But she has always been a city which has never quite entered into her heritage commercially. Situated where by nature she might well be great, she has always been small. Unambitious, wealthy[152] and little jealous of the more rapidly-growing cities, she has prided herself on being a lover of better things. Commerce and industry were things alien[153] and secular. She devoted herself to standards of art, music, learning, religion and the philanthropies. Charitable and philanthropic institutions abounded. She has had her own conservative English ways. She affected homage to "old families," and to that illusory element "social prestige." She welcomed each new knight which the favor of the king conferred, and grew careless of civic prosperity and growth. She had leaned "too long upon the army and the navy" and her citizens had become "anaemic," "lethargic" and standstill; their "indifference" and "inertia" were a commonplace. Halifax had been complacent and academic rather than practical in her outlook upon the world and her general attitude toward life. [152] Halifax is the wealthiest city per capita in the Dominion of Canada. [153] For years real estate was marketed "quietly." In fact, real property was in the hands of one or two specialists only. Geographically she suffered by her situation on the rim of the continent. She experienced not a little neglect and isolation because she was an undeveloped terminal, and not a junction point. Travellers and commercial men could not visit her _en route_ but only by special trip. Again "the government has had altogether too many interests in Halifax for the good of the place." "Government-kept towns" are not as a rule "those which have achieved the greatest prosperity." Halifax as a civil-service headquarters and a government military depot was perhaps open to the charge of being at least "self-satisfied." Valuable acres of non-taxable land have been far from stimulating to civic enterprise.