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Posted Feb 16, 2022, 7:55 PM
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Moderator
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Ottawa
Posts: 27,632
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Not a fan of the metrics used to compare cities here. What's considered "Downtown Ottawa" is quite different from "Downtown" in other cites. And then they go by driving distance, which brings you to very different areas from one city to the next. If they also compared downtown neighbourhoods or streetcar suburbs, Ottawa would have an edge over many other cities.
Quote:
Ottawa-Gatineau regains spot as fourth-largest metro area in 2021 census
Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date:Feb 09, 2022
“To me, this is an endorsement of what we’ve built in this city."
The population of Ottawa-Gatineau grew from 1,371,576 in 2016 to 1,488,307 last year, leap-frogging Calgary into fourth place among urban Canadian centres.
The new census figures, released Wednesday by Statistics Canada, show an 8.5 per cent population growth in the National Capital Region over the last five years, significantly higher than both the national rate of 5.2 per cent the 6.1 per cent growth among Canada’s 41 census metropolitan areas, or CMAs — those urban areas with populations of 100,000 or more.
Calgary, which in the 2016 census supplanted Ottawa-Gatineau as Canada’s fourth-largest metropolitan area, behind Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, fell back to fifth, with 1,481,806 residents.
“To me, this is an endorsement of what we’ve built in this city,” says David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data. “It’s the ultimate endorsement that people want to move here.
“People are choosing to come here, whether it’s for opportunities or quality of life or affordability. All three of those have to work together in tandem for that perfect opportunity for people to convert on.”
Overall, Canada’s population grew to just under 37 million — from 35,151,728 in 2016 to 36,991,981 last year.
According to Statistics Canada director Laurent Martel, that figure would have been higher but for the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The country went from a record high population growth in the first four years of the five-year period … and then we had a record low population growth in 2020, due of course to the pandemic, during which border restrictions were in effect and travelling was made more difficult.”
Martel noted that from 2016 to 2019, Canada’s population growth was increasing at record rates, reaching 1.6 per cent in 2019 before plummeting to 0.4 per cent in 2020, a low not seen since the First World War.
Among CMAs, meanwhile, Ottawa’s growth ranked 11th, with four B.C. cities — Kelowna, Chilliwack, Kamloops and Nanaimo — along with London, Ont. claiming the top five spots, each in the 10 to 14 per cent range.
Ottawa’s population also eclipsed the one-million mark during the most recent census period, increasing from 934,243 in 2016 to 1,017,449 last year.
That growth — 8.9 per cent — was the highest among Canada’s six largest census subdivisions, or municipalities. The largest, Toronto, grew by just 2.3 per cent, while Montreal saw a 3.4 increase. Calgary’s growth rate was 5.5 per cent, while Edmonton’s was 8.3 per cent. Winnipeg experienced a 6.3 per cent growth.
Ottawa’s growth during the last census period was also considerably higher than the 5.5 per cent it saw between 2011 and 2016.
Richard Forbes, a senior economist with the Conference Board of Canada, credits the strong growth in Ottawa’s public sector employment, especially early in the census period, as a key factor in the city’s population growth.
“Also, the city has done a really good job of drawing immigrants, which had ramped up a lot before the pandemic, and will probably rebound this year.
“Ottawa has a lot of the amenities that a lot of other cities that might be seen as unaffordable, like Toronto or Montreal, have, and its proximity to those cities makes Ottawa a pretty attractive destination.”
Sueling Ching, president and CEO of the Ottawa Board of Trade, agrees, saying that Ottawa benefits from a small-town feeling augmented by cosmopolitan amenities, including arts and culture, education, and growing technology and knowledge-based sectors.
“It’s a have-it-all city,” she says, “and there are a lot of reasons people would be attracted in terms of lifestyle.”
Only a small portion of Ottawa’s growth was in its downtown core, which grew by 7.1 per cent, from 62,725 residents in 2016 to 67,169 last year, below the national average of 10.9 per cent, and far behind Halifax, Montreal, Kelowna and Calgary, all of which boasted downtown growth between 21 and 26.1 per cent. Toronto’s downtown population growth, at 16.1 per cent, was more than double Ottawa’s, as was Gatineau’s, where the downtown core grew by slightly more than 1,800 inhabitants, to 11,685, a rate of 18.3 per cent.
Where Ottawa grew most rapidly was in the “intermediate” suburbs — areas that are a 20- to 30-minute drive from downtown during non-rush hour periods. There, the population grew by 21.4 per cent, about four times the national rate of 5.4 per cent, and third-highest among Canadian CMAs, behind only Edmonton (23.4 per cent) and Calgary (23.3). Toronto’s intermediate suburbs, by comparison, grew by just 0.4 per cent.
Coletto suggests that that may be because Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary have available land for development that distance from their cores, whereas larger cities, such as Toronto, may not.
Additionally, says Forbes, the transition to remote working, even before the pandemic, has encouraged growth in the suburbs.
“Workplace flexibility has really grown in the past few years, so I think a lot of people have looked to locate a little further from the downtown core, and that’s a trend that has been accelerated by the pandemic.”
Elsewhere in Ottawa, population growth exceeded the national CMA average. Growth in the urban fringe (less than a 10-minute drive to downtown in non-rush hour periods) was 5.9 per cent, against a national average of 3.7 per cent (Just 1.1 per cent in Gatineau). Growth in the near suburbs (10- to 20-minute drive) was 7.7 per cent in Ottawa and 9.8 per cent in Gatineau, compared to 6.0 per cent in all Canadian CMAs.
Meanwhile, in the far suburbs (30+ minutes away), the population growth was 10.1 per cent in Ottawa and 12 per cent in Gatineau, against a national average of 8.8 per cent.
According to Stacey Hallman, an analyst with Statistics Canada, future releases of data, such as housing and mobility, may help explain these population shifts.
“But when you look at other cities, we have two phenomenon going on right now,” she says. “We have growth in the downtown core, which can be from immigration or different cities’ policies, trying to work on intensification in the core. And we also have urban spread, where the fastest growth is often in the distant suburbs — 30 minutes or more away.
“In Ottawa, it’s more in the intermediate suburbs, which could be for a number of reasons, like people moving because of housing costs — housing can be cheaper the farther away from downtown you are — and also with the pandemic, a lot of people now have the ability to work from home, so if they were thinking of moving before, maybe that inspired them.”
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https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...in-2021-census
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. The average person in Ottawa probably doesn't care, but here on SSP if people in Ottawa didn't care, this thread and its comment wouldn't exist. 
Ottawa. I lived there as kid, and still have relatives there. Kind of a second home to me. 
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