[goodgrowth]

I am a bit less for amalgamation than I used to be.

First, I am more skeptical of the centralization of power in general...when you couple this with the fact that St. John's is not a particularly well run city to begin with...the skepticism is only compounded.

Second, most of the arguments for amalgamation are not giving many examples/evidence of how it will improve things or even what the goals are. If anything it seems to be more predicated on the fact they don't like the idea of surrounding communities having better services in certain cases.

Third, lets talk about the services and jobs argument that always pops up. Yes St. John's has a lot of jobs that services that benefit the entire region. BUT a lot of those high paying jobs and services are there due to the Provincial or Federal governments. If the surrounding communities are benefiting from St. John's, St. John's is benefiting from upper levels of government placing those things in their borders.

Now that my rant is out of the way...if some sort of amalgamation were to happen I'd rather it just be a regional authority that handled overarching things like public transit, emergency services, planning etc.

And of course any sort of amalgamation or regional authority would require equal representation across the region.