Statistics Canada Reports II

[samne]

I recall not that long ago people just moving to Alberta without a job assuming they would have one within weeks of arriving. Crazy times!

[biguc]

Originally Posted by trueviking

Man. I’m old enough to remember when people considered Winnipeg and Calgary to be roughly the same size. Now it’s double. Two million is amazing. Feels like it wasn’t long ago it was one million.

When I joined this board the Calgary to 1M countdown was a big topic. When it happened, I remember one post about how there was suddenly so much more traffic because Calgary was suddenly such a big city. Ludicrous.

It's interesting to think that the 3-3-3 tiers of Canada's biggest cities might be breaking down. Toronto is almost as big as the next two combined. Calgary is pulling away from cities 5 and 6 (Although the jump from 2 to 3 somehow feels like a bigger city-building milestone than 1 to 2 million). KW might someday pass Hamilton to become the second CMA in the GGH.

Outside the top 9, Halifax has pulled away from Victoria and seems primed to launch itself into the top 10. Likewise, Saskatoon has pulled away from Regina. It felt like those cities would always have 200k-ish, and now Saskatoon has almost double that. St Catharines seems surprisingly large, Kelowna surprisingly small.

Maybe in another 20 years we'll talk about megacity Toronto, the big three (Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary), and prominence among the cities with populations between 750k and 3 million will have less to do with population and more to do with their qualities. Ottawa and QC will stand out. Halifax with 800k may end up on a tier above Winnipeg with 1.2 million.

[kora]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

lol...I assume you have not lived in Edmonton. It's all about the cost of living. My personal opinion, is that Calgary is a far nicer city, with warmer winters, cleaner, and it's close proximity to the mountains.

However, Edmonton is a blue collar town, and the people are pretty much laid back with not much separation between white and blue collar groups.

Edmonton is a relatively affordable place to live, compared to Calgary, and especially compared to Vancouver and Southern Ontario.

I spent at least 10 years living in both Edmonton and Calgary. I agree, Calgary is better almost across the board, minus cost of living. However, I know several small town Albertans/BCians/SKites who really thought Edmonton was a better place to live.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by biguc

When I joined this board the Calgary to 1M countdown was a big topic. When it happened, I remember one post about how there was suddenly so much more traffic because Calgary was suddenly such a big city. Ludicrous.
.

I remember that....even in 2005 when Calgary was passing one million, Winnipeg was at about 730,000...so in the mind's eye of most Canadians who aren't statistics nerds, they were roughly the same.....20 years later Calgary is double the size.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by samne

I recall not that long ago people just moving to Alberta without a job assuming they would have one within weeks of arriving. Crazy times!

In the mid 2010s, I was regularly in Leduc for land use planning consulting work. After one meeting a local subconsultant on the project very nonchalantly mentioned that he regularly received unsolicited headhunting emails directly from companies, not recruiters, with invitations to interview for jobs that paid at minimum $50k over their current salaries and routinely a lot more. He had a young family and didn't want to move them or be away so frequently they miss big life milestones, but implored me to just move to Edmonton ASAP with the certainty that I would be employed somewhere with a huge salary bump before I even unpacked. Meanwhile, we were imploring them to diversify and not lock in permanent O&G boom assumptions in their long-range land use plans.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by biguc

It's interesting to think that the 3-3-3 tiers of Canada's biggest cities might be breaking down. Toronto is almost as big as the next two combined. Calgary is pulling away from cities 5 and 6 (Although the jump from 2 to 3 somehow feels like a bigger city-building milestone than 1 to 2 million). KW might someday pass Hamilton to become the second CMA in the GGH.

"Big 3" has been a pretty bad model for a long time. It is more like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver each being on their own tier (or Montreal being on a half tier in the middle). Maybe Calgary will one day be on its own tier or half-tier too. Toronto is more than twice as big as Vancouver; Vancouver's closer in size to Edmonton than it is to Toronto.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by biguc

... St Catharines seems surprisingly large, Kelowna surprisingly small.

The CMA is St. Catharines - Niagara, which includes the urbanized areas of St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Welland, Thorold, Pelham, etc. combined, which makes up the bulk of the population of Niagara Region.

Edit: While I can agree that Stats Can is a bit generous in joining all of these municipalities together, there is now a contiguous urban blob joining St. Catharines to Thorold to Pelham and Welland, and Thorold pushing east to Niagara Falls.
This urbanized blob is approximately 375,000+ people.

There's still enough rural separation (for now anyway) between the cities and towns such as Port Colborne, Fort Erie, Niagara-on-the-Lake proper, West Niagara (Lincoln) to make the SSP argument to keep them separate. However, people commute all over the region for jobs, we have regional police, regional transit, Niagara Health System, etc.

If you saw the massive 1.3 million square feet South Niagara hospital under construction in the south end of Niagara Falls, you'd understand why this CMA is much bigger than say, Kelowna

[someone123]

Originally Posted by biguc

Halifax with 800k may end up on a tier above Winnipeg with 1.2 million.

I don't know what will happen but I tend to see these population numbers as the result of a bunch of political and economic factors (like immigration policy, trade policy, provincial politics, etc.). It's more common to see people create narratives starting from the populations. The Maritimes did very poorly economically for multiple reasons in a few periods, one period being 1990-2015 or so, but have since "reverted to the mean" somewhat. It's a bit of an aberration of politics and economics that a region with resources and geography like that ended up without even a medium-sized city. That doesn't mean the region has to bounce back, but there's more and more opportunity for growth, particularly with remote work and housing prices being so high elsewhere. The reality is almost the opposite of the view that there's something wrong with the Maritimes so they will always grow more slowly.

There's a bit of a growth corridor happening too from Halifax up to Moncton and PEI and that's how most provinces operate. In this case the region happens to span 3 provinces. That area encompasses a lot of the natural resources of the entire region, such as agricultural land, plus the major transport infrastructure.

Winnipeg is the bigger city but there are differences in settlement, geography, and regional economic patterns. That's why they're about on par in some ways, like airport traffic or shopping.

It's very easy to offend when commenting on the other coastal city on the other end of the country that happened to have around the same population for a while, but they're not as similar when you dig into the details (or actually spend time in both and observe, for example, the demographics or type of development in each place) and they've been diverging again.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by trueviking

Man. I’m old enough to remember when people considered Winnipeg and Calgary to be roughly the same size. Now it’s double. Two million is amazing. Feels like it wasn’t long ago it was one million.

I’m old enough to remember when Calgary was a slightly glorified Regina and not even close to Winnipeg.

[GreatTallNorth2]

I’m old enough to remember when my mother walked to school up hill both ways in the middle of a snowstorm.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by Wigs

The CMA is St. Catharines - Niagara, which includes the urbanized areas of St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Welland, Thorold, Pelham, etc. combined, which makes up the bulk of the population of Niagara Region.

Edit: While I can agree that Stats Can is a bit generous in joining all of these municipalities together, there is now a contiguous urban blob joining St. Catharines to Thorold to Pelham and Welland, and Thorold pushing east to Niagara Falls.
This urbanized blob is approximately 375,000+ people.

There's still enough rural separation (for now anyway) between the cities and towns such as Port Colborne, Fort Erie, Niagara-on-the-Lake proper, West Niagara (Lincoln) to make the SSP argument to keep them separate. However, people commute all over the region for jobs, we have regional police, regional transit, Niagara Health System, etc.

If you saw the massive 1.3 million square feet South Niagara hospital under construction in the south end of Niagara Falls, you'd understand why this CMA is much bigger than say, Kelowna

Nice to see Niagara over 500k now. I was hoping Windsor would have been closer, but I guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer to get there. We have a new huge mega hospital starting construction this year also, much much needed for sure. We are finally getting a second larger Costco this year too!

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

"Big 3" has been a pretty bad model for a long time. It is more like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver each being on their own tier (or Montreal being on a half tier in the middle). Maybe Calgary will one day be on its own tier or half-tier too. Toronto is more than twice as big as Vancouver; Vancouver's closer in size to Edmonton than it is to Toronto.

I think it worked well when it was sort of a "threshold" model where Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver were the only ones to cross the threshold of being international centres with the things that entails. Global exposure, international agencies, new residents including immigrants being attracted to them as cities rather than as cash cows people just go to for money. I feel like it was always more than just raw population figures. But it does seem like that might be eroding a bit as Calgary in particular gains prominence.

[trueviking]

CMA is the best way to compare the true size of larger cities, but its relevance definitely breaks down in places like Southern Ontario.

St. Catherines is a handful of independent small towns and cities that adds up to half a million, where a place like Halifax is a big city with a few smaller population centres topping it up...they feel completely different and can't really be compared.

The Kitchener-Waterloo CMA is another good example...700,000 is suddenly big city, but it's really a lot of people living in one area without any big city. When Winnipeg was 700,000, it was a concentrated urban centre with a large sphere of influence.

[someone123]

In NS you have the highways converging on Halifax and people drive in from 1-2 hours away semi-frequently for shopping and the like. That's not happening so much for a city like Kitchener where Waterloo/Guelph/Cambridge have some of their own comparable options and people farther out can alternatively go to London or the GTA. This isn't a huge factor in NS as the rural areas aren't heavily populated but it's still somewhat of a difference.

It would be the same with Winnipeg or other Prairie cities.

[MolsonExport]

London has grown appreciably over my 21 years here but if one ignores the endless sprawl, the downtown core seems shakier and more sketchy than it did 21 years ago, notwithstanding the large number of condo/apartment towers that have gone up. Oh, and the traffic is getting horrible (there are no limited access highways through London. the freeways are to the South of the city, where there is nearly nothing on one side).

Smallest big city ever.

[Wigs]

Molson, that's odd to me in regards to downtown London. You'd think all of that new high rise residential would result in a more vibrant downtown core.

In Hamilton, downtown appears to be improving, slowly but incrementally year over year as more high density residential is added.

[ZTrade]

St. John's NFLD with a 15% increase since the 2021 census.

[Metro-One]

At 40, it is interesting that Metro Vancouver has now more than doubled in size since I was born (around 2.2 times now).

It's funny hearing Kelowna described as surprisingly small, since not too long ago it and Kamloops were neck and neck (both around 100 000, Kelowna slightly above and Kamloops slightly below) now Kelowna is twice the size (and Kamloops has also continued to grow slowly).

[Metro-One]

Dp

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

At 40, it is interesting that Metro Vancouver has now more than doubled in size since I was born (around 2.2 times now).
...

These stats from 1901 are the most awesome ones for Canada, when St. John's was larger than Vancouver, and BC was the second smallest provincial population.