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mid-sized cities in developed countries with relatively low population densities tend to score well by having all the cultural and infrastructural benefits on offer with fewer problems related to crime or congestion

oderately sized and populated, can more thoroughly address urban infrastructural and governmental needs like public education, healthcare, and safety than their larger, denser global counterparts.

The reaction was that Edmonton's southern "partner" in the oil industry -Calgary -began to attract the head offices of various oil companies, and consequently outside business interests, including American ones.

In the new global economy, however, Edmonton is developing a reputation as the centre of other industries -industries that cannot necessarily be physically located within the downtown core.

David Whitson, a political science professor at the University of Alberta, notes that Edmonton has started to become a high-tech hub, including the pharmaceuticals industry.

Skilled jobs will go to the lowest bidder worldwide. A decline in middle class pay and job satisfaction is only just beginning

Americans are about to suffer a profound shock. For the past 30 years governments have explained that, while they can no longer protect jobs through traditional forms of state intervention such as subsidies and tariffs, they can expand and reform education to maximise opportunity. If enough people buckle down to acquiring higher-level skills and qualifications, Europeans and Americans will continue to enjoy rising living standards. If they work hard enough, each generation can still do better than its parents. All that is required is to bring schools up to scratch and persuade universities to teach "marketable" skills. That is the thinking behind Michael Gove's policies and those of all his recent predecessors as education secretary.

"Knowledge work", supposedly the west's salvation, is now being exported like manual work. A global mass market in unskilled labour is being quickly succeeded by a market in middle-class work, particularly for industries, such as electronics, in which so much hope of employment opportunities and high wages was invested. As supply increases, employers inevitably go to the cheapest source. A chip designer in India costs 10 times less than a US one.

The US economy did not have a conspicuous unemployment problem until the crisis of 2008 because the non-tradable sector absorbed the bulk of the expanding labor force. That pace of employment growth now appears unsustainable. Government and health care alone accounted for almost 40% of the net increment in employment in the entire economy from 1990 to 2008. Fiscal weakness, a resetting of real-estate values, and lower consumption all point to the potential for long-term structural unemployment.

Restoring elements of manufacturing competitiveness is hard. Once skilled labor, training programs, and technical institutions in specific industries are gone, it is difficult to get them back. Long-term policy should include an evolving assessment of competitive strength and employment potential across sectors and at all levels of human capital, with the goal of encouraging market outcomes that achieve social objectives.

Does higher productivity destroy jobs? Sometimes, but only in the very short term, considering US economic performance over the past 80 years. In fact, every ten-year rolling period but one since 1929 has seen increases in both US productivity and employment. Even on a rolling annual basis, 69 percent of periods have delivered both productivity and jobs growth (Exhibit 1). Over the long term, apparently, it’s a fallacy to suggest that there’s a trade-off between unemployment and productivity. These are among the key findings of the latest report from the McKinsey Global Institute, Growth and renewal in the United States: Retooling America’s economic engine. We are optimistic about productivity because it isn’t only about efficiency; it is no less about expanding output through innovations that improve the performance, quality, or value of goods and services. What’s more, even productivity solely from efficiency gains can, in the aggregate, lead to higher employment if the cost savings are put back to work elsewhere in the economy. Companies can pass on those savings to their customers in the form of lower prices, leaving households and businesses with more money to spend elsewhere. They can also reinvest savings from more efficient operations in new job-creating activities.

Productivity in Canada’s cities lags city regions globally

The Institute reports that Canada’s GDP per capita – a measure of the value created by workers and firms in Canada from the human, physical, and natural resources in the country – trailed the US by $9,500 or 17 percent in 2010

Canada’s lower productivity as the key challenge in closing this prosperity gap. “Canadians are among the leaders in developed economies in work effort, hours worked per person, but we are laggards in creating economic value per hour worked

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the purpose is to attract people and prospective employees “and to address our longer-term workforce needs.”

The second reason is to further develop and diversify our business base in a more sustainable way to complement our strength in areas like energy,

third reason, particularly coming back from our research, is to highlight how this city has evolved from an arts, a culture and a cosmopolitan global business centre perspective