Отправлено: 20.11.04 17:17. Заголовок: Как нас видят американцы (статья в USA Today)

это статья из USA Today
классная статья, я так и вижу, как люди читая ее, бросаются паковать чемоданы
Я выделил пару мест для тех, кто мучается выбором Calgary - Edmonton


Calgary leaves cow town image in the dust
It’s hip, hopping and open for business

by James Cox ¦ Nov 10 ’04

CALGARY, Alberta -- Houston with better skiing is the way people here used to describe their city.
Houston with a stronger economy is more apt nowadays.

With crude oil near $50 a barrel, Canada’s oil patch capital is riding the crest of a decade-long wave of growth. Its prosperity shows no sign of slowing, even if oil prices fall to the high $20s.

Calgary is at the heart of Canada’s fastest-growing economic region. It boasts the country’s highest annual job growth and largest population increases. Per-capita economic output in the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is 40% above Canada’s national average and 10% above the U.S. national average.

The city’s wealth flows mainly from the massive oil and natural gas deposits in Alberta, which have become a vital source of energy for the USA. For its size, Calgary is home to Canada’s highest concentration of corporate offices, and all but five of the 68 large companies headquartered here are in the energy business. The presence of so many so-called majors has drawn 800 smaller energy «juniors,» along with scores of investment banks and law firms.

Calgary can look forward to more energy investment sloshing in. Gas producers and pipeline operators have ambitious expansion plans. Oil producers are expected to spend $40 billion or more by 2025 to crank up production in the northern Alberta’s oil sands region.

For energy producers, Calgary is the financing, administrative and engineering brains. Edmonton, the blue-collar Alberta capital 180 miles north, supplies the brawn: oilfield services, construction and tradesmen.

It’s been a good marriage. The Calgary-Edmonton strip is «the only Canadian urban center to accumulate a U.S. level of wealth while preserving a Canadian-style quality of life,» says TD Financial Group.

Lifestyle attractions are evident in Calgary, home to 1.1 million people. The city sits in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, 90 minutes’ drive from world-class skiing in Banff. Dotted by spacious parks and crisscrossed by biking trails, it gets more sunshine annually than any other Canadian city. Avid fly fishermen can spend lunch hours casting in the Bow River, which flows in the shadows of downtown office towers.

A city that welcomes entrepreneurs

Attractions for business are just as obvious. Oil and gas royalties have allowed Alberta to pay off its bonds, making it the only major debt-free jurisdiction in North America. That means low, low taxes: provincial corporate taxes, 12.4%, are among the country’s lowest; personal income tax is a flat 10%, rock bottom in Canada; there is no municipal or provincial sales tax.

Alberta generally is more politically conservative than the rest of Canada. Led by colorful Premier Ralph Klein, Albertans tend to eschew what they say is a stifling political correctness found elsewhere.

«People here talk about deals, business, making money,» says Frank Atkins, economist at the University of Calgary. «In the East, they talk about what the government can do to help them. We look for the federal government to get out.»

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 Отправлено: 20.11.04 17:17. Заголовок:

Calgarians, like most other Albertans, have an independent streak and admire risk takers. City leaders have done all they can to welcome entrepreneurs. Calgary has less red tape, a more highly educated workforce and a younger population than any other metropolis in the country, says Bruce Graham, CEO of Calgary Economic Development.

Calgary has seen boom times before and paid a heavy price when they ended. The local economy took off as oil prices soared during the 1970s, then crashed when Ottawa imposed draconian tax royalties on energy companies in an effort to quasi-nationalize the industry. «The national energy program crushed the industry. Then prices collapsed,» Atkins says.

Openness has brought diversity to the economy. The city has the largest concentration of small businesses in Canada and the most millionaires per capita.

A number of start-ups grew out of oil and gas and are now flourishing on their own. Several local companies are leaders in geomatics, the science of geographic modeling based on remote sensing, digital photography and satellite mapping. Outside the energy sector, Calgary has become western Canada’s logistical hub. Retail giants Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire and others have built huge distribution centers here.

Twenty percent of the city’s population has arrived in the past five years. Half of Calgarians weren’t here 10 years ago. Paul Vickers, an Ontario transplant, settled in Calgary eight years ago. Today, he owns several brashly themed nightclubs and restaurants that dominate the downtown after-dark scene. Cowboys, a raucous Vickers saloon populated by waitresses in tank tops and cowboy hats, is famous throughout Canada as «the place where Playboy meets country.»

«In other parts of Canada, there’s always, ’Well, what if I went out and tried a business and it failed? People would snicker,’ » he says. «In America, you open a place and (if) you fail, people say, ’Wow, you started your own business!’ Calgary is very much an American city that way.»

American in other ways, too. More than 73,000 Americans live here, the highest percentage in Canada.

Encountering growing pains

Calgary isn’t without growing pains. Residents complain that, in warmer months especially, a walk through downtown means dodging aggressive panhandlers, young drug users and large numbers of homeless alcoholics, particularly from Canada’s indigenous tribes. Housing prices have shot up, and housing starts -- numbering more than 12,000 a year -- have led to a shortage of construction crews.

The city’s infrastructure, particularly its road network, hasn’t kept up with population growth. Nor has availability of medical treatment and higher education, says Allan Markin, chairman and co-founder of Canadian Natural Resources, one of the country’s biggest oil companies. Suddenly, engineers and other highly skilled workers are in short supply.

Even so, the city continues to pull in migrants from other parts of Canada. In 1996, Canadian Pacific Railways moved its headquarters to Calgary, a wrenching event for hundreds of workers used to francophone Montreal. It was the largest corporate move in Canadian history, and the company offered to move any employee back to Montreal after three years. Of 1,500 eligible, only three chose to return, the company says.

«Easterners don’t think western Canada has much to offer. We’ve had neighbors move here thinking they’re going to hate it. Now they don’t want to leave,» says Cindy McCreath, who uprooted from Saskatchewan to move for her job with the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.

In the past, Calgary was viewed as a cow town that came to life only for its annual Stampede rodeo extravaganza. Its cow town reputation has faded, but the Stampede has only grown. Last July, 1.2 million people poured into the city for 10 days of roping, riding, chuck wagon races and partying.

The Stampede’s success tends to obscure Calgary’s more refined side, including a vibrant theater and arts scene. «People think of Alberta generally as a bit rough around the edges,» Graham says. «We need to educate them about the city’s sophistication.»


© Copyright 2004 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

 Отправлено: 28.07.06 08:24. Заголовок: Канада находится на 10 месте по уровню счастья.

К сведению, Россия - на 167 месте...

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