Kitchener-Waterloo: a microcosm of modern Canada?

[Wigs]

Saskatoon CMA is around 380,000. I look forward to it joining the 500k and up club (within my lifetime)

[MolsonExport]

Is 500K the threshold for the "take off" phase? Maybe. Maybe not. Winnipeg languished at that threshold for a couple of decades, before beginning to grow robustly again. Same for Quebec City and Hamilton.

On the other hand, there appears to be momentum with KWC, Halifax, and (until recently), London; all of which crossed that threshold not too long ago.

From my own experience, a city truly starts feeling "Big" (and not just at the skyline level, as Calgary has been there since the late 1990s) once it crosses the 2 Million mark. Montreal and Toronto (CMAs) have been over that level since the 1960s (and you can really feel it at the ground level, downtown). Vancouver, since the early 2000s.

Montreal 1961. 2,110,679
Toronto 1961. 1,824,481

Vancouver 2001. 1,986,965

Calgary (with ~1.8M) is closing in on that 2M threshold fast. It will be at least another decade for Edmonton and Ottawa, though.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

There is no doubt that downtown London has decayed considerably since the pandemic. While at the same time, the population of downtown (and the broader CMA) has surged.

I agree that downtown Toronto has largely recovered since the pandemic. Montreal too. Can't speak for Edmonton, as I haven't been there in awhile, but downtown Calgary appears to have bounced back. Downtown Ottawa certainly has parts that have become more rough-edged (I'm thinking around Byward Market, for example, as well as the southern stretches of Bank Street)

Downtown London...has been a great disappointment in the 21 years that I have lived here. Just when it was getting back on its feet again (after the Great Recession, which devastated London's industrial base), the pandemic pulled the rug out from beneath it. And it has gotten steadily worse since then, notwithstanding the flurry of new towers (including a new tallest).

What about the downtown(s) of KWC? Are they similar to that of London? How about Windsor? the last time I was in downtown Windsor, it felt pretty sketchy.

Windsor’s DT is sketchy sometimes, but not anywhere near as bad as DT London, DT Windsor is still pretty packed on weekend nights, but it can be pretty depressing during the week when the drug addicts and menoill roam around.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I find this strange, given how London became one of Ontario's hotspots for people leaving the GTA in search of cheaper housing. I would have assumed at least some of those people were would-be urbanites who'd be happy to gentrify and revitalize London's inner neighbourhoods.

Anyway, it's too bad to hear! There seems to be maybe a split in Canada between cities that have seen inner-city decline in the years since the pandemic (London, and I'd say Edmonton and even Ottawa, to a much more minor degree) and those that have seen revitalization (Calgary, Halifax, and even Toronto, which seemed to be struggling in 2021-23 but to my eyes has really bounced back.)

I think it was just a lack of places downtown London for those people to move at that time. There were several apartment complexes that started construction right before the pandemic started but they took, or are still taking, years to build. Then of course the market hit a brick wall in 2022 and things stopped. A couple are starting up again now. If all the announced buildings happen in the next 10 years, that will be a huge jolt for downtown. Meanwhile, some of those builders are focusing on their suburban projects.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

On the other hand, there appears to be momentum with KWC, Halifax, and (until recently), London; all of which crossed that threshold not too long ago.

From my own experience, a city truly starts feeling "Big" (and not just at the skyline level, as Calgary has been there since the late 1990s) once it crosses the 2 Million mark. Montreal and Toronto (CMAs) have been over that level since the 1960s (and you can really feel it at the ground level, downtown). Vancouver, since the early 2000s.

I guess it starts to be hard not to have some major markers of a large metro area past 2 million, like specialized businesses, busy traffic arteries, or big regional amenities like airports or stadiums. Then again, so much of the form of a city comes down to how it develops, not just how big it is. Vancouver did very well and so much of the urban part of the city is modern development, not just historic urban fabric from before WW2.

It seems to me like Halifax is increasingly solidly in a "medium" category now that it was on the edge of back around the early 2000s. But a lot of that is contingent as well on the style of development. In Halifax's case there was a lot of poor planning before around 2010 or so, and good development more recently (some parts of town are still under the old planning rules and are still really underwhelming). I think there could have been a smaller much better urban core, or a larger and much weaker urban core, depending on how things went.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Docere

Total Variation Distance: Ethnic Composition (White, Indigenous identity, Visible Minority groups)

Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo 6.55%
Hamilton 7.5%
Ottawa-Gatineau 8.3%
Edmonton 8.85%
London 9.1%
Windsor 9.6%
Calgary 12.35%
Montreal 13.6%
Winnipeg 16.7%
Toronto 30.3%
Vancouver 32.0%

Ottawa is the most "average" of the 6 largest cities when it comes to ethnic composition. Of course some would scoff at the idea of the national capital (a bunch of federal employees out of touch with the "real Canada"!) but it does come fairly close to the national economic composition.

The NCR it is the only area that gets anywhere close to the country's language composition. Of the other bilingual cities, Montreal has the official languages reversed, while Sudbury and Moncton have much lower shares of immigrants and non-official languages.

Ottawa however is not surprisingly more of an outlier on educational attainment and income.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Docere

Close to half of Canadians live in the six CMAs of over 1,000,000. So cities in the size range of 500,000-1,000,000 (i.e. Winnipeg, Hamilton, KWC) is more in line with the Canadian average than somewhere like Saskatoon, Kelowna or Barrie.

If you're looking at this, I would argue that agglomeration matters too. Hamilton, Oshawa, Guelph, KWC, Barrie and St. Catharines are very different from equivalent sized cities elsewhere. I would argue that the Golden Horseshoe and Lower Mainland are functionally different with the level of integration they have with large neighbouring cities.

[Innsertnamehere]

Blackberry has had a lasting legacy of pushing Kitchener from what was historically one of the poorer "middle 3" SW Ontario cities to one of the wealthier ones, and with a much stronger white-collar lean than the other two. It brought an immense amount of money and capital to the city which was re-invested into the City's tech industry and universities and which has created a lasting legacy of improved economic fortunes and a focus on white-collar work that as long outlasted the company itself.

On the ground I feel like you see this too - KWC just feels wealthier than Hamilton and London - the downtown is healthier with a much smaller (though not non-existent) homelessness population, there seems to be higher levels of growth and investment in offices, employment, and social infrastructure, new rapid transit connections, etc. What's interesting is that this is built on a thinner stock of historic wealth. Hamilton and London have a grander inventory of older buildings, larger inventories of historic wealthy neighbourhoods, etc.. as historically KWC was smaller and less wealthy than the other two.


On another note - Hamilton is interesting to me as it in many ways comes off as significantly poorer than KWC and London, with the housing stock generally being much lower quality and higher visual signs of poverty, even in the suburbs. I think what differentiates it though is that it has Ancaster, Dundas, and Waterdown, which are generally significantly wealthier than most of London and KWC, dragging the overall median and average of the city up. The "city of Hamilton" itself, including it's suburbs, generally does not read as particularly wealthy. Downtown is well known, but even modern suburbs on the mountian and in Stoney Creek generally see more modest dwellings and less obvious wealth than an average suburb of KWC or London.. but then Ancaster is also far wealthier and extravagant and on a scale far larger than anything in London or KWC.

[MolsonExport]

How would one rank order the relative health/vibrancy of the following "Middle Ranking" Ontario city downtowns (for the following CMAs, roughly 450K-850K populations)? Which ones are revitalizing vs. declining?

Alphabetized:

Hamilton
KWC*
London
St. Catharines-Niagara
Windsor

*does it even make sense to have this as one (versus several) downtowns?

London is suffering from a perfect storm of (a) economic decline (thanks to Tronald Dump for decimating manufacturing, and the severely reduced caps on foreign students), (b) surge in homelessness and junkies (with attendant facilities to serve these people), (c) a parasitic landlord by the name of Farhi, who owns most of the core, and uses a "buy-hold-rot" strategy.

[Docere]

Not to be pedantic, but isn't it really the St. Catharines-Niagara CMA?

If KWC is a polycentric metro, so is Niagara.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Docere

Not to be pedantic, but isn't it really the St. Catharines-Niagara CMA?

If KWC is a polycentric metro, so is Niagara.

yes, although NF is a very different beast than St. Catharines.

[Docere]

Hamilton and Windsor have "inner city" ridings that are poorer. They're closer to the old rust belt city model.

Hamilton Centre

Average income $44,560
Median HH income $60,400
In bottom half of income distribution 65.8%
Low income (LIM - AT) 19.5%

Windsor West

Average income $44,080
Median HH income $68,500
In bottom half of income distribution 61.8%
Low income (LIM - AT) 17.7%

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

This thread made me look deeper into the name change referendum and new name contest that ensued.

Also, it make me wonder, why was there such a huge push for Berlin, Ontario to change its name, but seemingly no push for New Brunswick to change its German name? New Brunswick’s name was originally supposed to be New Ireland… but our German King wasn’t having that, and named it after the German city of Braunschweig instead.

As for Kitchener being a microcosm of Canada… maybe Central Canada or Eastern Canada, but I think Calgary, Edmonton, or Winnipeg would be better examples of a microcosm of the entire country. Most of Canada’s populated territory has colder winters than Kitchener… I don’t think any city in Southern Ontario could be considered a microcosm of Canada when there winters just aren’t nearly as cold as the rest of the country.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

This thread made me look deeper into the name change referendum and new name contest that ensued.

Also, it make me wonder, why was there such a huge push for Berlin, Ontario to change its name, but seemingly no push for New Brunswick to change its German name? New Brunswick’s name was originally supposed to be New Ireland… but our German King wasn’t having that, and named it after the German city of Braunschweig instead.

As for Kitchener being a microcosm of Canada… maybe Central Canada or Eastern Canada, but I think Calgary, Edmonton, or Winnipeg would be better examples of a microcosm of the entire country. Most of Canada’s populated territory has colder winters than Kitchener… I don’t think any city in Southern Ontario could be considered a microcosm of Canada when there winters just aren’t nearly as cold as the rest of the country.

Around 37% of the population lives in Southern Ontario vs. 18% in the Prairies. There's also British Columbia (14%) of which the vast majority live in the more temperate southwest.

So I don't think Edmonton or Winnipeg are more "typical" in terms of the weather where people live.

[Docere]

Population distribution using the 6 official regions (Statistics Canada):

Atlantic 6.5%
Quebec 23%
Ontario 38.5%
Prairies 18.2%
British Columbia 13.5%
Northern Territories 0.3%

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Docere

Around 37% of the population lives in Southern Ontario vs. 18% in the Prairies. There's also British Columbia (14%) of which the vast majority live in the more temperate southwest.

So I don't think Edmonton or Winnipeg are more "typical" in terms of the weather where people live.

Yes and no. SW Ontario and southern BC are the warmest parts of the country, which mostly get warmer winters than the rest of the country.. But Kitchener does still get good, generally consistent snow cover in the winter owing to lake effect off Huron, so I'm not sure it's too far off base to really matter.

If we were looking at St Catharines or Windsor, sure - both those cities have notably shorter winters which generally don't have snow on the ground consistently through the winter period.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Docere

Around 37% of the population lives in Southern Ontario vs. 18% in the Prairies. There's also British Columbia (14%) of which the vast majority live in the more temperate southwest.

So I don't think Edmonton or Winnipeg are more "typical" in terms of the weather where people live.

Mhm, but notice I used the term populated area… aka regions of the country that are not considered unpopulated or incredibly sparsely populated (at least by Canadian standards)

Most of Canada’s populated territory has bitterly cold winters… Southern Ontario and British Columbia are the exceptions, along with parts of Atlantic Canada. Calgary might have the chinooks, but it’s still got bitterly cold winters compared to the most temperate parts of BC, or Southern Ontario.

I’d say also say that Calgary or Ottawa are better microcosms than Kitchener-Waterloo, because most Canadians live in big cities, which Kitchener-Waterloo is not… yet. Moreover, Ottawa might be the best microcosm when taking into account linguistics and Canada’s status as a bilingual country.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

yes, although NF is a very different beast than St. Catharines.

True, although Niagara Falls is growing rapidly. It was just under 114,000 per the 2025 estimate and St. Kitts was just under 154,000 and growing as well.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/...025&referencePeriods=20250101%2C20250101


Queen St. is technically downtown Niagara Falls but it pales in comparison to St. Paul St. for St. Catharines. St. Paul Street was on a really good upswing until Covid shuttered it. It's still struggling although new businesses are popping up here and there.

St. Catharines is the defacto medium sized city feel "downtown" for all of Niagara. The largest arena that attracts bigger name acts, the performing arts centre and home to Niagara Symphony and an arthouse screen cinema, having Brock University students in the arts downtown helps as well.
The Pen(insula) Centre (>1 Million square feet) has always been the largest mall and regional draw for shopping as well.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

How would one rank order the relative health/vibrancy of the following "Middle Ranking" Ontario city downtowns (for the following CMAs, roughly 450K-850K populations)? Which ones are revitalizing vs. declining?

Alphabetized:

Hamilton
KWC*
London
St. Catharines-Niagara
Windsor

If I had to rank these Ontario downtowns in terms of vibrancy, I'd go:

1. Hamilton
2. London - although it has really declined, Richmond St. N is still healthy and vibrant. Dundas St. East is becoming like a little DTES, though.
3. Kitchener (it's improved, but it's coming off a low base and it still has some issues)

St. Catharines' downtown is getting better but it's still a small place that feels like it's Barrie-sized, and I haven't been to downtown Windsor in over 20 years, so I can't really comment.

---

The thing with Ontario's downtowns is that they really aren't a function of metro size, or even historical size.

Ontario metros in order of population would go:

Toronto
Ottawa
Hamilton
KWC
London
Windsor
St. Catharines

But if I were to rank Ontario downtowns in terms of how interesting they are, I'd go:

Toronto
Ottawa
Kingston
North York Centre (not sure if this counts as a downtown)
Hamilton
Stratford
Guelph
...
or something like that

[Docere]

People aren't particularly drawn to Kitchener for its "vibrant core." The region is a draw because of (somewhat?) cheaper housing and the tech sector.