The Big Atlantic Canada Statistics Thread

[Taeolas]

The New Brunswick Map with the new Boundaries.

Looking at it now, there's only one district separating Freddy and Saint John now. With Harvey now in Freddy's catchment, I'm sure Freddy Junction will be absorbed next time.

Sheffield, Oromocto, Burton and Blissville will likely have a hard time getting added to the Freddy CMA. Because of the Burton Bridge, Sheffield will always have a closer connection to Oromocto so it won't flip until the town is pulled in; and that won't happen as long as Gagetown remains a major employer. Blissville might be the best chance to merge in eventually, assuming Freddy Junction gets pulled in too.

On the other side of Freddy, I can see Prince William getting merged to the Freddy CMA next time. Nackawic is a chunk of its support, but more folk are likely going to Kingsclear, Harvey and Hanwell (and Freddy), so it will probably tip over next time. Dumfries feels closer to Nackawic so it'll probably be a long time before its numbers will be pulled into Freddy, if ever.

I would not have expected Queensbury to be added to the Freddy CA; I guess having Bright (with Mactaquac) was the tipping point.

All in all, I don't see Freddy's CA/CMA getting much bigger than it is now. Prince William and Freddy Junction are the only 'easy pickings' left. Blissville and the two Stanley zones would be next but are not as likely to be grown into any time soon. Everything else means Freddy would have to finally absorb Oromocto, or it would have to snag Nackawic.

[MonctonRad]

Here are the revised CMA (and in Fredericton's case, CA) maps for the big three NB cities.

Moncton:



Saint John:



Fredericton:



I would venture to say that the SJ boundaries are fairly appropriate, but that Freddy is wounded by the lack of inclusion of Oromocto and Fredericton Junction. Moncton has suffered a serious disservice by the lack of inclusion of Shediac, Beaubassin Est, Cap Pele and Sackville; all on the periphery of the CMA, all with close connections to the urban core, but all excluded because they are fairly self sufficient towns and villages.

The methodology of StatsCan may be rigorously applied, but the arguments behind the methodology can be debated. After all, Riverview is a fairly self sufficient town too. Unless you are crossing the bridge for work, I would imagine it's possible for some Riverview residents to stay on their side of the Petitcodiac for weeks at a time without feeling marginalized or excluded from the urban core of the CMA. In other words, some Riverviewites may have the same relationship to Moncton as a resident of Sackville or Shediac, yet one community is part of the CMA and the others aren't.........

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

The New Brunswick Map with the new Boundaries.

Thanks for this map. Madawaska is going to be so much cleaner once Haut-Madawaska is implemented.

For Saint John, Norton Parish seemed likely given that Kingston/KV/Hampton were included. I'm not sure if Norton village will be included any time soon as it seems more revolved around Sussex. I can't imagine Saint John's CMA boundary extends further any time soon as the outlying areas all have their own centres (St. Stephen, Sussex, etc.). The CMA is at a pretty good size right now with most CSDs within it growing at a reasonable rate. The same can be said for Fredericton and Moncton.

Moncton's boundaries are smaller than the other two CMAs currently, but when the day comes when it swallows up Shediac it'll be a pretty big domino effect likely stretching to Beaubassin-Est and Cap-Pelé. Albert and Westmorland counties combine for a hefty 182K total population in 2015 estimates, up from 173K in the 2011 Census.

I should note these changes are being added in time for the 2016 Census so these bumps in numbers will be seen for these CMAs in February.

[MonctonRad]

For those who are interested, here's a link to a .pdf map of all the CMAs/CAs in Canada:
http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recens...display-pdf.cfm?file=2016-12572-01-C.pdf

I zoomed in on the map for eastern Canada (Maritimes, Quebec and eastern Ontario).


Orange = CMA (census metropolitan area)
Tan = CA (census agglomeration)
Green = "metropolitan influenced areas". The deeper the green, the greater the influence of the adjacent metropolis.

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

For those who are interested, here's a link to a .pdf map of all the CMAs/CAs in Canada:
http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recens...display-pdf.cfm?file=2016-12572-01-C.pdf

I zoomed in on the map for eastern Canada (Maritimes, Quebec and eastern Ontario).

Orange = CMA (census metropolitan area)
Tan = CA (census agglomeration)
Green = "metropolitan influenced areas". The deeper the green, the greater the influence of the adjacent metropolis.

Interesting. Looks like Freddy has more influence on its outer areas than I expected. Oromocto and Burton are isolated, but Sheffield is greener than I expected. Freddy Junction and Blissville may get merged in soon too.

I expected Prince William to be green, but Dumfries is a surprise. Milleville is a surprise as well; I'd expect Nackawic to pull it more than Freddy would. Then again with Nackawic shrinking, by 2021 Nackawic might be on the verge of joining Freddy's new CMA.

Also looks like Stanley (and Stanley South) will probably get pulled in soon. Upper Miramichi and Stanley North (The NB map has a mistake with 2 Stanley districts with the same name, but completely separated) are green but that's probably to the Miramichi CA.



Looking over at Moncton, it seems Sackville is still very light green; Moncton just isn't pulling those folks in. I wonder if it's Mount Allison University that's keeping Sackville 'independent' from Moncton?

Shediac on the other hand is very much in Moncton's orbit. In the next cycle or two, it very likely will get pulled into the Moncton CMA finally.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

Shediac on the other hand is very much in Moncton's orbit. In the next cycle or two, it very likely will get pulled into the Moncton CMA finally.

I imagine Shediac gets included into Moncton for 2021. I don't have commuting patterns on hand right now but I imagine Shediac is close. Once Shediac joins it would seem likely that Shediac Parish, Beaubassin-Est, and Cap-Pelé would follow suit. If those four areas are added to Moncton we're looking at a Moncton CMA pushing 165K/170K, which is pretty impressive I think.

I made the following post (unrelated to CMAs) on the Canada Forum and figured i'd copy it over to here:

Originally Posted by JHikka

Urbanization is happening in Atlantic Canada, though. It might go against those values but it is happening. All of NB's growth in the past twenty years has been in its urban and suburban centres - all of its decline has been in its rural areas. NB's 3 Big Cities (Fredericton, Moncton, Saint John) are all located in the Central/Southern/Southeastern parts of the province. You can combine the total population of these three areas like so:

Population of Central/Southern/Southeastern New Brunswick:
1991: 486,716
1996: 500,935
2001: 502,835
2006: 513,111
2011: 539,087
2015E: 549,286

Contrast these figures to the remaining population in Northern New Brunswick:
1991: 237,184
1996: 237,198
2001: 226,663
2006: 216,886
2011: 212,084
2015E: 204,586

Northern NB is overwhelmingly rural and almost as overwhelmingly Francophone. There are going to be some big demographic shifts in the next twenty years given how old Northern NB is as a whole and how nothing is being done to replace the aging and relocating population. For NB, this means that more and more of its population is living in urban centres and closer together as a whole. In 1991, 67% of NBers lived in South-Central NB. Today it's roughly 73%.

NB sits at around 53% Urban and 47% Rural, numbers that Ontario had in the 1920s and Quebec had in the 1930s. Census 2016 will likely bump this up further to something like 55/45 as the older, greyer rural areas steadily empty out.

When i'm talking about relative ages i'm using Counties in NB. They're easy to use, their numbers are provided by Statcan, and they break up the province into regional segments pretty well.

Here's the median age of NB Counties in 2001 and again in 2011:
COUNTY - 2001 MEDIAN / 2011 MEDIAN / CHANGE
Albert - 38.6 / 42.9 / +4.3
Carleton - 37.1 / 42.9 / +5.8
Charlotte - 38.9 / 45.1 / +6.2
Gloucester - 40 / 47.9 / +7.9
Kent - 40.5 / 47.7 / +6.8
Kings - 37.3 / 42.1 / +4.8
Madawaska - 40.1 / 47.3 / +7.2
Queens - 43.7 / 51.3 / +7.6
Restigouche - 40.5 / 48.7 / +8.2
Saint John - 38.4 / 42.3 / +3.9
Sunbury - 33.5 / 36.1 / +2.6
Victoria - 38.3 / 45.2 / +6.9
Westmorland - 38.5 / 41.4 / +2.9
York - 37.4 / 40.2 / +2.8

NB - 38.6 / 43.7 / +5.1

When we look at this we have some counties that aged quicker than the Provincial average: Carleton, Charlotte, Gloucester, Kent, Madawaska, Queens, Restigouche, and Victoria.

Most notable are the areas that aged slower than the Provincial average: Albert, Kings, Saint John, Sunbury, Westmorland, York. In other words, the suburbs and the urban centres aged slower whilst the rural areas aged quicker than the provincial average. Roughly.

[mmmatt]

CMHC Apartment Vacancy Rates

Atlantic Canada
(Released Nov 2016)

[MonctonRad]

Recopied from the main Moncton thread:

from Mayor Dawn Arnolds Facebook page:

[jeddy1989]

Originally Posted by mmmatt

CMHC Apartment Vacancy Rates

Atlantic Canada
(Released Nov 2016)

wowzers! look at St. John's we're getting hit hard this year ... fack!

[kwajo]

Originally Posted by mmmatt

CMHC Apartment Vacancy Rates

Atlantic Canada
(Released Nov 2016)

Those Halifax numbers are incredible, 2.6% vacancy is too low to maintain a good selection/turnover of housing stock IMO. From a renter's perspective it is not favourable at all, lack of choice and rising prices combined are not a good recipe for keeping housing costs under control.

[mmmatt]

Originally Posted by kwajo

Those Halifax numbers are incredible, 2.6% vacancy is too low to maintain a good selection/turnover of housing stock IMO. From a renter's perspective it is not favourable at all, lack of choice and rising prices combined are not a good recipe for keeping housing costs under control.

Agreed, Charlottetown is at that point as well...ideal is somewhere around 4-5%

[mmmatt]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Recopied from the main Moncton thread:

from Mayor Dawn Arnolds Facebook page:

Neato...nothing too surprising on there except how close Dieppe is to Fredericton wow, never would have guessed...I would have thought Fredericton was higher based on some of the projects there recently.

Just for a rough estimate based on that image, and assuming Oromocto is at 3M over this time...

M/R/D: $27 Million
F/O: $12 Million
S/Q/R: $6 Million

Pretty crazy numbers...if you calculated in to that the updated numbers for the LNG terminal in Saint John it would certainly change but I suppose it's not a change in assessment it's a change of taxation % on that assessed value.

I'm reminded of a couple no brained type actions that should take place IMHO but don't for political reasons...Saint John should shed it's rural areas as rising maintenance costs with slow revenue growth is killing their bottom line year after year...M/R/D should be alamgamated to better capitalize on growth and reduce duplication as well.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by mmmatt

Neato...nothing too surprising on there except how close Dieppe is to Fredericton wow, never would have guessed...I would have thought Fredericton was higher based on some of the projects there recently.

Moncton International and the developments around it surely plays a role in some of Dieppe's numbers, I would assume.

Originally Posted by mmmatt

I'm reminded of a couple no brained type actions that should take place IMHO but don't for political reasons...Saint John should shed it's rural areas as rising maintenance costs with slow revenue growth is killing their bottom line year after year...M/R/D should be alamgamated to better capitalize on growth and reduce duplication as well.

We've already gone over Moncton amalgamation on this forum recently but the Saint John rural shed is something i've heard brought up in the past as well. It's a bit of a tricky situation, however, as the Airport is at one end and a gradually increasing industrial park in Lorneville is at the other end. I'm not sure how one would split off the rural areas without losing some key infrastructure for the city. I'm also not entirely sure how some of the suburbs (mostly Quispamsis) can continue operating at their current levels without significantly increasing their tax rates (which Quispamsis is beginning to do this year while significantly cutting spending). Once the surrounding suburbs raise their rates, with SJ presumably holding its rate, the City will steadily become more viable as a place for tax growth in comparison to its outlying communities.

There's way more to it than just property tax rates (something which is never brought up is the rate in which Saint John gets its energy, for example) which is why it's a frustrating issue to get into. Many people will just look at the flat property tax rate and make a decision based solely on that rather than all other decisions added together (Water, energy, commute, travel, cost of living, etc.).

Also, Riverview's growth is near slowing to nothing.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Also, Riverview's growth is near slowing to nothing.

Yes, we've noticed......

[jeddy1989]

Half of NL's population will soon live in the St. John's area (along with other stuff)

Northeast Avalon home to half the province's population by 2025, survey predicts

A new survey says the St. John's region continues to grow and is expected to contain half the population of Newfoundland and Labrador by 2025.

The survey questioned thousands of people on the northeast Avalon and the mayors of five municipalities say its findings will give them a better picture of who they serve and what residents want.

"The value to all of us is that it gives us the hard evidence and the hard information and data that we need going into the future to plan for our city and the same goes for all the municipalities that participated," said St. John's Mayor Dennis O'Keefe.

He said data in the survey challenges the idea that people in the region avoid downtown St. John's.

It found that 72 per cent of people in the region visit downtown St. John's at least once a month.

Mayors from five municipalities in the region — St. John's, Conception Bay South, Paradise, Torbay, Portugal Cove-St. Philips — were at a meeting Wednesday to release the findings of the survey.

"When we do our budgets, when we look at community services and development issues going forward, it's going to be a great help," said Torbay Mayor Ralph Tapper.

"For instance, the households; we learned that there is a great percentage of households in our community that have more than three people. So that indicates that there are more families in our communities than we really realized. So development and services have to be more concerned with families."

Age distribution and employment

The demographic and opinion survey was conducted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Statistics Agency and looked at issues like age distribution.

It found that more than 43 per cent of people in the region are over the age of 45 years old. It also found that more than 25 per cent of people in the region are either retired or don't work.

The survey also predicts further population growth for the region, with today's population of about 220,000 growing to about 250,000 by 2025.

If that happens, about half of the province's population is expected to be concentrated on the northeast Avalon.

Some municipalities didn't take part

Some municipalities in the region chose not to take part in the survey or pay a share of the $39,000 cost, which surveyed more than 3400 people in the St. John's Census Metropolitan Area.

"The City of Mount Pearl declined to be part of the survey and, as one of the largest communities in the area, it is a glaring omission, there is no doubt about that," said the mayor of St. John's.

Still, O'Keefe says some people in Mount Pearl were surveyed for the study to make the research statistically significant for the region.

Mount Pearl Mayor Randy Simms said his council believed it already had a good understanding of the demographics of its residents.

Simms told CBC News that Mount Pearl also correctly assumed that the federal government would bring back the long-form census which includes a lot of the same information as the regional survey.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundla...lation-by-2025-survey-predicts-1.3885504

[JHikka]

New Brunswick is seeing a similar shift in population as Newfoundland is. Southeast New Brunswick (Kent, Westmorland, Albert) hit 203K in 2011 and should be over 210K in 2016. Given that this same region only had 172K in 1991, in a province with mostly stagnant population growth, Southeast NB has gone from housing 24% of NB's population in 1991 to somewhere around 29% or 30% in 2016.

On the flipside, Northern New Brunswick has gone from 33% in 1991 to roughly 26% today. It's a big shift and the concentration of more bodies in a smaller area in the south and east of the province helps with the development and centralization of many different things.

[mmmatt]

Building Permit Values


Here is a look at building permit values Year to Date (Jan-Oct 2016)

Halifax - $450M
Moncton - $277M
St. John's - $274M
PEI - $190M
Saint John - $129M

Here is a look at this Jan - Oct period over the last few years to gain perspective on these numbers



So far 2016 has been a great year for Moncton, a good year for PEI and Saint John, a slightly off year for Halifax and a very bad one for St. Johns (unless 2014 was just a crazy banner year for that city in which case it may be skewing my understanding.)

For the first time in a while (maybe ever?) Moncton is ahead of St. Johns at this moment...

[Marty_Mcfly]

St. John's isn't in a good place right now. The bottom is literally falling out of this place.

[JHikka]

Are those building permits only for new builds or do they include renovations to existing properties as well?

Also, any sourcing on the info?

Edit - Source is here.

Seems like it's for all construction activity and not just for new builds:

"The value of planned construction activities presented in this release excludes engineering projects (for example, waterworks, sewers or culverts) and land."

[PoscStudent]

Amazing that St. John's was doing better than Halifax a few years ago and now it's below Moncton.