Statistics Canada Reports II

[Nashe]

I think locally (Moncton) the focus on lower SFH builds reflects sprawl is slowing and the downtown is densifying.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Nashe

I think locally (Moncton) the focus on lower SFH builds reflects sprawl is slowing and the downtown is densifying.

Makes me curious what's causing it. It's inevitable that as a metro area grows, there will be more pressure for density since people get pushed further out which extends commute times and worsens traffic. That causes more demand closer to the center, the demand increases, and higher prices drive more efficient land use. But I'm surprised that this would be happening so early in Moncton, especially since it doesn't have the other restraints that a place like Halifax has where there are barriers to accessing a peninsula-based city center. But for it to be building a smaller percentage of SFHs than Halifax makes me wonder if there's some sort of policy or demographic mechanism playing a role. Otherwise I would have expected Moncton to be on a Calgary type trajectory for a much longer time.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Makes me curious what's causing it. It's inevitable that as a metro area grows, there will be more pressure for density since people get pushed further out which extends commute times and worsens traffic. That causes more demand closer to the center, the demand increases, and higher prices drive more efficient land use. But I'm surprised that this would be happening so early in Moncton, especially since it doesn't have the other restraints that a place like Halifax has where there are barriers to accessing a peninsula-based city center. But for it to be building a smaller percentage of SFHs than Halifax makes me wonder if there's some sort of policy or demographic mechanism playing a role. Otherwise I would have expected Moncton to be on a Calgary type trajectory for a much longer time.

I can only comment on the demographic change as I'm seeing it myself: retirees selling their SFHs and moving downtown to fill some of the new buildings. The SFHs are getting bought up by a mix of families from the west (injecting their recovered equity from more expensive real estate) and the remainder getting split into multiple units and rented back out.

[Taeolas]

Moncton is more constrained than you might think; but it's not really a physical limitation and more a political limitation.

It is hemmed in by Riverside and Dieppe on two sides. And for the most part Moncton tends to see the TCH as its boundary. It was a big thing when the province pushed the new Moncton High School out past there, and that has spurred some development (including Granite Drive along the other side of the TCH for Costco); but Moncton generally seems to want to keep its city limits within those confines.

That still leaves lots of room to sprawl to the east and north. But once again that is partly blocked in by the hills; Magnetic Hill has to stay mostly untouched for the tourism value, and there just doesn't seem to be much desire to grow beyond there.

Following the river on the Salisbury road also sees a lot of SFH development; but it also has a big trainyard in there that is mostly invisible for now (I just realized its there when I looked at Google Maps).

So yeah, Moncton does have lots of space it could sprawl; but overall it seems content to densify more than sprawl lately. That may change as downtown fills in, and some of the other bigger infill projects develop, and the population becomes high enough that they can't stay in the old confines any more. Once that cork pops, we'll likely see sprawling happening all the way out to Salisbury and towards Irishtown and such with great abandon.

[zoomer]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Looking at at data on SFH development and understanding it can be complicated, and looking at it over time is even more fraught as definitions of housing types have changed, so aren't necessarily comparable from one census to the next.

With that caveat, the housing starts data doesn't give much of an idea of the changing housing stock unless you know the nature of the building that's taking place. You can observe several hundred new single family homes built in the City of Vancouver every year for the past decade, but if you look at the tenure, you'll see they're almost all rental. That's because they're almost all detached laneway houses, being added at the back of either a new, or an existing home. So you're getting a significant net increase in the stock of detached houses, but if the focus is on ownership, they don't add new opportunities.

Similarly, older single family homes are being torn down and replaced, so they may show up as new homes, but they aren't a net gain to the housing stock. In practice, very few single family homes are replaced with a new single family home, they much more often add a suite 'mortgage helper', but whether the new owners then choose to rent the suite, or use it themselves isn't captured in any data that I'm aware of. No housing data is perfect.

Yup, all good points - data has it limits and is just one (yet important) part of the picture. It's why I'm quite hesitant to make definitive statements about cities other than one I live in. Even ones that I visit quite often; sure opinions, impressions and 'vibes' are fine (questions are better) but it can take years of living in a city to really get a sense of how it functions and even then it's morphing right before your eyes.

As for Moncton, when I visited in 2018 I was surprised how much Dieppe was growing with a lot of investment (new hotel, apartment buildings) especially because it's so close to downtown which felt like a pretty good downtown. Ever since it looks as if downtown has taken off, but as Nouvellecosse mentioned the current non-detached growth is really quite dramatic and perhaps unexpected at this stage of Moncton's evolution. Is it because of a large number of apartment/condo starts this past year that are temporarily skewing the data?

Ah - just seeing Taelas's response now. Wow, that would be fascinating if the trend reverses and sprawl takes off - it's not an unwritten law in the Canadian urban context that sprawl is curtailed with increasing densification as a city evolves. That's worthy of a deep dive on it's own, maybe one of the urbanist Youtube channels goes into that - I suppose white flight to the suburbs in the States was one huge example and to the lesser degree Canadian suburbanization/car culture post war - but in the 21st century..? With changes in technology and society and large what's the future for cities - ah, yes, probably hundreds of essays/theories on that, lol, nevermind.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by zoomer

Ever since it looks as if downtown has taken off, but as Nouvellecosse mentioned the current non-detached growth is really quite dramatic and perhaps unexpected at this stage of Moncton's evolution. Is it because of a large number of apartment/condo starts this past year that are temporarily skewing the data?

Non-detached has DEFINITELY taken off in the past 3-4 years and continues. Moncton, Dieppe (and even Riverview) have seen the vast majority of the housing $ starts be in 6+ storey apartment buildings. There were no 10+ storey residential in the CMA before 4 years ago, I'd say.

The cause is what we're talking about, yes... interprovincial and international immigration has slowed, but that is only one factor. It might be aging boomers (and some Gen X) but a lot of SFH have gotten sold off in the past 2 years as property values on them have mostly more than doubled. Some of those people have moved down-town to rent.

[Nouvellecosse]

Interesting responses. And looking back at the chart zoomer shared, I think one possibility is that land prices and other barriers to building multi-family were just very low rather than that there was some big obstacle to SFHs. Based on the chart's quoted populations, Moncton CMA has about 36% as many people as Halifax CMA while it has about 42% as many detached house starts. Yet it has about 50% as many in other categories. So it's true that there's lots of SFH construction and the only reason SFHs are a smaller percentage is that there are so many more starts in other categories rather than it building less detached.

The reason we generally associate high land values with dense development is that it shows there is strong demand, and the demand results in such high prices for the final product that they outweigh the land price and other inputs. But it's the profit motive that actually drives development, aka, the difference in input costs relative to selling price. If the total input costs are low enough, there can be a strong profit margin even if demand (and final selling prices) aren't exceptionally high. In this case, all the vacant or underused land available for infill along with fewer other barriers such as NIMBYs or regulatory restrictions and requirements may have just made multi-family infill disproportionately cheaper than in other places of similar size. And selling prices could have simply crossed a threshold that caused multi-unit to take off. Infill usually has disproportionately high input costs compared to greenfield, but that's a general tendency rather than a hard and fast rule.

But regardless of the cause, I'm definitely not mad at it lol.

[BlaineN]

One has to keep in mind that housing start types are only general stats. They don't tell the whole story, for example, where the apartment units are being built greenfield vs brownfield or what type of apartment, how many rooms or average square footage, or whether it's a nice little apartment building in the core, or a 6 storey bunker in the burbs - the details are there, but it takes work to break them out and properly analyze.

I agree with some of the previous comments that a really high rate of apartments is more indicative of housing affordability than anything else, but other factors need to be taken into consideration. People who want to live inner city, might wish for a single family home but will take an apartment because their desire to live in the inner city is higher than the desire for a SFH. Lots of different variables.

[BlaineN]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I'm not sure I follow this part. Much of missing middle housing is apartments yet you seem to be counting missing middle and apartments as separate things. Yes missing middle includes townhouses and rowhouses, but it also includes lowrise and midrise multi-unit buildings. Montreal has long been the major city with most missing middle housing in Canada and most is in the form of lowrise multi-unit which includes the classic external staircase plexes.

Regarding surveys, obviously it's true that the majority of people tends to say they prefer the more expensive or premium option they're presented with. That's not really a big revelation. They'll also say they prefer low taxes, short commutes, prime locations, and low cost of living and those things are all in conflict with unsustainable development patterns. The conflict was much lower when the population was smaller overall and particularly when a smaller percentage of people lived in major centers. But as that changes, so do the trade-offs.

I should also point out that population growth in Canada is driven by immigration to larger centres, and new arrivals often aren't going to have the cultural memory of detaches houses or the expectation that they'll be plentiful in major cities.

I guessing think he meant grade oriented housing and not missing middle, as semi and row are grade oriented, and as you mentioned, smaller apartment buildings could count as missing middle housing.

This is one of the things I like about Calgary. There is a lot of grade oriented housing in the inner city, basically every block seems to have these kinds of developments. It's a nice blend of higher density, but with some benefits of SFH living.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by BlaineN

I guessing think he meant grade oriented housing and not missing middle, as semi and row are grade oriented, and as you mentioned, smaller apartment buildings could count as missing middle housing.

This is one of the things I like about Calgary. There is a lot of grade oriented housing in the inner city, basically every block seems to have these kinds of developments. It's a nice blend of higher density, but with some benefits of SFH living.

Vancouver has been adding new ground oriented family-friendly townhouses Downtown for over 30 years. They were an early element of the design guidelines to re-populate Downtown, where the base of the towers is most often a skin of street-facing townhouses, slightly raised for privacy, adding 'eyes on the street' for security. There are hundreds of them now - Statistics Canada would classify them as apartments over 4 storeys in the construction data as they're part of a strata with mostly apartments. It's one reason why we've needed the three new elementary schools added in the past 25 years.

Here's a (winter) example from Yaletown.



Changing Vancouver

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by BlaineN

I guessing think he meant grade oriented housing and not missing middle, as semi and row are grade oriented, and as you mentioned, smaller apartment buildings could count as missing middle housing.

This is one of the things I like about Calgary. There is a lot of grade oriented housing in the inner city, basically every block seems to have these kinds of developments. It's a nice blend of higher density, but with some benefits of SFH living.

Maybe? But if so, that doesn't make any more sense because apartments can also be at-grade with individual exterior entrances. I live in one for instance. And there are plenty of other apartment structures that have exterior access up a set of stairs which is common in Quebec.

Generally the difference people talk about when comparing housing types is whether or not they're connected to the ground by proximity. Places that are up to 4 stories high feel connected to the street level because it's easy to see and hear everything happening at ground level and trees often extend that high, while living further up can feel isolating since people become distant observers in their own neighbourhoods. But it isn't about whether or not they're directly at ground level which is something of a niche distinction. The only way it's generally relevant is when it comes to accessibility since stairs can act as a barrier for some people but that can be addressed by elevators, while many SFHs also have stairs. And also the desire for ground level space such as a back yard but that isn't achieved just by being at ground level.

[kora]

Big picture, long term review of immigration to USA.

Number of immigrants living in USA increased from 20 to 50 million between 1990 and 2024.

Foreign-born share of population is at historic highs.

Foreign-Born Population in the United States Changed Significantly in Both Numbers and Countries of Origin, US Census Bureau, July 21, 2026
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2026/07/foreign-born-population-250-year-history.html

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by kora

Big picture, long term review of immigration to USA.

Number of immigrants living in USA increased from 20 to 50 million between 1990 and 2024.

Foreign-born share of population is at historic highs.

Foreign-Born Population in the United States Changed Significantly in Both Numbers and Countries of Origin, US Census Bureau, July 21, 2026
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2026/07/foreign-born-population-250-year-history.html

And?

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Nashe

I can only comment on the demographic change as I'm seeing it myself: retirees selling their SFHs and moving downtown to fill some of the new buildings. The SFHs are getting bought up by a mix of families from the west (injecting their recovered equity from more expensive real estate) and the remainder getting split into multiple units and rented back out.

You can see the demographic changes that are playing out across Canada (and much of the world) by looking at the 2011 and 2021 census data. (We'll be able to see more recent change next year, when 2026 census data gets published).

Over that 10 years, the Moncton CMA saw the population rise by 19,073 (13.8%) from 138,644 to 157,717.

In terms of housing, there were 30.2% more occupied dwellings (+15,585). Single family were +5,326 (+17.3%), semi-detached +3,934 (+134%), rowhouse +847 (+60.8%), low-rise apartments +5,245 (+55.9%). There were no additional apartments 5 or more storeys.

In terms of the people living in those homes, the number of larger families (5 or more members) increased by 22.4%, but there weren’t many of them, so it was only 475 more families. 4-person families increased by 7.9%, (555 families), 3-person by 7.7% (665 families), 2-person by 11.8% (2,660 families). The big increase was in single person households, +5,790 (+46%).

So we're presumably seeing a significant increase in apartments because developers are responding to household sizes falling, and far more single person households.

You could argue that Moncton was significantly over-building for the theoretical demand, but the actual changes were things like families with kids who leave home so they’re down to just two people in a single family home, and their kids each occupying an apartment, with no intention of pairing up and moving in with their partner (if they have one). Or older couples becoming a widow(er) who doesn’t want to give up the family home, and intends to be carried out in a box.

As the bulge of baby boomers age out of the population, we're likely to see more existing ground-oriented units available in the market just as demand (in the form of families with kids) isn't increasing significantly.

[someone123]

I don't think that building type is so great on its own as a proxy for urbanism vs. sprawl or even density. They build townhouses on golf courses and lowrise apartments surrounded by woods and blobs of parking. Or you can find compact detached houses in urban areas.

[BlaineN]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Maybe? But if so, that doesn't make any more sense because apartments can also be at-grade with individual exterior entrances. I live in one for instance. And there are plenty of other apartment structures that have exterior access up a set of stairs which is common in Quebec.

I agree, and that's more or less what I was saying in my following post. The numbers are simply numbers and that they don't tell the story, not necessarily in a good way or a bad way. Having a high number of apartment stats can be good, but it's not automatically a 'good sign'. There are a lot of variables. It's common for apartments to have an exterior set of stairs, but less common for new builds (relating to housing starts)

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Generally the difference people talk about when comparing housing types is whether or not they're connected to the ground by proximity. Places that are up to 4 stories high feel connected to the street level because it's easy to see and hear everything happening at ground level and trees often extend that high, while living further up can feel isolating since people become distant observers in their own neighbourhoods. But it isn't about whether or not they're directly at ground level which is something of a niche distinction. The only way it's generally relevant is when it comes to accessibility since stairs can act as a barrier for some people but that can be addressed by elevators, while many SFHs also have stairs. And also the desire for ground level space such as a back yard but that isn't achieved just by being at ground level.

This is where you see the difference for semis or rowhomes. One of the reasons I like rowhousing (in brownfield) is it has benefits of both apartments (density increases) and SFHs (yard/garden space). Places that are 4 stories can feel more connected to the ground than a highrise apartment, but it's still an apartment. Apartment buildings can have ground floor entrances and even yards, but it's a small portion of the overall units.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by BlaineN

I agree, and that's more or less what I was saying in my following post. The numbers are simply numbers and that they don't tell the story, not necessarily in a good way or a bad way. Having a high number of apartment stats can be good, but it's not automatically a 'good sign'. There are a lot of variables. It's common for apartments to have an exterior set of stairs, but less common for new builds (relating to housing starts)

I do understand what people are saying about the exceptions and it's true that they exist. Apartments aren't necessarily high density or urban, and SFHs aren't always low density or suburban. But in my experience we can safely say that having more multi-unit as a broad statistic is a good thing. The correlation is still pretty strong despite the exceptions. There are many things like that such as rates of walking and transit usage where it's completely possible for a denser, more urban place to have lower rates of transit usage or walking than a less dense counterpart for instance. But they're good enough proxies to have value - you just need more data if you require a high degree of certainty. But when you combine several such data points together or when there's no other data available, they're useful stats.

Originally Posted by BlaineN

This is where you see the difference for semis or rowhomes. One of the reasons I like rowhousing (in brownfield) is it has benefits of both apartments (density increases) and SFHs (yard/garden space). Places that are 4 stories can feel more connected to the ground than a highrise apartment, but it's still an apartment. Apartment buildings can have ground floor entrances and even yards, but it's a small portion of the overall units.

In my case I don't care that much about having a ground floor entrance but I do care about having my own, non-shared exterior entrance. Mainly since I don't like the sounds and odours that can be present in apartment building hallways. And you definitely can have that without being on the ground floor. All the units in my apartment complex have one and they're multi-story buildings.

[KnoxfordGuy]

Interesting story. Once one of the largest cities in British North America, now fighting for 2nd place in New Brunswick. Saint John is far from dying though. Just on a different trajectory.

The Saint John CMA is still 20k more than Fredericton though.

Saint John was once N.B.'s lar...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/saint-john-falls-third-largest-city-9.7292748

[Docere]

Population under 15 years (2021 Census): 5,992,560

Visible Minority 1,917,290 31.9%
South Asian 488,010 8.1%
Black 403,765 6.7%
Chinese 260,575 4.3%
Arab 181,995 3%
Filipino 175,800 2.9%
Latin American 84,655 1.4%
Southeast Asian 66,085 1.1%
West Asian 61,505 1%
Korean 34,945 0.6%
Japanese 18,340 0.3%
Other/Multiple VM 141,655

Indigenous identity 459,210 7.7%

[acottawa]

Why are East Asians carefully divided by country but the rest of the world is clustered into huge and wildly diverse groups.

Also, where is West Asia?