[Innsertnamehere]

the Ontario side of Ottawa didn't pass the Hamilton CMA size until 1982, for comparison. Pre-war, Hamilton was a larger city, which explains the larger "old city" bones. Similarly, the Hamilton CMA was larger than the Calgary CMA until 1979.

Remember that between 1980 and 2010 or so, most Canadian cities built very, very little new residential units in their downtowns as well. Ottawa and Calgary have likely done a lot of catching up to Hamilton in the last decade, but now Hamilton seems poised to go on an absolute boom of apartment construction in the core to fend them off.

Canada as a whole also generally has quite small pre-war bones. Toronto didn't pass Buffalo in population until 1951!