Now that the population of the city of Airdrie has reached 61,082, a lot of people may be wondering, "how big is too big for Airdrie?"

"Great question," says Airdrie Mayor Peter Brown,  "I don't know what too big is."  He says that, in his mind, Airdrie isn't there yet.

"I would be really hesitant to say that we'd want to cap growth ever.  Our council believes in free enterprise and development.  If businesses want to come here we want to encourage that...You need to continue growing to be economically viable.  Growth takes a lot of burden off your tax base.  If you're not growing like we've been growing, our taxes would have been a lot higher."

Airdrie is one of the fastest growing cities in Canada, according to the most recent census statistics, with an incredible 42.6% in the last five years.

Brown says you only need to look at the community of Okotoks to see that trying to cap growth is a bad idea,  "Okotoks had a problem with water a few years ago and they capped their growth and they realized that was an enormous mistake and they've revisited that and have removed that cap in their community."

When he visits Red Deer or other slightly larger communities, Brown feels there's more in store,  "Airdire still has a ways to go, and things that we can do."

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