Where the big money was in the Manitoba economy in 2012

Statistics Canada released its latest labour force productivity numbers this past week, normally a ho-hum affair. That’s no surprise: the word “productivity” strikes fear in the human heart, having become unfortunately associated with longer days, shorter lunch breaks and lower wages.

In fact, productivity shouldn’t be so scary a word. Higher output per hour worked is positively associated with basic well-being measures such as GDP per capita. And it is the countries that work fewer hours that are more productive, a real-life validation of Parkinson’s Law, which concluded that, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Now, having made that point, let’s get to what the latest StatsCan numbers reveal about the Manitoba economy.

Overall, Manitobans averaged $45.20 in economic output per hour worked in 2012 — or at least in the 2007 dollars that StatsCan prefers to track productivity levels in. That’s not too bad, as you’ll see further below. It’s interesting to note, however, how widely productivity levels vary by sector.

The biggest boosters to this provincial average were the energy, mining, oil and gas sectors, in which economic output per hour worked was many times the provincial average and well above $100 per hour. Real estate, rental and leasing also produced quite a lot of economic output per hour worked, which might explain that industry’s economic and political sway.

Information and cultural industries and utilities also helped boost the average.

Industries at the lower end of the scale included the retail trade, administrative and support services, arts, entertainment and recreation, and accommodation and food services.

Source: CANSIM 383-0029. Click to enlarge.

Unsurprisingly, the high productivity associated with energy and mining put the provinces and territories most involved in those sectors at the top of the national productivity chart. B.C., Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba finished within a fairly narrow band just below the national average, while the three non-resource-rich East Coast provinces trailed a bit further behind.

Source: CANSIM 383-0029. Click to enlarge.

That certain zig-zag quality

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton was deservedly well-known for his charm. There was a dark side, however: the Bill Clinton who could be short-tempered and sometimes show it publicly.

Twenty years ago next month, the public got a glimpse of that Clinton temper when the new president — less than six months in office — abruptly ended a press conference after ABC News correspondent Brit Hume questioned him about “a certain zig-zag quality in the decision-making process” in the Clinton White House.

Clinton was, of course, hardly the first politician to be good at zigging and zagging as needed. In a profession where the three forbidden words are ever, never and forever, being able to zig-zag as conditions change is practically a necessity.

Zigging and zagging is “business as usual” in Winnipeg, where disorder and confusion are as deeply embedded in our cultural DNA as the diametrical opposites are embedded in Switzerland’s DNA. The latest zig — or was it a zag? — came in two recent city council decisions setting the stage for new land developments.

One would see a new mixed-use residential/commercial development go up on currently undeveloped land on Taylor Ave. in south Winnipeg. The other proposal is for a “mostly low-density development” in Ridgewood South, replacing farms and forests along Wilkes Ave. in Charleswood.

At the same time, the city nominally supports further expansion in downtown housing to build population density in the struggling core area, and council will likely be asked to approve a “massive new mixed-use development” on Graham Ave.

The City of Winnipeg, of course, has to look after its own interests. It needs to pay its bills like everyone else, and if it gets the needed revenue from new downtown, inner and outer suburban development simultaneously, all the better for the City as an organization.

This does, however, expose a certain zig-zag quality in urban development policy.

Adding new suburban real estate capacity to the market changes the economic viability of inner-city housing as well. Two years ago, this blog noted the strong correlation between overall housing prices and propensity to live in the city centre: the more expensive housing is, the more inclined people appear to be to see living in a small, yardless downtown home as economically attractive.

Adding additional real estate capacity outside of the city centre reduces the incentive to make such trade-offs.

When the price of living in outlying areas hurts too much, or the commute hurts too much, then people will choose to live downtown. Public policy in Manitoba, however, has been to ease suburban cost-of-living pressures by adding capacity — even to plan to offer a sanitized suburban version of Osborne Village in a provincial government-sponsored outer fringe suburb — and to build new roads, bridges and rapid transit stations as needed to ease the commute.

These are not necessarily sinister choices. For many Winnipeggers, the ability to sit out in the back yard and enjoy a beer is one of the most cherished features of Manitoba life. For condo dwellers like me, sitting on a balcony well above the tree line and watching the sun go down is equally pleasant.

The people we elect to City Hall and the Legislature know that these are important parts of how we like to live, and cater to that accordingly. To expect them to commit career suicide by condemning these things would be a bit unfair.

Being an area resident, I would even go so far as to say that I welcome the expansion of the Grant Park area to the south with a cautious sense of hope.

One of the favourite aspects of living in this part of town is that it offers the best of both the urban and suburban worlds.

Like the ideal urban neighbourhood, there is a lot within walking distance, even if it is a butt-ugly walk in places. Four grocery stores serve the area — Safeway, Sobey’s, Price Chopper and Piazza De Nardi. Shoppers Drug Mart, McNally-Robinson, Starbucks and the future Target store are within a 15-minute walk. Sabai Thai and Falafel Place — now the quintessential Winnipeg neighbourhood restaurant since Kelekis’s packed it in — are about a 20-minute stroll away.

Getting by without a car is easy under the right circumstances: about one-fifth of Grant Park area commuters traveled to work by public transit according to the 2006 Census, significantly higher than the 13 percent city-wide average. Door-to-door commutes to and from downtown are about 15 minutes by car, 25-30 minutes by bus.

The area has never felt unsafe. On a warm summer’s night, front doors will still be open as late as 11 p.m.

Additional residential and retail in the area should add to the neighbourhood’s existing strengths. It might even make inter-neighbourhood competition more intense by diverting potential buyers away from more central neighbourhoods, or at least be a secondary choice for those prevented by circumstance from living in Osborne Village or the downtown area.

I’ll freely admit that all that would be good for me, personally. But the point remains that real change rests on people becoming dissatisfied. Like the many newcomers who come to Canada every year from the world’s many badly run countries — compared to the very few that come here from wonderfully successful places like Australia, Switzerland or Denmark — Winnipeggers will move into the centre of the city when they become dissatisfied with their lot in life.

There are many, of course, who love their neighbourhoods and couldn’t be paid to leave, including me.

But we need to understand that civic and provincial policy is strangely contradictory: it promotes more urban and more suburban living simultaneously, and avoids any mention of choices or trade-offs.

That works well for both levels of government, which benefit from the resulting economic activity and from being seen to be in tune with public opinion that wants both a nicer looking downtown and an expansion of the Manitoba Dream of a house with a yard, or a condo with an unobstructed view.

There is no question, however, that the public needs to keep in mind that the road to urban renewal remains a long and difficult one — a job that will continue to take decades, not just years — and to tailor their expectations accordingly.

Doing it all in your PJs

For decades, all that the pajama manufacturers of the world could do was watch as their market seemed to gradually disappear.

Some of the earliest alarm bells were sounded in 1949, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (?) reported that one-half of American men no longer wore pajamas to bed, a change attributed to returning World War II veterans who had gotten used to going without.

Despite the protests of the U.S. Shirt and Pajama Association, whose spokesman was quoted in a United Press report saying that a pajama-wearer is “much more of a gentleman”, pajama sales generally continued to decline over the years (aside from a spike in the Fifties), being worn by only one-in-four at the end of the 20th century.

Then, as the 21st century got under way, everything old became new again. The same mysterious cultural forces that bestowed upon the world the plaid suits of the Seventies and “the grunge look” of the Nineties suddenly made pajamas fashionable again.

Not necessarily for sleeping in, but for going about all your daily business in — a look supposedly inspired by college students who had mastered the art of rolling out of bed and into class 15 minutes later.

This style found no shortage of takers across North America, where expanding waistlines make elastic, or at least easily adjustable, pajama waistbands handy for both comfort and for not having to buy larger clothes more often.

Pajamas are also a good fit — no pun intended — in Winnipeg, where comfort comes first. In fact, the ability to live life in your pajamas is the newest marketing angle for selling condos in downtown Winnipeg, as the CBC reports:

A new highrise structure is in the works for downtown Winnipeg but most of the details are still under wraps.

Jawad Rathore, president and CEO of Fortress Real Development, said more details will be released soon but he’s not yet prepared to say what the building will look like or even where it will be located.

“I would love to … I know everyone wants those details,” he said. “We’re making a big announcement in about three weeks.” 

All he would say is it will be a mixed-use concept, which means people can live in one building, work in an adjacent building and have retails services at the base. And one thing that is certain, there will be a grocery store, Rathore said.

“If you need groceries you can actually go grocery shopping in your pajamas and your flip-flops in the middle of winter just by walking out the door and heading right down,” he said.

“And people kind of get this goofy, giggly smile on their face that yeah, you can actually do that.”

Having more people living downtown is a good thing; no doubt about that.

We do live in a city, however, that struggles with the diametrical opposite of being vain — that is, with being blissfully unconcerned with how the place looks.

Pride in civic appearance starts with pride in citizen appearance. If the latter doesn’t matter, neither will the former.

Around the world, businesses and governments have started to take firmer stances against the pajamas-in-public craze.

In 2010, a Tesco supermarket in Cardiff, Wales stirred up its pajama-wearing clientèle when management instituted a no-nightwear and no-bare-feet rule for customers, and turned away a 24-year old pajama-clad woman who wanted to buy cigarettes.

“I think it’s stupid really not being allowed in the supermarket with pyjamas on,” Elaine Carmody told the BBC. ”So they’re going to lose their custom, with people going to other shops to buy stuff and they’re allowed in with their pyjamas on.”

A protest was soon organized on Facebook, in which half a dozen people “shopped while dressed in their finest nightwear”, Wales Online reported.

The concept of going about one’s daily business in pajamas has met resistance elsewhere, too. In Belfast, Northern Ireland, the head teacher at one school sent home a blunt note, accusing parents who drop off and pick up children while they themselves are clad in pajamas of being “disrespectful to the school and a bad example“.

Chinese officials have begun ‘discouraging’ citizens from wearing pajamas in public, as a New York Times op-ed reported from Shanghai in 2010:

Catchy red signs reading “Pajamas don’t go out of the door; be a civilized resident for the Expo” are posted throughout the city. Volunteer “pajama policemen” patrol the neighborhoods, telling pajama wearers to go home and change. Celebrities and socialites appear on TV to promote the idea that sleepwear in public is “backward” and “uncivilized.”

[ . . . ]

Two journalists from Hong Kong’s Weekend Weekly magazine have already challenged [the pajama ban]. They marched in their silk pajamas along Nanjing Road, a major shopping area in central Shanghai, and sat down in a restaurant. They met only one pajama-wearing comrade, and many people made fun of them (maybe because on a rainy day they were wearing silk jammies rather than the quilted or heavy flannel styles normally worn in cool weather). It wasn’t what they expected in Shanghai.

Most draconian of all: In Louisiana, a local politician has been trying without success to ban the wearing of pajamas in public. Having made little headway, the politician turned his proposed law into a mere resolution that would encourage businesses to turn away pajama-clad customers.

Such a ban has been rejected in Gisborne, New Zealand, where the New Zealand Herald reports that a minority of residents’ habits “shows a lack of self-respect and lowers the town’s appeal.”

Could North Americans handle Britain’s cheeky advertising?

In 1975, an irreverent U.S. broadcaster named Lorenzo Milam decided to write a book that would serve as a how-to guide on how to start up a non-commercial radio station on a shoestring budget. He decided to call the book Sex and Broadcasting because, as his aunt advised him, the mere suggestion of sex would automatically double the book’s sales and quadruple its readership.

Milam’s aunt couldn’t have been all that wrong. Sex and Broadcasting became something of a classic among its niche audience, and Milam’s book of advice is still considered a valuable reference nearly 40 years later.

The makers of Tom Ford Neroli Portofino body oil are likely hoping that their racy advertising campaign will also double sales and quadruple product use. The ad shown below, which appeared in the London Evening Standard on April 19, a free newspaper distributed at London Underground stations, depicts a young nude couple, with parts of their anatomy not printable in a respectable newspaper cleverly concealed, dousing each other with the product.

London Evening Standard, April 19, 2013

The ad is the least racy of three used in the full campaign; the other two not-safe-for-work adverts being easily found on Google Images.

A newspaper can get away with such advertising in Britain, which tends to be a bit more socially conservative than its European neighbours, but still has a rich history of suggestive advertising and pushing-the-edge comedy.

Would such ads play well here in North America?

Perhaps they would be tolerated in the continent’s more outward-looking global crossroads cities, but it’s reasonable to presuppose that ads of this type would get a rougher ride in North America’s vast, less worldly, and often very insular provincial regions where reaction was most outraged at Janet Jackson’s 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” that exposed part of one of her breasts on network television. (Violence is fine on North American network television. But sex or nudity? Outside of a few cable television niches, not so much.)

Even as late as 2011, a former NDP MLA in British Columbia caused controversy when he suggested that it was inappropriate for Premier Christy Clark to wear an outfit in the Legislature that displayed a decidedly modest amount of cleavage.

All this suggests that the Tom Ford ad, which was deemed suitable for publication in the London Evening Standard, might still not be considered suitable for publication in the Winnipeg Free Press, the Winnipeg Sun or Metro.

But, I’ll leave this up to the audience. If you opened the Free Press, Sun or Metro one day and saw the ad above, how do you suppose you and those around you would react?

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My brief holiday in London happened by pure chance to coincide with the funeral of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The opportunity to be an eyewitness to history and to watch the funeral procession go by en route to St. Paul’s Cathedral was too good to pass up.

However one feels about Mrs. Thatcher, who is still both loved and hated by many Britons, nobody does pomp and circumstance like the British.

Uncouth viewpoints of Morris minority belong to the past, not the future

What the chef is really doing in the kitchen. (Source: CTVNews.ca)

“April is the cruelest month,” goes an old saying. It is certainly turning out that way in Morris, Manitoba, whose rise to national prominence in recent days has been painfully embarrassing.

“They should get the hell out of here . . . I don’t really like them, the service and who they are,” Morris area resident Aaron Kleinsasser said to a reporter about the two gay co-owners of a local restaurant.

The two are closing their restaurant, called Pots N Hands, and presumably leaving Morris, having grown tired of what they describe as small-minded and intolerant attitudes on the part of a minority of the local population.

If Kleinsasser’s comments were not enough, a member of Morris’s business community only made things worse with his comments to the Winnipeg Free Press:

George Ifandis, who runs George’s Burgers & Subs in town, said he has nothing against the eatery’s owners, but understands some customers might be uncomfortable with the men’s sexuality.

“A lot of people don’t like it,” said Ifandis. “You don’t know what they’re doing in the kitchen.”

What the two owners of the soon-to-close Pots N Hands restaurant in Morris might have been doing in the kitchen was left to the public’s imagination.

The reaction was fast and furious.

“I’m pretty sure I know what the gay chefs get up to in the kitchen,” wrote Pete Evans in response to Ifandis’s question. “Cooking your #$%^ing food.”

This blog’s opinion, as expressed on Twitter after Ifandis’s and Kleinsasser’s remarks were republished in the Montreal Gazette, Maclean’s and the National Post, is that their comments were uncouth and a stain on the province’s reputation.

Premier Greg Selinger, to his credit,  did not appear to share some townfolk’s concern for what might be going on in the kitchen, quickly promising to visit Pots N Hands in person for lunch in the coming days.

Provincial opposition leader Brian Pallister, Morris mayor Gavin van der Linde and the town council and the local chamber of commerce have also publicly stated their support for the restaurant, and rejected the attitudes prompting the restaurant’s closure and Ifandis’s and Kleinsasser’s inflammatory comments.

It is currently unknown if either Ifandis or Kleinsasser have apologized or sought to retract their statements.

Meanwhile, a game of tit-for-tat unfolded on the Town of Morris’s Wikipedia page as unflattering discussion of the Pots N Hands incident was added, then deleted, then repeatedly re-added and re-deleted.

The Morris incident happened at about the same time as a Winnipeg man’s house was defaced by slurs spray-painted on to the outside walls, and a heated debate over whether a provincial government initiative to reduce sexual orientation-based bullying should apply to religious schools.

With both the town of Morris and the province of Manitoba trying to fight the perception of being laggards in terms of social tolerance, a troubling question needs to be asked: What if the perception is based on reality?

The following graph is based on a question that was asked on the 2011 Canadian Election Survey, a survey commissioned by academics to take the political pulse of the country during and just after every federal election campaign. To measure changing public attitudes on matters related to sexual orientation, they included a question asking respondents to describe how they feel about gays and lesbians. Respondents were asked to use a 0-to-100 scale, where a “0″ meant really dislike and a “100″ meant really like.

Two clusters seemed to emerge here: fairly relaxed attitudes on the coasts, with average scores of between 78 and 80 in Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and British Columbia, and slightly cooler attitudes in the 68-to-72 range in the rest of the country, particularly in the prairie provinces — with Manitoba finishing at the very bottom, tenth out of 10.

(Click to enlarge)

Why might Manitoba be lagging in this area? One strong possibility is the province’s low educational attainment rates, which in most years are either “the worst” or “among the worst” in Canada. As shown below, attitudes toward gays and lesbians — such as the owners of Pots N Hands — strongly correlate with educational attainment.

(Click to enlarge)

Prevailing attitudes also tend to vary by:

• Religiosity: Canadians who said religion was “very important” in their lives had markedly more traditional attitudes; while attitudes were roughly the same between those who were moderately religious and those who were decidedly secular.

• Age: Canadians born since 1970 are the most accepting in this regard; those born before 1940 the least accepting. This is a hopeful sign for future improvements.

• Voting behaviour: More liberal social atittudes were found among those who voted Green, NDP or, to a lesser extent, Liberal in the 2011 federal election. Bloc Quebecois and Conservative voters tended to be a bit more conservative on average.

• Gender: Women tended to be more accepting than men were.

The negativity the owners of Pots N Hands were exposed to here is, quite frankly, embarrassing for Manitoba.

People throughout Canada and around the world judge us by how tolerant or intolerant we appear to be. They judge us as a place to live, a place to visit and as a place to do business.

Think about the places around the world that people dream of living in someday, the societies people vote for with their feet and even risk their lives to get to, and on the opposite end, the places the young dream of leaving. You will see that the more accepting societies have always had an advantage in attracting the talented people that make their societies better places to live.

What the nation and the world have already read, seen or heard about Manitoba already coloured their perceptions of us in a matter of seconds. If they happen to have come to the unfortunate conclusion that we have a tolerance problem in Manitoba — regardless of whether that is a justified conclusion or not — it is a perception that will take years to reverse.

It is encouraging to see the premier and the Morris town administration take quick action to show the world Manitoba’s decent and gracious side, the same side that continues to welcome newcomers from around the world with an ease that contrasts with the angst over immigration found in many other countries.

Now, the most important thing to do to improve the perception of Manitoba as a fair-minded place where people can get along despite their differences is to work very hard on improving our relatively abysmal educational outcomes, as it is education that changes hearts, souls and minds for the better.

Selling Winnipeg as a tourist destination a good lesson in economics

Images of Winnipeg (source: Wikipedia)

Oh, you’re thinking about taking a trip to the States this summer? Could I interest you in a nice holiday in Indianapolis? Baltimore? How about Houston?

Why not Houston? Frommer’s lists 21 noteworthy attractions awaiting those courageous enough to brave the Texas city’s notorious heat and humidity, including 10 “star” attractions.

Houston is, after all, a big city. More than two million people live in Houston proper, and six million live within commuting distance. Its local attractions include museums, a zoo, the famous Space Centre and — wait for this, Winnipeg! — the SplashTown water park. The fine folks at the Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau even offer a handy trip-planning guide, intended to ensure that the whole family has a great time.

Nice hotels will set you back more than $120 U.S. per night for a July visit, but if you’re willing to settle for a Super 8 just off the Interstate, it will cost you just $40 to $65 U.S. per night. That will offset the relatively high cost of airfare — ranging from $668 Cdn. after taxes and fees on Air Canada to $725 on Delta.

Still not interested? No problem. There are plenty of other choices out there.

That might very well be an understatement. Today’s vacationer has more choices than ever before, a point made on this blog last November, noting that a trip to Europe for a couple traveling together is now only just barely more expensive on an airfare-plus-hotel basis than a trip to the United States; and that Europe now routinely offers better value for the solo Canadian traveler than the much-closer U.S. does.

The fierce competition for the tourist dollar hasn’t caused local tourism authorities to give up, however. Virtually every city around with a metro area population of 100,000 or more — and many with less than that — have at least a web site dedicated to giving people good reason to visit. Larger centres, no matter how far down Virtual Tourist’s rankings of top North American destinations (Houston ranks 21st, Winnipeg ranks 79th), offer comprehensive trip planning services.

Indeed tourism was the topic of the week at a Mar. 27 Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce breakfast session, during which Tourism Winnipeg noted that visitors contribute more than $500 million annually to the local economy — more than the cost of police, fire and community services combined.

The tourist dollar is a nice thing to get ahold of. Tourists spend abundantly on meals, hotels, taxis and various other goods and services, and generally impose minimal costs on the hosts as long as the city isn’t overwhelmed by them.

But attracting tourists isn’t as simple as giving out trip planning guides. Tourism is an excellent example of the laws of economics as they apply to real life, and tourism marketing always must be done with economic principles in mind if it is to make any sense.

Cost: One important factor that vacationers take into consideration is the cost of getting to a destination and staying there, as this will easily be the bulk of their travel budget. The cost of staying in Winnipeg is comparable to other Canadian cities and slightly-to-significantly higher than similarly sized cities in the U.S. and even cheaper European countries such as Germany and Italy; while airfare ranges from $300 to $700 per person from most of North America.

Thus, the easiest markets to go after will be those who face the lowest costs getting to Winnipeg — such as those within easy driving distance, passing through on the train or the Trans-Canada Highway, or attending conventions and business meetings. Don’t count on flying people in from Toronto, New York, L.A. or Paris, who will find a visit to Winnipeg very expensive compared to other options. This leads us to our next factor.

Availability of adequate substitutes: Some places in the world are just so unique that they can command a premium by virtue of the fact that you can’t get the same thing anywhere else in the world. You can’t find the overwhelming grandeur of Paris anywhere but in Paris; there are a lot of cities in America, and a few that try to imitate Las Vegas, but if you’re looking for a sinful, over-the-top party town, there is only one Las Vegas.

By comparison, there are hundreds of cities where you can go to get something very similar to the Winnipeg experience. The Torontonian can always go to Hamilton or Buffalo, and the New Yorker can always go to Pittsburgh or Baltimore. So it makes sense to market Winnipeg in markets where you can’t easily swap Winnipeg for something else. For example, if you live in Brandon or Kenora, where else could you go to get a bit of a taste of bigger-city life for just the weekend? After Winnipeg, the next closest city with a population of half a million or more is Minneapolis, a seven-to-nine hour drive away. Those regional markets might be small, but their proximity makes Winnipeg more competitive as a tourist destination.

That being said, here’s where Winnipeg might make sense as a destination for a long-haul tourist. While Winnipeg itself might not be unique as an urban destination, it is the logical jumping-off point for adventurers in search of wilderness adventures in the north. Most of the world does not have easy access (if any) to big-game hunting, fishing, beluga whale and polar bear watching and the northern lights. For travelers from heavily urbanized Europe and Asia, these things have the potential to make for the cool sort of holiday they can show off to their friends and family at home. While on their way to and from the north, offering them things to do while killing a day at either end in Winnipeg makes sense.

Opportunity-cost and the allocation of scarce goods: Aside from the well-off-and-retired and the independently wealthy, tourism is an exercise in finding the best use of scarce resources. Many North Americans have only two or three weeks of holiday time at their disposal every year and, if they’re lucky, a budget of a few thousand dollars at most. Understandably, they will want the most bang for their buck: they don’t want to feel that their scarce vacation days have been wasted, and they want to have the most enjoyable experience they possibly can.

Thus, it’s vital to understand that much of that time and money will be allocated to winter holidays in the southern U.S. and the Caribbean, or to one of the Top 10 North American or international destinations. But there will always be those on more limited budgets that will be looking for a destination they don’t have to fly to or who will want to visit friends and family. For these people, a trip to Winnipeg might prove to be a good use of both money and time, while a trip to somewhere else might leave them with less money to spend on necessities or be a lost opportunity to see people who are special to them. Thus, these markets — the regional, low-budget and the “visiting friends and relatives” markets — are worth going after.

While Winnipeg will always be a small player in the hyper-competitive world of international tourism, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we should throw in the towel on tourism promotion. Tourism, even on a small scale, has spin-offs from the extra spending that people tend to do when they travel.

It is important, though, for tourism promotion to  be done with the “What’s In It For Me?” rule in mind if it is to be a good use of money. For most of the world’s tourists, Winnipeg is one of many hundreds of medium-sized cities that can’t really answer that question — and there’s nothing wrong with that. Even the world’s most prestigious destinations can’t provide a satisfactory answer to that question for everyone. Where there’s a group of potential visitors that Winnipeg can satisfactorily answer that question for, however, those visitors are worth going after.

Why neighbourhood grocery stores matter

Less than three months along, 2013 is not shaping up to be a good year for the neighbourhood grocery store in Winnipeg. First, the Extra Foods supermarket in the North End closed in January. Then the Food Fare at the corner of Arlington and Polson closed last week, followed today (Sunday) by the closure of the grocery store at The Bay Downtown.

The loss of inner-city grocery stores is hardly unique to Winnipeg. Hamilton went without a downtown supermarket for 11 years until the announcement that Nations Fresh Foods, an Ontario chain that specializes in catering to the ethnic market, will open a 55,000 square foot store in Jackson Square, a struggling downtown shopping centre. London, Ont., has been less fortunate, and continues to struggle along without a downtown supermarket.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) research finds that it can be a challenge to open a grocery store in an urban area. The challenges include zoning and regulatory approval, availability of suitable lands, higher construction and operating costs, more difficult access for both motorists and company supply trucks, and competing political goals.

The disappearance of downtown and inner-city grocery stores is more than just an inconvenience to those having to walk, drive or take the bus to a more distant location. A 2009 study from the University of Utah found that having a grocery store within walking distance of home helps prevent obesity:

We find a strong association between neighborhood retail food options and BMI/obesity risk . .. The presence of at least one healthy grocery option in low income neighborhoods is also associated with a reduction in BMI/obesity risk relative to no food outlets. Finally, multiple food options within a neighborhood reduce BMI/obesity risk, relative to no food options…

Russ Lopez of the Boston University School of Public Health came to a similar conclusion in a 2007 journal article, finding that having a supermarket in the neighbourhood was more strongly associated with lower obesity risk than population density, median income or proximity to businesses.

While it is possible that walkable neighbourhoods are more likely to attract people who like to stay in shape to begin with, it’s also possible that having to walk home with one’s groceries leads people to be more finicky about what they buy, as observed by Calgary Herald (and ex-Winnipeg Sun) columnist Naomi Lakritz this past January:

Walkability severely limits your grocery list. No milk cartons (too heavy), glass jars (ditto) or a lot of cans (more ditto). No ice cream or other frozen food in warm weather.

In winter, of course, the ice cream will come in handy when you slip on an icy sidewalk. You can use it to cushion your fall. Kind of.

And if you set your ice cream pail on top of a snowbank at the curb, you can use it as an aid to propel yourself over the pile of snow. 

Lakritz’s facetiousness aside, obesity has real economic costs, as explained by the OECD in a 2010 report:

Obese people earn up to 18% less than people of normal weight. They need to take more days off, claim more disability benefits, and tend to be less productive on the job than people of normal weight. In northern European countries, obese people are up to three times more likely than others to receive a disability pension, and in the United States they are 76% more likely to suffer short-term disability. When production losses are added to health care costs, obesity accounts for over 1% of GDP in the United States.

Though the U.S. has one of the worst obesity problems in the OECD — one-third of Americans are considered obese, based on a body-mass index of 30 or more — Canada is closer to the U.S. end of the scale, with about one-quarter of Canadian adults being obese, than to a number of European and Asian countries where fewer than 15 percent are obese.

Ease of access to a grocery store is more than just a convenience issue. It is also a health and economic issue. Keep that in mind the next time you hear about a grocery store closing — or a new neighbourhood being planned without consideration being given to having a neighbourhood grocery store.

Overweight and obesity rates by country. (Source: OECD. Click for source.)