July 2018

200 201 LANGFORD, BRITISH COLUMBIA THE ULTIMATE SPORTS TOWN L angford is a picturesque cityon southernVan- couver Island in British Columbia,Canada.It is one of 13 component municipalities of Great- er Victoria and lies within the Capital Regional District.Stewart Young has beenMayor of Langford for 25 years.His familyhas lived in the town for six generations.To sayhe has a passion for the community would be a huge understatement–he lives,breathes, and dreams Langford,and no one is immune to his excitement for the place he calls“home.” In 1992,when Young started his political career, Langford had an unemployment rate of 20 percent. The lumber mills were long gone, and high-paying industrial jobs went with them. It was a small town where you grew up and then left for university or the chance to advance your career. In this little city of 14,000, opportunities were few and far between. “That’s why I got into politics,” says Young.“To keep some jobs here.To change the attitude that business people and developers were bad.They were building our houses and creating employ- ment, so our Council started a partnership with the business community and the developer community and started to engage themmore, asking,‘How can we build more housing, bring more jobs, get more AT A GLANCE LANGFORD, BC WHAT: A sports-centric city, population 40,000 WHERE: Southern Vancouver Island, B.C. WEBSITE: www.langford.ca LANGFORD British Columbia