Worldwide Demographics

[Crawford]

I think there's intra-European variation, too. Germany, France and Switzerland, on average, have waaaay better transit than the UK (outside London) or Ireland, or Austria, or anywhere in Eastern Europe, and somewhat better transit than Benelux, Spain and Italy.

Pretty much every German village has reliable, frequent transit service to the nearest market town. I never got the sense that a random town in Wales, or Extremadura, or Tuscany, has anything like that.

Another difference is diesel vs. electric. Electric rail seems pretty rare in the UK outside of London. In Germany, it's the norm, except on the dinkiest lines.

[Razor]

What I meant by 1-2 punch was globally, and not domestically.
Sample 100 people from Indonesia to quickly name off two U.S cities, and my $$ is going to go on more people rhyming off NYC and LA, and it has nothing to do with size..More with overall global prescence and influence. Of course, it's just a reflection of America having a large global presence as a nation, and an English speaking one at that. As far as Germany goes, it's Munich that comes to my mind alongside Berlin of course.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think there's intra-European variation, too. Germany, France and Switzerland, on average, have waaaay better transit than the UK (outside London) or Ireland, or Austria, or anywhere in Eastern Europe, and somewhat better transit than Benelux, Spain and Italy.

Pretty much every German village has reliable, frequent transit service to the nearest market town. I never got the sense that a random town in Wales, or Extremadura, or Tuscany, has anything like that.

Another difference is diesel vs. electric. Electric rail seems pretty rare in the UK outside of London. In Germany, it's the norm, except on the dinkiest lines.

Most villages in Romania have (had?) some level of transit too, though normally this is some ancient minibus that comes at odd hours. People rely on it though.

[muppet]

I'd hesitate to say UK PT is bad compared to the rest of Europe. Within the smaller cities maybe in terms of relying on buses rather than light rail or metros -but even then the bus network is extensive, safe and frequent, and many senior folk and school kids rely on it as they travel for free throughout the country. For example a city the size of Edinburgh (pop 500K) runs 700 buses over 68 lines, inc 12 night lines for just one of the companies. My hometown of 30,000 has 18 bus routes and two train lines.

Rail is very extensive -16,000km of passenger route of which 37% is electric- this a national map for an area smaller than Kansas, and only showing the major stops (not the thousands of village stops in between). It has 20% of all passenger routes in Europe and is the world's 5th largest ridership (UK is the 23rd most populous country).

Any large areas not covered are mountains, moors and national parks. -The one failing is price, ever since the wonders of privatisation from Maggie Thatcher (the 20th century saw the passenger rail routes reduce by a third, although ridership has climbed multiple times, and seeing a renaissance).



https://www.thetrainline.com/cms/med...ember-2019.jpg

It's true though they definitely drive more and rely on cars more in the provincial towns, but there will ALWAYS be a rail, bus and coach option for the townsfolk. Every tiny village and hamlet will have a loss-operating bus route as per civil right.

[Minato Ku]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Berlin was a bit of a late-bloomer by European standards, but it still had a million inhabitants by the 1870s, surpassed Vienna by 1890, and had over 2 million by WWI - it was one of the largest cities in the world at the time, so no doubt would have looked the part.

Infact I would say that Berlin is more like an early bloomer by European stardant when it comes to becoming a metropolis.
It was the third largest european city in 1900.
It explains why its transportation structure is rather old.

Rome has a more recent development.
The city had less than half a million inhabitants in 1900, it only went above 1 million in the 1930s and above 2 million in the late 1950s early 1960s.
Rome wasn't even in the top 15 largest European by 1900.

[memph]

So is the Canadian census coming out tomorrow at 12:00am or at 11:59pm?

[Crawford]

The oldest German rapid transit system is the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, which is an elevated system, where the cars hang from the bottom of the track. In Europe, London, Budapest, Glasgow and Paris have older metros.

And I doubt there was any point in history where Berlin was the largest population center in Germany. Not even in the 1930's. The Rhein-Ruhr area has probably been most populous since the Industrial Revolution, at least.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The oldest German rapid transit system is the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, which is an elevated system, where the cars hang from the bottom of the track. In Europe, London, Budapest, Glasgow and Paris have older metros.

And I doubt there was any point in history where Berlin was the largest population center in Germany. Not even in the 1930's. The Rhein-Ruhr area has probably been most populous since the Industrial Revolution, at least.

I love the Schwebebahn. I have yet to see it in person, but have watched many videos on youtube about it amazing, particularly given how old it is.

• Video Link

[memph]

Canadian census is now out:
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/dail...-demography-en

[memph]

Just added up the population for the GTA. I count 6,712,120, which is just +4.60% (+294,996) compared to 2016. That's a lower rate of growth than from 2011-2016 (+363,325). It was expected that the GTA would grow by around 500,000 every census for the next decade or two.

So looks like the covid effect has been pretty significant. Ontario population growth has been fairly strong, so a lot of that came from rural areas and smaller cities. Many small cities that were fairly stagnant a decade ago are now growing faster than the GTA.

Toronto in particular grew to only 2,794,397, a rate of growth twice as slow as 2011-2016. Mississauga lost a few thousand people, and is now down to 717,991.

Suburbs that increased their % rate of growth are Pickering, Whitby, Oshawa, Clarington, Brock Township, Georgina, East Gwilimbury, Aurora, Caledon, Oakville. Suburbs that saw their rate of growth decrease but still maintained growth rates of over 10% include Brampton, Milton and King. The biggest explosion in population growth was in East Gwilimbury.

[Crawford]

Did Canada restrict immigration during Covid? Sounds plausible, even if it wasn't an intentional policy.

This would certainly affect Toronto's growth, given it's Canada's dominant gateway city. I assume gateway immigration cities worldwide had minimal immigration during peak Covid.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Did Canada restrict immigration during Covid? Sounds plausible, even if it wasn't an intentional policy.

This would certainly affect Toronto's growth, given it's Canada's dominant gateway city. I assume gateway immigration cities worldwide had minimal immigration during peak Covid.

Population growth did decrease in 2020 (it was still expected to have grown, but at a lower rate), but that's only one of the five years considered here, and in those four other years, immigration and Toronto's estimated population growth were very high. It seems many second tier metro areas grew faster than expected. The overall population of Canada also fell well short of estimates.

[memph]

Out of Ontario's 43 census metropolitan areas and agglomerations, only 4 saw a reduction in growth rates - Toronto, Port Hope, Petawawa and Essa. Petawawa and Essa are both military towns that grew very rapidly in 2011-2016 and are now growing at a more moderate rate. Port Hope's decline in growth rate was of only 0.1 percentage points.

The biggest increases in growth rates among major cities were in Kitchener-Waterloo and London. Many smaller cities near these two metro areas also experienced large boosts, such as Tillsonburg, Brantford, Centre Wellington (Elora-Fergus), Norfolk (Simcoe) and Woodstock.

Cities and towns east of Toronto (Kingston, Belleville) and north of Toronto (Collingwood, Orillia, Midland, Wasaga Beach) also experienced significant boosts.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by memph

Just added up the population for the GTA. I count 6,712,120, which is just +4.60% (+294,996) compared to 2016. That's a lower rate of growth than from 2011-2016 (+363,325). It was expected that the GTA would grow by around 500,000 every census for the next decade or two.

So looks like the covid effect has been pretty significant. Ontario population growth has been fairly strong, so a lot of that came from rural areas and smaller cities. Many small cities that were fairly stagnant a decade ago are now growing faster than the GTA.

Toronto in particular grew to only 2,794,397, a rate of growth twice as slow as 2011-2016. Mississauga lost a few thousand people, and is now down to 717,991.

Keep in mind that the 2021 numbers also haven't yet been updated to reflect the undercount estimates (while presumably the 2016 numbers have). The entire country was about 2 million below current estimates.

[Crawford]

Toronto has also had insane home price increases, so maybe boomers cashing out and moving to cheaper nearby metros? I know Windsor, which is dirt-cheap for Canadian standards, has a lot of folks from the GTA.

[memph]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Keep in mind that the 2021 numbers also haven't yet been updated to reflect the undercount estimates (while presumably the 2016 numbers have). The entire country was about 2 million below current estimates.

Do you know when that update will happen?

[memph]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Toronto has also had insane home price increases, so maybe boomers cashing out and moving to cheaper nearby metros? I know Windsor, which is dirt-cheap for Canadian standards, has a lot of folks from the GTA.

The question is who's buying them... because it's not like they're struggling to sell, listings are very few and prices are rising significantly, but it seems like many neighbourhoods of Toronto and Mississauga saw fairly significant population decreases (like 5-10% in areas with little new construction).

[north 42]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Toronto has also had insane home price increases, so maybe boomers cashing out and moving to cheaper nearby metros? I know Windsor, which is dirt-cheap for Canadian standards, has a lot of folks from the GTA.

I wouldn’t call $636K for the average home in Windsor dirt cheap, lol. There are lots of Canadian cities with lower real estate values.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by north 42

I wouldn’t call $636K for the average home in Windsor dirt cheap, lol.

That's wild.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That's wild.

It’s just crazy, last January the average was just over $500K.