Decline of the Downtown Elite?

Fortune favours those who recognize major shifts in society ahead of others and act on them. No wonder there is an army of pundits and prognosticators who promote their version of the next big thing. The stakes can be very high. In Canada, we have only to think of Blackberry underestimating the importance of consumer applications for smartphones, or Future Shop not adjusting quickly enough to online shopping for electronic appliances.

To the litany of famous “missed boats,” Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson add the Liberal Party of Canada. The Big Shift: The Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business and Culture and What It Means for Our Future is a lively and highly readable account of how the May 2011 federal election marks a “fracture in time” that signals profound changes in the geography of political alliances due to demographic change. Because the Liberals failed to recognize the way in which these new alliances could be formed, the party suffered...