Why Isn't Vancouver (CN) a Megacity?

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think they're particularly similar. CA boomed bc of massive federal postwar economic interventions. People weren't mass-moving from Nebraska or wherever bc they thought Big Sur was pretty. There were huge Cold War-related job opportunities, in aerospace, research, military, etc. This is what really fueled the CA boom. CA had some of the highest wages and greatest economic opportunities from the 1940's onward. Institutions like Stanford, Caltech, JPL, Scripps were gamechangers. In contrast BC has relatively low wages and doesn't really have anything like CA's gigantic postwar top-down military-industrial base.

And some of the least scenic parts of CA had some of the strongest booms. Meanwhile, gorgeous areas like the Lost Coast were basically unsettled.

You tend to overstate the impact of federal, "top-down" military-industrial investment in producing California's post-war boom. Yes, that was a factor. Especially in the tech and aerospace sectors. But private industry unrelated to any of that provided vastly more job opportunities to newly-arriving Californians, and we should not discount the role that state policies and projects played in the postwar economic and population boom. Mid-century California was planning and already building state-wide water, power, and transportation networks, the nation's best public higher education system, etc., to ensure that the state wouldn't just be bigger and busier, but also better.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Wigs

True, but that overtaking by LA happened like 40 years ago or almost my entire lifetime ago

Perhaps, but Chicago's tenure as second city was, so far, much longer than L.A.'s.

If the track record holds up, L.A. has about another 3 - 4 decades as the second city. Philadelphia held the title first for about 8 or 9 decades, and Chicago did the same for about 8 - 9 decades. Los Angeles is in its fifth decade at that spot, so it could conceivably lose that title while many of us forumers are still around. Something else for us to argue about in 30 years lol.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

PLos Angeles is in its fifth decade at that spot, so it could conceivably lose that title while many of us forumers are still around. Something else for us to argue about in 30 years lol.

I don't think that's very likely. NY and LA are probably secure as #1 and #2, at least for the next century. Of course no one knows, but barring some catastrophic occurrences, or climate change reversing, it would be hard to imagine a Dallas at 30 million or something.

[Wigs]

It will take a while for Chicagoland to get overtaken by one of the Sunbelt Metros, let alone anyone rivaling LA

I think people forget LA is 4 million in the city, about 10 million in LA county, 13.5 million in MSA and around 18.5 million or more in the CSA.
It's an absolute monster sized Metro area by North American standards

[SnowFire]

Yeah if chicago brought all the tax evasion burbs into the city it would be much different.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Fabricio JF

Regarding population, I see a huge potential in Toronto to reach the level of 10 million inhabitants and become the first Canadian megacity, with Montreal with a 10% chance of coming first depending on factors such as preference for internal migration and external immigration. Fertility rates are stable and similar in the main cities and the exception seems to be Nunavut which has only very small cities but this seems to be the province where having more babies seems to be a population preference.

(Almost) no chance Montreal reaches the megacity threshold of 10 million - there is no social acceptability for the kind of growth that would have to occur. Seismic global shifts would have to take place. We'll reach 5 million soon, 6 or even 7 million is not off the table in the distant future. That's probably where it caps out. This city and province don't really have a 'growth for growth's sake' mentality (relative to some of the others) and that appears to have served us well in many regards.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Zeej

(Almost) no chance Montreal reaches the megacity threshold of 10 million - there is no social acceptability for the kind of growth that would have to occur. Seismic global shifts would have to take place. We'll reach 5 million soon, 6 or even 7 million is not off the table in the distant future. That's probably where it caps out. This city and province don't really have a 'growth for growth's sake' mentality (relative to some of the others) and that appears to have served us well in many regards.

Montreal also won't catch and overtake Toronto either.

There is no "race" in Canada like there is in Australia.

We're more like Brazil in this sense.

[kittyhawk28]

Originally Posted by Wigs

It will take a while for Chicagoland to get overtaken by one of the Sunbelt Metros, let alone anyone rivaling LA

I think people forget LA is 4 million in the city, about 10 million in LA county, 13.5 million in MSA and around 18.5 million or more in the CSA.
It's an absolute monster sized Metro area by North American standards

Contiguous urban area of the LA metro is closer to 17.5+ million, but yes, it is far closer to metro NYC (19+ million) than it is to Chicago (9+ million), and I think Houston and Dallas (~7 million) will slow down dramatically in the coming decades as they approach Chicago's level due to their over reliance on car centric sprawl rather than urban infill. There comes a point when no one wants to spend time on a 3 hour round trip commute each day, which is exactly what happened in LA in the past decade, hence the considerable slowdown of the Inland Empire since the 2000s.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Montreal also won't catch and overtake Toronto either.

There is no "race" in Canada like there is in Australia.

We're more like Brazil in this sense.

Yes, in 2100 Doug Ford is President of Canada, kept alive by innovative technologies funded by his enormous political kickbacks. Toronto is the manifestation of the Century Initiative and has 60 million people. Toronto CMA will have sprawled East to Kingston and Southwest to Windsor, tearing through multiple greenbelts! We'll be sitting comfortably at 9 million people, the largest in the country

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Yes, in 2100 Doug Ford is President of Canada, kept alive by innovative technologies funded by his enormous political kickbacks. Toronto is the manifestation of the Century Initiative and has 60 million people. Toronto CMA will have sprawled East to Kingston and Southwest to Windsor, tearing through multiple greenbelts! We'll be sitting comfortably at 9 million people, the largest in the country

Agreed though I'd bet instead on him being State Governor of Ontario at that point.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Wigs

It will take a while for Chicagoland to get overtaken by one of the Sunbelt Metros, let alone anyone rivaling LA

I think people forget LA is 4 million in the city, about 10 million in LA county, 13.5 million in MSA and around 18.5 million or more in the CSA.
It's an absolute monster sized Metro area by North American standards

A lot can happen in 30 years. Los Angeles was half the size of Chicago in 1950, but passed it in population 30 years later.

[destroycreate]

Here's what I really don't get. If Vancouver is so desirable and popular and expensive, why aren't good paying jobs there? It seems like the local economy is really dependent on just hospitality/service. At least with expensive west coast cities in the US, white collar salaries match up. All of them also have many major corporations headquartered there.

Why do Canadian power execs and corporations want to stay out in the cold east when they could be in their country's California equivalent?

[SFBruin]

Delete.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Here's what I really don't get. If Vancouver is so desirable and popular and expensive, why aren't good paying jobs there? It seems like the local economy is really dependent on just hospitality/service. At least with expensive west coast cities in the US, white collar salaries match up. All of them also have many major corporations headquartered there.

Why do Canadian power execs and corporations want to stay out in the cold east when they could be in their country's California equivalent?

The West Coast of the U.S. is expensive primarily due to availability of great jobs. Not true in Vancouver. Also not obvious why a Toronto-based corp. would move thousands of miles away, to an isolated smaller city with much greater expenses. Probably like 80% of Canadian consumers are within a day's drive of Toronto.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The West Coast of the U.S. is expensive primarily due to availability of great jobs. Not true in Vancouver. Also not obvious why a Toronto-based corp. would move thousands of miles away, to an isolated smaller city with much greater expenses. Probably like 80% of Canadian consumers are within a day's drive of Toronto.

Canada also doesn't have a culture of businesses moving to other parts of the country like the US does. (With one exception - the rise of separatism in Quebec which saw many businesses move from Montreal to Toronto. This lasted a couple of decades because it worked itself out, but was quite exceptional.)

Other than that major Canadian corporations tend to stay put in the regions where they were founded, and for the most part these often tend to be in the general vicinity of Toronto and Montreal.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Here's what I really don't get. If Vancouver is so desirable and popular and expensive, why aren't good paying jobs there? It seems like the local economy is really dependent on just hospitality/service. At least with expensive west coast cities in the US, white collar salaries match up. All of them also have many major corporations headquartered there.

Why do Canadian power execs and corporations want to stay out in the cold east when they could be in their country's California equivalent?

On Vancouver being milder - well there's milder and then there's milder.

The average high in Toronto in the winter is around 0C whereas in Vancouver it's around +7C.

Definitely warmer but probably not worth moving your operations all the way across the continent for most businesses and people.

It's not like moving from Chicago to Houston.

[destroycreate]

Do Canadians not relocate to other cities for work etc. the way Americans do?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Do Canadians not relocate to other cities for work etc. the way Americans do?

Not nearly as much as Americans do, I'd say.

At least not across provincial lines. Within provinces there can be a lot of movement. But our main provinces are very large and have diversified economies. If you're from Ontario, Quebec, BC or Alberta, you should be able to find something for you fairly easily within your own province. They all have big cities with financial and other big city jobs, they all have wilderness areas with resource sector jobs, they all have rural areas with agricultural jobs...

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Do Canadians not relocate to other cities for work etc. the way Americans do?

Ontario and Quebec are the juggernaut provinces.

Ontario (~15.5M people) is ~39% of Canada's population and Quebec (~8.8M people) is ~22% of Canada's population
Together that's over 61% of all Canadians!

BC is only ~5.5M or just under 14% of Canada's total.

Alberta ~4.8M or roughly 12%.
The Metros of Edmonton and Calgary combined should be larger than Vancouver Metro by now, or soon.
If Alberta's strong growth continues, it will probably overtake BC in population at a some point.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Here's what I really don't get. If Vancouver is so desirable and popular and expensive, why aren't good paying jobs there? It seems like the local economy is really dependent on just hospitality/service. At least with expensive west coast cities in the US, white collar salaries match up. All of them also have many major corporations headquartered there.

Why do Canadian power execs and corporations want to stay out in the cold east when they could be in their country's California equivalent?

Canadian companies and Canadians in general don't hope around the country looking for lower taxes because the advantages of being in Central Canada which has the most diversified economy with plenty of resources can not be overcomed by something like lower taxes someplace else int he country.

You under esitmate how important and attractive Ontario and Quebec are. There is a reason 60% of Canadian live there Windsor-Quebec city corridor