Saskatoon earns designation as a smart city
I’m sure you’ve heard it before. Saskatoon is rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with when it comes to leading edge work in natural and applied science fields. There’s the National Research Council’s Plant Biotechnology Institute, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s research centre, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, and of course, the Canadian Light Source. All of these exciting ventures promised to give Saskatoon a reputation as an outstanding “science city.” It seems that those promises are being delivered on.
A report released this week by the Scotiabank Group shows that Saskatoon has the strongest annual percentage growth in its science workforce so far over the last ten years. Only Kitchener-Waterloo managed to match the growth seen here. The report, Smart Cities: High-knowledge Industries and Regional Prosperities shows that Saskatoon is in fact ahead of the national average when it comes to the percentage of the workforce which earn their income from natural and applied sciences. In 1996, only 4.4% of Saskatoon’s population worked in science related fields. Today, 7 % of our population, or 8,900 people do just that.
You’ve got to hand it to Saskatoon people. They can typically be counted on to do things with a sense of pride that yields positive results.
4 comments so far. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Congrats on your “Smart City”! I have to admit, I’m a teeny bit jealous. Phoenix was recently named one of the “dumber” cities. Unfortunately, our superintendant of schools had a particulary stupid comment to make on that which made it worse. So, can we borrow your city planners, school administrators, etc. for a few years? Pretty please? Ok, maybe we just need a better PR rep.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Elena, Ouch! That’s too bad. He should have stuck to the talking points. Nothing worse than saying something totally stupid when the press is asking why you’re stupid. We’ve been fortunate to land some major projects in the sciences. Certainly helps! Hoping Phoenix fairs better in the next round.
Thanks for stopping by.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:58 PM
I know you are all smarter than I am. I can not spell the name of your city and my husband had me try to pronounce it 10 times before he was satisfied that I was saying it right.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:58 PM
Teresa, if you think Saskatoon is a mouthful, you should try the name of our province, Saskatchewan. Thanks for stopping by.