2014 Civic Census

[Chinook Arch]

It's mind boggling to think the city is gaining 77 people per day through migration. That's at least 30-40 vehicles added to the roads each day!

[onanewday]

So a question on growth in the city.... i know we have been in an energy boom (oilsands related) for some time. But how much of the growth is related to that and how much is just related to Calgary reached a certain size and now the growth is just feeding on itself? It can do this the other way as well.

It seems to me that cities/metropolitan areas reach a certain size and they gain a life of their own... they just grow. And if we repeat other centres... our growth might start to feed on itself even more quickly.

Just though on growth.

[Chadillaccc]

I don't think anyone can really answer that. There is no real data to support any assumption either.


In 2010, we had a growth of only 6000 people, but that was because the most devastating recession in modern history happened. This year, we had a growth of 39 000 people, but that is because we are in the midst of the most prolific economic boom in Alberta's history, fueled mostly be sands operations. I would guess somewhere on the lower end of the mid range between those two numbers would be our average growth without oil being such a huge influence... probably a municipal growth of about 18 000, similar to Ottawa's metropolitan growth.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by onanewday

So a question on growth in the city.... i know we have been in an energy boom (oilsands related) for some time. But how much of the growth is related to that and how much is just related to Calgary reached a certain size and now the growth is just feeding on itself? It can do this the other way as well.

It seems to me that cities/metropolitan areas reach a certain size and they gain a life of their own... they just grow. And if we repeat other centres... our growth might start to feed on itself even more quickly.

Just though on growth.

Well... that's difficult to answer.

Only about 5% of Calgary's employment population work in "the oil and gas sector", BUT that does not include service industries that might highly (but not exclusively) rely on oil and gas, such as manufacturing, financial services, legal services, etc.

Furthermore, employees in these sectors are paid relatively high wages, disproportionately affected demand for retail, construction, food, and entertainment.

Lastly, it is largely because of oil and gas royalties that Alberta can support high investment in public health, education, and construction.

So basically, some people are drawn to Alberta for high-paying oil&gas jobs, but most come for a variety of industries that are positively affected by high oil prices. Fact: Royalties to the province are more tightly correlated to O&G prices than O&G sector employment (because of our unique taxation and royalty model). This implies that growth in education, healthcare, and construction is more reliant on oilsands production than energy sector employment under our current model. To answer your question though, Calgary's economy is far more diverse than it was in 1982. Will growth still be affected by O&G price slumps? Yes, as will probably always be the case so long as oil is in demand and AB has more than other places in the world... Though, the wedge is shrinking...

[fusili]

I would argue that 80% or Calgary's economy is related to O&G, or in industries that exist because of it. Construction, retail, service jobs, health care, education are all jobs that service others (there are of course places where education, health, tourism or construction are the actual drivers of an economy, but I am referring to these as support industries in this case). Other than oil and gas, what industries do we have driving growth? Agriculture, mining, technology and maybe biotech? If Calgary didn't have oil and gas, we would barely be a city above 100 000 people.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Doug

Inner city growth is less impressive in the context of surrounding municipalities like Airdrie accounting for ever increasing shares of regional growth. 1K new residents in the Beltline is great, but the 15K or so growth outside city limits should be cause for concern.

Yeah, the city can trumpet this 50/50 split all it wants, but what I see is that we've mostly shut down greenfield development within city limits. It's all happening in Cochrane/Airdrie/Okotoks/Strathmore instead. Not exactly something to be proud of. If anything we're just seeing worse sprawl than ever.

Now, whether or not those towns would be growing quite as fast if we allowed unfettered development at the city's edges is another discussion.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by fusili

I would argue that 80% or Calgary's economy is related to O&G, or in industries that exist because of it. Construction, retail, service jobs, health care, education are all jobs that service others (there are of course places where education, health, tourism or construction are the actual drivers of an economy, but I am referring to these as support industries in this case). Other than oil and gas, what industries do we have driving growth? Agriculture, mining, technology and maybe biotech? If Calgary didn't have oil and gas, we would barely be a city above 100 000 people.

I'd question what any city in Western Canada without oil and gas (ie: the majority of them) is doing over 100,000 people if that were the case. Our current insane growth - absolutely. It's probably 95% tied to O&G. But I find it hard to believe that the city basically wouldn't exist if it wasn't for that. Calgary could easily support 500,000 people without a drop of oil. Winnipeg does it, and they don't even have 5 million people visiting a nearby park every year.

But this sort of speculation is best left for the Canada forum anyway.

[Deepstar]

I don't know about 100k, maybe 500k. There are still other things happening here besides oil and gas. If we never had oil and gas to begin with I would imagine Calgary being around 400-500k

A very difficult question, as oil and gas has also hindered regular development of other industries.

Originally Posted by fusili

I would argue that 80% or Calgary's economy is related to O&G, or in industries that exist because of it. Construction, retail, service jobs, health care, education are all jobs that service others (there are of course places where education, health, tourism or construction are the actual drivers of an economy, but I am referring to these as support industries in this case). Other than oil and gas, what industries do we have driving growth? Agriculture, mining, technology and maybe biotech? If Calgary didn't have oil and gas, we would barely be a city above 100 000 people.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Deepstar

A very difficult question, as oil and gas has also hindered regular development of other industries.

Yeah, given how hard it is for non-O&G firms to attract employees, and yet some manage to thrive here - without our insane compensation markup, I'd be curious just how much more we'd have going here.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by fusili

I would argue that 80% or Calgary's economy is related to O&G, or in industries that exist because of it. Construction, retail, service jobs, health care, education are all jobs that service others (there are of course places where education, health, tourism or construction are the actual drivers of an economy, but I am referring to these as support industries in this case). Other than oil and gas, what industries do we have driving growth? Agriculture, mining, technology and maybe biotech? If Calgary didn't have oil and gas, we would barely be a city above 100 000 people.

If Alberta NEVER had O&G, yes, probably. If free energy were discovered tomorrow, would 1.1 million people flee the city? No. That's kind of like saying, "if it weren't for the rail road, Calgary never would have been established as a town." It's irrelevant now.

If free energy were discovered tomorrow, many would leave, times would be tough in every industry (say goodbye to construction updates), but life would go on. Overall, the impact of O&G on livelihood in the city has diminished from what it was 30 years ago. Still HUGELY important, but diminished. Calgary now has many assets beyond high wages that make it attractive to live in.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

If free energy were discovered tomorrow, many would leave, times would be tough in every industry (say goodbye to construction updates)

Getting way OT here, but if free energy were discovered tomorrow, we'd have nothing BUT construction updates.

Free energy means that I could own my own condo tower. For free. And maintain it, too. For free. I'd probably build 6, not one of which would be a twin.

[Wooster]

Originally Posted by Doug

Inner city growth is less impressive in the context of surrounding municipalities like Airdrie accounting for ever increasing shares of regional growth. 1K new residents in the Beltline is great, but the 15K or so growth outside city limits should be cause for concern.

But satellite community market share of growth has barely shifted in the past decade. Perhaps more a perception than a reality. It exists, but its trend line is flat.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Getting way OT here, but if free energy were discovered tomorrow, we'd have nothing BUT construction updates.

Free energy means that I could own my own condo tower. For free. And maintain it, too. For free. I'd probably build 6, not one of which would be a twin.

lol touché.

[horrorshow]

Originally Posted by Wooster

But satellite community market share of growth has barely shifted in the past decade. Perhaps more a perception than a reality. It exists, but its trend line is flat.

Calgary still holds a lot of the power in determining the growth of suburban municipalities because the City, in most cases, provides the water required to service to new growth areas. This has limited growth in the suburban areas and is one of the major reasons the surrounding communities haven't exploded (even more) with growth.

Good read:

http://www.policyschool.ucalgary.ca/sites/default/files/research/taylor-ab-cities-5.pdf

[Surrealplaces]

If Calgary never had oil and gas to begin with it would obviously be much smaller, but how much smaller?....it's really tough to know.

If oil and gas slowed down drastically starting right now it would have a big effect on Calgary, but how much is again tough to say, the faster it came to a halt, the more impact it would have. I look at a place like Winnipeg, and it is surviving without oil and gas...also I look at a place like Pittsburgh that saw its steel industry devastated over a 20 year period, and it yes it had some setbacks, but it held steady and has lately been growing over the years.

My own personal belief is that we would be just fine. We wouldn't have these ultra steroid infused boom cycles, but we still be okay.

[Spring2008]

^ Calgary also has some locational attributes that would have pushed growth(though def not as much without oil); hr away from the most beautiful mountain parks in the world, central position within Western Canada, varied landscapes, relatively mild winters

I think Calgary's biggest positive though is the entrepreneurial attitude and innovation. Starting to see this push into the planning and development side and this will further attract more talent here in the long run.

[Spring2008]

https://twitter.com/DruhFarrell

[freeweed]

Yeah, the WLRT certainly had an impact. Kinda cool to see it in raw numbers like that.

[fusili]

I really want to dig into these numbers, especially for "inner city" communities to look at how much housing stock and population increase these areas are seeing, especially with semi-detached dwellings. It will be interesting to see how much an impact permitted use applications has had on inner city growth (a City planner told me the uptake on these permits was quite considerable).

[DarthMalgus]

Originally Posted by suburbia

This discussion is meaningless unless one is consistent on terms of reference. What is a CBD and what is a greater downtown?

BTw - Montreal is higher than us also (using their city's definition of Montreal):

http://www.centraide-mtl.org/en/communities-served/centre-ville/

To be clear, my point was not to get into an irrelevant debate with you about what constitutes our proper downtown boundaries, or whether we are actually the 9th or 13th (or whatever) most populous downtown area in Canada and the US, but merely to put into perspective that we actually have a pretty big and growing population in the downtown area that stacks up fairly well against most of the big cities. Certainly ranking up there with any other mid-size metro area, with the exception of Vancouver, which is an extreme outlier.

Obviously, Montreal and Philly are far larger urban areas than Calgary. For us to be even within striking range of these cities is pretty damn impressive. For a city that gets typecast as having an office-heavy inner city that shuts down after 5, we actually have a relatively large and growing downtown area population...not sure what the point of your posts is?