Engineers and scientists directly influence urban growth: StatsCan

Morgan Modjeski, staff

Engineers and scientists are linked to growth in jobs and urban development, according to a new Statistics Canada study.

“Cities and Growth: the Left Brain of North American Cities: Scientists and Engineers and Urban Growth,” released Jan. 8, examined 242 cities — 216 American and 26 Canadian — from 1980 to 2000 to examine the relationship between city employment, growth, and the number of degree-holders. It found the number of scientists and engineers in a city to be the most important factor for urban growth.

“Scientists and engineers are specialized workers who are directly involved with the development and implementation of new innovations,” reported the study. ­­­­

According to StatsCan, these new innovations lead to a growth on a whole, but added that, “Scientists and engineers, the left brain of cities, matter most for growth when combined with a large and diverse pool of human capital.”

The study found that cities with a larger concentration of degree holders experience a two per cent employment growth per year as opposed to 1.6 per cent a year in cities with fewer degree-holders.

From1980 to 2000, this meant that cities with a two per cent increase created 49 per cent more jobs over a period of 20 years, while cities with 1.6 per cent degree-holders created 37 per cent more jobs.

The study indicated that engineers and scientists have a positive affect on urban growth and employment growth, but it takes a mix of both “Cultural Occupations” (CO) and “Science and Engineering Occupations” (SEO) to create productivity and growth.

Stats Canada defines SEOs as jobs that have anything to do with science or engineering in any form. The sciences have been broken down into life sciences (consisting of subsets such as agricultural and environmental sciences), physical sciences (consisting of occupations such as chemists and physicists), social sciences (consisting of occupations such as economists, political scientists, and psychologists). The types of engineers classified in the study ranged from industrial, electrical, mechanical, civil and architectural engineers to aerospace and chemical engineers.

COs are more creative occupations, such as musicians, singers, dancers, composers, photographers, and interior designers. The COs also includes archival occupations, such as librarians, archivists, conservators, and curators.

“Cities that possess this right mix of characteristics will be able to attract creative class workers and, in the long run, will experience higher rates of population or employment growth,” said Statistics Canada.

According to Ahmed Shalaby, associate dean of undergraduate programs in the faculty of engineering at the University of Manitoba, “It’s not anything unusual. Engineers are involved in construction of economic sectors that causes that growth. [Engineers] enable that economic growth through design and planning.”

He continued, “All the systems that are needed to run a city — from water, sewage, and transportation — all require engineering, design, operation, and maintenance through out their whole life time.”

Myron Britton, dean of design education in the department of civil engineering at the U of M added, “If a city is going to exist, it requires certain physical things like roads, sewers, and water. All of these physical things we take for granted are designed and put in place by engineers.”