Editor:
Thanks to Jenny Wagler for a great op-ed (Coast Reporter, April 2). The Sunshine Coast is a wonderful place to live at any age, but it can be lonely to be between, say, 20 and 40 here.
It's easy to see why - that group accounts for only 15 per cent of the population on the Sunshine Coast, compared to a much healthier 29 per cent in Vancouver. The tough thing about this demographic gap is that it's self-perpetuating.
For one thing, high school students take a cue from their elders and leave for Vancouver as soon as they can. And it's hard to convince them to move back, as not many want to abandon decent city jobs for a hard-scrabble life in a retirement community. I don't want to sound too self-congratulatory, being part of the demographic in question, but without a healthy cohort of young people, a community grows stagnant.
Wagler is right - we do need visionaries, ones who will help to build a sustainable and robust economy and encourage young people to put down roots on the Coast.
Matt Cavers
Gibsons
