Mayor Pond touts the measure of Prince Rupert success

In a National Post examination of the troubled economic times in North America, Prince Rupert’s Mayor Herb Pond found himself as the story closer, providing the mantra for struggling economies everywhere.

The Post credited the city’s fiscal prudence, geographic location and the opening of the Fairview Container port as key ingredients to the areas turn around.

Which makes for a nice little travelogue for the city, even if the optics of it all aren’t at the moment, quite spot on as they say and the rumours of our rebirth appeat to be a bit premature just yet.

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Interestingly enough, in the body of the Post story is a declaration of what doesn't work to turn around a struggling city's economic base, "Tourist traps such as casinos and convention centres might produce hospitality jobs, but they cannot replace a healthy, industrial tax base. "

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Tourism and the gaming centre are of course the two high profile activities which Prince Rupert seems to be banking on at the moment to help tide over the transition. Making for an interesting sample of contrarian thinking.

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The full article can be accessed here, while the Prince Rupert portion of the article can be found below.

From the National Post article:
Survival a creative exercise in rust belt cities
Rust or revival
Craig Offman
June 6, 2008

Though a far throw from the Great Lakes, Prince Rupert, B.C. is another significant turnaround story, owing its modest success to fiscal prudence and felicitous geography.

A small, dying pulp mill town that lost $25 million in revenue when its chief employer went bankrupt at the turn of the last decade, the city went into crisis mode and overhauled its finances. It cut core city services to save money and privatized some of its holdings – such as a golf course and a campground – to raise it.

In the second phase of its reincarnation, town officials went on the road, selling Prince Rupert as "The St. Lawrence of the West" to various governments and businesses. Situated at the northerly terminus of the B.C. ferry and the most southerly terminus of the Alaskan ferry, it became a destination for cruise ships, and more important, goods bound for Asia.

A port opened there last November, providing a nexus for far-flung goods such as cotton, which is shipped by rail from the Southern U.S. through Memphis and eventually heads to China.

While it has been victim to a faltering U.S. economy and rising fuel costs, positive news came last week when one of the port's terminal operators announced plans to triple the number of ships within a month.

Still, Mayor Herb Pond said that there are other metrics to consider.

"Seeing people's homes worth more than their mortgages, seeing spouses returning to the community and their children staying around: those are the measures of success."