You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going. P.J. O’Rourke

1961 was a watershed year for the City of Kamloops. The population had climbed to just over 10,000 and so the community officially had status as a full fledged town. The Overlanders Bridge was opened paving the way for new development on the North Shore.

In fact, Kamloops was then the 170th largest community in all of Canada. Now, this was prior to North Kamloops being part of the city (it was a separate village) and the amalgamation that would take place a decade or so later. However, thanks to some research done by Thompson Rivers University, we are able to determine the 1961 population of the area that now comprises our city.

Of course places like Dufferin, Juniper Ridge, Pineview Valley, Aberdeen and Upper Sahali had a population of pretty much zero. North Kamloops and Brock had a combined population of 6,456 and “hamlets” such as Valleyview, Barnhartvale, Rayleigh, Dallas and the like combined for a further 4,056 residents. So, for the sake of comparison our 1961 population was just shy of 20,600.

Best estimates of our current population within the same boundaries are about 87,500 meaning we have grown by about 425 per cent over the past five decades. Kamloops is now the 37th largest city in Canada, meaning we have moved up considerably against many communities that were once larger than us.

The Canada West Foundation has published some pretty interesting studies on the regional economies of our part of the country. One such study entitled “Big Cities and the Census” looked at the growth of the 33 largest communities in Canada since that same 1961 census.

I have to admit that I was surprised by the findings. We tend to compare our growth to our neighbours in the Okanagan. In some respects, that’s a natural thing to do. Kelowna’s population, including areas like Winfield and Rutland that were not formerly part of the city was about 27,460 in 1961.

Now, including West Kelowna (formerly Westbank) and some surrounding areas they have a total population of about 162,500 for a rate of growth of 491 per cent over the past half century. This is the absolute fastest rate of urban growth of any city in the country over that period of time. However, were Kamloops included in this list our rate of growth would have ranked us third in Canada just slightly behind Abbotsford and ahead of Barrie, Ontario.

This study showed that the average rate of growth for a Canadian city over the past 50 years is 106 per cent meaning that Kamloops has grown at a pace roughly quadruple the national average. Even within British Columbia the average rate of growth has been 166 per cent. Alberta cities have grown, on average, at the fastest pace but even there the growth rate is less than half of what we have seen locally over the same period.

At the other end of the scale, what is now Thunder Bay, Ont. had a population of 106,300 people in 1961. Today that population, including outlying areas is about 123,000 for a growth rate of about 15 per cent over 50 years. Even in absolute terms, Kamloops has grown by about 67,000 residents over the past half century. While today about 158,000 people call Sudbury Ontario home, in 1961 they already had 140,000 citizens living there.

Now, bigger doesn’t mean better. Growth provides its own set of headaches. Just ask anyone who has tried to navigate Kelowna’s Harvey Avenue during the rush hour. Given our geography, it’s remarkable that our city is relatively easy to navigate.

However, new residents require new roads, and utilities as well as recreational facilities, police services and fire protection. At some point we can’t keep piling more vehicles into the same roadways without significant delays being experienced by increasingly irate motorists. The art is and will be in managing growth and the quality of life issues that can be challenged by growth.

Anyone looking around here realizes that there are physical limitations on how far our community can sprawl up and down river valleys. As the age of the average Canadian climbs we are going to have to switch our focus to higher density developments clustered more closely to shopping and services. Otherwise, the next 67,000 new residents are going to be touch more difficult to accommodate.