Rebranding Lotusland?

I read this article today about how the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) wants to re-brand the area name to "Metro Vancouver". While I understand and agree with their point of view (after all, I've gotten blank looks before from people when I've mentioned the GVRD to them), I still think Vancouver and the entire GVRD should become a "mega-city". A Mega-city in my definition is a city that incorporates their suburbs into one main city. Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary are all mega-cities under my definition. After all, the entire region share a lot of resources already, why not just go all the way and incorporate everything properly into one city? It certainly would cut out a lot of inefficiencies.

I did some poking around on Wikipedia. According to this list, Vancouver is actually eighth on the list of the 100 largest cities in Canada. (I think there are way more than 578,041 in the city of Vancouver itself, but let's just say it's true for argument's sake). I've been to Ottawa and Calgary, and trust me, these places are not at densely populated as Vancouver is.

However, when you look at this list, Vancouver comes in third in terms of population size. And this is what everyone, including the media, quotes. But then they would be incorrect. The city of Vancouver is actually smaller than the city of Winnipeg.

Are you starting to see my point of view? Okay, maybe not, cause I have very "unique" ways of seeing thing and don't always articulate myself very well. Or maybe it's a pride thing. Whatever.

For me, it makes sense economically and demographically to do so. However, I don't think this will ever happen. I feel that the natives here like their borders too much and trying to get buy-in for a mega-city will be near impossible with a hurtle like that. Plus, the unions will not like having their members' jobs obliterated, because, well, we don't need job duplicates in one big city like we already have with a bunch of smaller regions. I love the fact that BC has such a stupidly strong unionized mentality. My tax dollar being used more efficiently apparent means squat in the eyes of the unions.

So Vancouver will remain Vancouver, and the areas around Vancouver will remain their own entities, unless they share Metro Vancouver resources. Same, same, but different. Not unlike the place where I work at. Gotta love it.

The nice man who is pictured in this blog is Robert Burnaby, the man whom the City of Burnaby (where I live) is named after. In my elementary school, they used to have his picture up on the wall and I would stare at it all the time. I know, I was a strange kid.