonton’s negative aspects, it would be a mistake to overlook Victoria’s drawbacks. They do exist and can essentially be summarized in four words: “lack of economic opportunity”. Victoria’s top three industries (if you can call them that) are:
- Health care and social assistance (read: nurses who take care of old folks and care aids who work in old folks homes)
- Government (anytime time the government is your economic driver you’re in trouble. See: Obama, Barack)
- Accommodations and Food (90% Starbucks, 10% other)
Look, I’m no Paul Krugman but anytime your top three industries are end-of-life care, government and restaurants, you’re not going to be joining the G20 anytime soon. I’d re-order Victoria’s top three income streams as follows: retirement income, trust fund income, and real estate. And while an economy almost entirely reliant on retirees (and care of), wealthy students from out of province, and real estate might not lead to immediate economic Armageddon, I can assure you of this: Victoria’s economy has confined its native-born youth population to wonder the country as economic refugees. I know because I’m part of the diaspora. With few exceptions, those who choose to stay behind can look forward to bringing home about $50,000 a year (average income for Victoria-Beacon Hill) while trying to pay a mortgage of $3,200 a month on their $515,000 house (average Victoria home price). Okay, that’s probably not going to happen unless you marry up or come into a nice little inheritance. But even a condo will set you back about $2,000 a month which quickly eats into your less than $40,000 annual take home pay. How so many people do it is beyond me. However, there is one group that has managed to stickhandle through the barren landscape that is the Victoria economy. These walking paradoxes can be found everywhere in Victoria. I know you’ve seen them and you may even know a few. They are, for lack of a better term, “Hipsters” and they have been making my return trips to Victoria increasingly frustrating. How these seemingly unemployable faux-artists/philosophers have managed to thrive in Lotus Land is one of the great economic questions of our times. And I want to know how they do it.
Seriously, [insert complex financial derivative] are easier concepts to grasp than how these Starbucks baristas can afford to dress themselves in designer jeans and other hipster fashions while seemingly never working. Somebody please explain to me how, given the cost of living in Victoria, $8.75 an hour at your local Starbucks/Planet Organic provides you with enough money to take the afternoon off to brush up on your skateboarding skills? And if you're thinking the skateboard is a smart, low cost substitute for a car, think again. These guys have nicer cars than I do. And how the hell do they pay rent? Last time I checked the hippy commune movement went extinct about 30 years ago, so I doubt they're pulling a Manson family to save money on rent. The conclusion: these connoisseurs of PBR (now owned by one of the largest private equity firms in the world by the way) and thrift store fashions are generally students making the most out of their student loans and trust fund babies with a credit line paid by mom and dad.
