The Globe and Mail wrote an article about Waterloo [at a now 404ed URL].
Subhead: “Smaller town, bigger edge. What does Waterloo have that we don’t? Mennonite pragmatism and an inferiority complex.”
I often find Globe articles on Waterloo kind of amusing as they make it sound as though the place is in some distant, desolate wilderness instead within commuting distance of Toronto, and make fun bloopers like saying that the Perimeter Institute is located in an “obscure suburb” instead of where it actually is, which is right in uptown Waterloo. (Or maybe they meant that all of Waterloo is an “obscure suburb”?)
But this particular article was fairly accurate and sort of complimentary, despite the general sense of amazement that anyone with drive and intelligence would choose anywhere other than Toronto to set up shop.
One highlighted stat is that Waterloo has 2.5 patents per 10,000 employees to Toronto’s 1.09. And, seriously, with all these other articles on how Canada is falling behind in innovation, that we’re still too reliant on exporting resources, maybe the whole country—not just Toronto—would benefit from looking at what Waterloo has achieved, and how that can be emulated.
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