[taco.vidal]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opini...ticle31208120/

MARK MILKE
Contributed to The Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Jul. 30, 2016 8:00AM EDT

Ever since the price of oil began to collapse in late 2014, some have wondered if Calgary will become the next Detroit. The comparison will arise again with recent news that more layoffs are coming to Alberta: 350 positions at Nexen, 70 positions at AltaGas; and 300 at ConocoPhillips, with most of the latter at its Calgary head office.

The Detroit reference is to the decades-long decline of the Motor City where the population peaked in 1950 at almost 1.9 million people and then began to hollow out. As of 2012, Detroit had fewer than 700,000 people, about the same as in 1910.

Detroit’s decline is sometimes invoked as a cautionary tale for Calgary. Some climate change activists who see fossil fuels as destructive sneer that Canada’s energy capital is receiving some sort of karma-like payback.