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Milton's boom a bust for some
JIM WILKES / TORONTO STAR
Betty and Richard Copley say their boom town’s historic downtown now has little to offer them because stores with basic services have been pushed to the outskirts.
Explosive growth on outskirts hurts core, resident says, `I don't know this place any more'
Mar 14, 2007 04:30 AM
Jim Wilkes
Staff Reporter
Betty and Richard Copley barely recognize the town they've called home for 52 years.
They live just a stone's throw from the four corners of downtown Milton but face a mighty excursion to get daily staples.
Groceries and the like used to be available nearby on the historic downtown strip, but increasing development and an exploding population have pushed much of what they need to the outskirts.
The big-box stores and grocery mega-outlets have made it hard for Milton's smaller shopkeepers to compete.
The push is extraordinarily strong in Milton, where the 2006 census released yesterday shows the town has grown 71.4 per cent in the past five years. Its population jumped to nearly 54,000 from about 31,500 in 2001, making it the fastest-growing community in Canada.
The growth has also sparked a whirlwind of commercial development, most of it well beyond the so-called "small town" core.
The Copleys, who ran a fabric shop just a dozen metres from the four corners for 25 years, wonder if the downtown decline can be stopped.
"I don't know this place any more," said Richard, 87. "The whole atmosphere has changed. It's a different Milton."
Betty, 77, agreed.
"We no longer have a grocery store downtown," she said. "So seniors like us, or people who don't drive, have to take taxis or spend hours on the bus or take the shuttle once a week to the A&P."
She said she's tired of seeing good stores close only to be replaced by another restaurant, coffee shop or offices for lawyers, accountants and insurance agents.
"Most of these storekeepers were independent people, but bit by bit they're closing up, because they just can't make a living," she said. "People seem so disconnected from the old part of Milton."
If their pantry runs empty, the Copleys can get canned goods and cereal at the nearby dollar store or milk and eggs at a Shoppers Drug Mart at the four corners.
"But it's so expensive," Betty said.
Brad Clements is a landlord who owns five buildings in the heart of downtown; some of them have been in his family for more than a century.
"The history of Milton has always been feast or famine," he said. "Sometimes it booms, sometimes it slows down."
Peter Haight is just emerging from the worst month in his art gallery's two decades on Main St.
He calls the downtown "the spiritual centre of our town" and isn't ready to declare it dead or dying.
"But we're on the cusp," he said. "The downtown core has been left bereft of any attention by our town, by our councillors, by our planners. Now they're playing ring-around-the-downtown with big-box stores."
If that sounds like a speech, it may be because Haight, 67, is running in an upcoming by-election to fill a vacant council seat, on a platform of resurrecting the downtown.
He said he doesn't try to compete with Wal-Mart or other big-box stores. "But if they steal all my traffic off the street, people just don't think about me or come here any more.
"That's the big problem, but I'll go down fighting."
Mayor Gordon Krantz, a former small business owner, sees the downtown decline as a simple by-product of capitalism.
"Businesses locating on the outskirts could locate right downtown if they wanted – but they don't," he said. "That's called free enterprise.
"So businesses have to adapt. You have to continuously reinvent yourself. You can't survive on sentiment and emotions, that's for sure. It might sound hard-hearted, but that's the hard reality of it."
For young folks like Kelly Walter, 18, there's little to induce her to shop.
"I've always seen myself as a city girl living in a small town," said Walter, who has two jobs – in a spa at one end of downtown and in a café at the other.
"I'm on Main St. almost every day, but I don't shop here," she said. "I go to Toronto or Mississauga for that."
JIM WILKES / TORONTO STAR
Betty and Richard Copley say their boom town’s historic downtown now has little to offer them because stores with basic services have been pushed to the outskirts.
Explosive growth on outskirts hurts core, resident says, `I don't know this place any more'
Mar 14, 2007 04:30 AM
Jim Wilkes
Staff Reporter
Betty and Richard Copley barely recognize the town they've called home for 52 years.
They live just a stone's throw from the four corners of downtown Milton but face a mighty excursion to get daily staples.
Groceries and the like used to be available nearby on the historic downtown strip, but increasing development and an exploding population have pushed much of what they need to the outskirts.
The big-box stores and grocery mega-outlets have made it hard for Milton's smaller shopkeepers to compete.
The push is extraordinarily strong in Milton, where the 2006 census released yesterday shows the town has grown 71.4 per cent in the past five years. Its population jumped to nearly 54,000 from about 31,500 in 2001, making it the fastest-growing community in Canada.
The growth has also sparked a whirlwind of commercial development, most of it well beyond the so-called "small town" core.
The Copleys, who ran a fabric shop just a dozen metres from the four corners for 25 years, wonder if the downtown decline can be stopped.
"I don't know this place any more," said Richard, 87. "The whole atmosphere has changed. It's a different Milton."
Betty, 77, agreed.
"We no longer have a grocery store downtown," she said. "So seniors like us, or people who don't drive, have to take taxis or spend hours on the bus or take the shuttle once a week to the A&P."
She said she's tired of seeing good stores close only to be replaced by another restaurant, coffee shop or offices for lawyers, accountants and insurance agents.
"Most of these storekeepers were independent people, but bit by bit they're closing up, because they just can't make a living," she said. "People seem so disconnected from the old part of Milton."
If their pantry runs empty, the Copleys can get canned goods and cereal at the nearby dollar store or milk and eggs at a Shoppers Drug Mart at the four corners.
"But it's so expensive," Betty said.
Brad Clements is a landlord who owns five buildings in the heart of downtown; some of them have been in his family for more than a century.
"The history of Milton has always been feast or famine," he said. "Sometimes it booms, sometimes it slows down."
Peter Haight is just emerging from the worst month in his art gallery's two decades on Main St.
He calls the downtown "the spiritual centre of our town" and isn't ready to declare it dead or dying.
"But we're on the cusp," he said. "The downtown core has been left bereft of any attention by our town, by our councillors, by our planners. Now they're playing ring-around-the-downtown with big-box stores."
If that sounds like a speech, it may be because Haight, 67, is running in an upcoming by-election to fill a vacant council seat, on a platform of resurrecting the downtown.
He said he doesn't try to compete with Wal-Mart or other big-box stores. "But if they steal all my traffic off the street, people just don't think about me or come here any more.
"That's the big problem, but I'll go down fighting."
Mayor Gordon Krantz, a former small business owner, sees the downtown decline as a simple by-product of capitalism.
"Businesses locating on the outskirts could locate right downtown if they wanted – but they don't," he said. "That's called free enterprise.
"So businesses have to adapt. You have to continuously reinvent yourself. You can't survive on sentiment and emotions, that's for sure. It might sound hard-hearted, but that's the hard reality of it."
For young folks like Kelly Walter, 18, there's little to induce her to shop.
"I've always seen myself as a city girl living in a small town," said Walter, who has two jobs – in a spa at one end of downtown and in a café at the other.
"I'm on Main St. almost every day, but I don't shop here," she said. "I go to Toronto or Mississauga for that."
