Calgarians and Edmontonians have had enough. Growth, that is. Recent surveys indicate a majority of people in both Calgary and Edmonton are not happy with the pace of growth in their booming cities and what it means for their daily lives. Over 60 percent say their city’s population is growing too fast. Over half said the growth was negative, only nine percent that it was positive.

The province’s premier, on the other hand, is all for growth. Currently at 4.4 million, Danielle Smith says she plans to aggressively push Alberta’s population to ten million. With high rates of both interprovincial migration and immigration, the province has the highest rate of growth in the country, making her goal realistic.

Smith represents the common attitude among politicians, business people, economists and much of the general public. Everything has to get bigger: cities, countries, businesses. Why?

There is the economic answer. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution came also relentlessly advancing technology and with advancing technology came improved efficiencies. More goods could be produced with fewer workers. But fewer workers means unemployment and the unemployed can’t buy much. This is bad for the economy.

One answer is to just produce ever more stuff. That in turn demands ever more consumers. Growth marches on. We appear to have no choice. The alternative is falling consumption and collapsing economies. The argument for perpetual growth becomes self-justifying.

There are of course other reasons for growth. One is simple greed. Capitalists can never make enough money and consumers can never buy enough stuff.

And then there is greed for power, a major motivator for politicians. The more people you command, the more powerful your regime—the bigger the man you are. Or woman. To be specific, the larger Alberta’s population, the more power the premier has relative to Ottawa. And that is all-important to this politician.

In other places, nationalists bemoan the decline of their ethnic or religious group and seek lots of baby-making to grow the tribe.

Unfortunately we cannot grow forever. The planet is finite, sooner or later endless growth will suck it dry. But perhaps growth, at least population growth, is coming to an end. Populations are beginning to decline as birth rates fall around the world.

Despite the conventional economic wisdom of a need for perpetual growth, declining populations are not a bad thing. Indeed, as I pointed out in a previous post, managed properly if can be a very good thing.

The old economic argument for perpetual growth is falling apart. Declining populations means less consumption, less need for stuff. They also mean aging populations. More labour is required to provide for the aging populations, but this need not mean human labour.

AI and automation are all over us. These technologies can replace great swaths of workers, providing all the labour required. No need for more workers, at least human ones, no more need for growing populations. And, for that matter, no problem if they decline.

So Calgarians and Edmontonians have the right idea. Our way of life does not need perpetual growth to maintain itself. Perhaps it’s time to say enough. Time to live within our means.