What Is Your City's Real Metropolitan Population?

[Razor]

Never mind Stats Can, but if you were to rough guestimate what the metro should be, how much more bloated would it be while still making sense? Maybe using American style metrics?

I think Ottawa is right where it should be, and it's already spread out.
Well maybe it can include both Kemptville and Arnprior in and pick up another 30k or so, but that's really stretching it.

Toronto is kind of unique and tricky in a Canadian sense, but I feel that Toronto can bring in both Hamilton and Oshawa's CMA (on paper only maybe?) + look North, and it would be similar to the Bay area and be just South of 8.0m. Both Oakland and San Jose still think of themselves as separate from San Fran, but I think they can all relate to being part of the greater Bay Area region.

Others, or are they right where they should be?

[JHikka]

Toronto is really just 14 Americans huddled together.

[someone123]

The different metro definitions just mean different things. The US ones are more like Canada's economic regions while Canadian CMAs are more like commutersheds.

I think one area where the CMA system can work somewhat badly is when there are geographically large census divisions that are either in or out. This can go either way, bringing in a huge area with parts that aren't related to the metro or excluding parts that should be included. Often it sort of balances out since there will be a few different large districts that randomly end up on either end of the cutoff.

Canada produces labour force characteristics by economic region and I think these are pretty meaningless boundaries. In NS, an ER may contain both a suburb next to the airport and a very remote truly rural area, e.g. fishing village on an island. Economically they are two different worlds and averaging the labour force characteristics means nothing.

[TorontoDrew]

Toronto is the main source of influence for the Greater Golden Horseshoe so if we are to include it's region of influence it's population is roughly: 9.8 million.

[Architype]

Vancouver / Lower Mainland / Southwest : 3.2 million.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Toronto is the main source of influence for the Greater Golden Horseshoe so if we are to include it's region of influence it's population is roughly: 9.8 million.

By that "main source of influence" metric, all of Ontario is in Toronto's orbit, even distant parts like Thunder Bay.

[lio45]

Another possible metric: the fanbase's "home" area for the Toronto Raptors.

Toronto Population: 30+ million.

[MolsonExport]

Okotoks, 38.8 million

[Martin Mtl]

Montreal is half the population of the province of Quebec, whatever that is at any given time. That easy.

[Blitz]

I'd say about 5.1 million for Windsor.

[Denscity]

18 thousand

[Xelebes]

Edmonton's economic region:

Edmonton CMA
Fort McMurray
Grande Prairie
Peace River
Dawson Creek
Fort St John
Jasper
Lloydminster
Ponoka
Lacombe
Rocky Mountain House
Wainwright
Fort Chipewyan
Fond Du Lac (?)
Prince George (?)

I'm iffy about including places like Hay River or Yellowknife. But given that we are grouping in Fort Chipewyan in Edmonton's sphere, it's not so much a stretch to include Fort Smith. That makes Edmonton's Economic region around 1.6 to 2.0 million.

[manny_santos]

London would be pushing 800,000, if it included all of Middlesex, Elgin, Lambton, and Oxford Counties. Add in Chatham-Kent, Perth and Huron, and you’re just over 1M.

Ontario’s counties/census divisions are generally smaller than counties in neighbouring US states, so if Ontario was laid out like, say, Michigan, it is unlikely that all of current Huron or Perth would be part of a theoretical London metro area as those geographically large counties would likely be split into multiple counties.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

London would be pushing 800,000, if it included all of Middlesex, Elgin, Lambton, and Oxford Counties. Add in Chatham-Kent, Perth and Huron, and you’re just over 1M.

Ontario’s counties/census divisions are generally smaller than counties in neighbouring US states, so if Ontario was laid out like, say, Michigan, it is unlikely that all of current Huron or Perth would be part of a theoretical London metro area as those geographically large counties would likely be split into multiple counties.

The eastern half of Perth County and the northeast corner of Oxford County would lean more K-W than London, no?

[mikevbar1]

Hamilton’s always a fun point of discussion. I’d put it’s “true” metropolitan population at about 650,000, including places like Grimsby, Caledonia etc. One might be inclined to include Burlington, and that would place you at about 800,000. But, I think that relationship has waned in recent decades as Halton has firmly become part of the GTA. Naturally the “true” greater Hamilton area used to be the two-tier municipality, and places like Ancaster, Dundas and Waterdown still feel quite distinct from the old city proper.

I agree with earlier sentiments that as an economic region, Hamilton is part of the entire Golden Horseshoe and “Torontos area of influence” but that’s really only a recent phenomenon and on such a scale the region is somewhat decentralized anyway, so it doesn’t mean much. You could probably subdivide the GGH into various sub-economic zones with various commuter patterns; the GTA, Niagara, and KWC-Guelph. Hamilton exists at the axiom of all 3, but it’s significance in tying these areas together has waned as it’s own economy loses relative gravity and centrosity. It’s more fitting to say it’s at the economic whim of the GTA and Niagara now. Maybe Id include Aldershot and old Burlington, but the suburban growth there is certainly not Hamilton-oriented any longer as it’s switched sides to Toronto. With that said, any future economic growth in Hamilton that exceeds those of its neighbours would be easily poised to bring farther-flung cities into its sphere again, and I’d go as far to include places like Guelph and Brantford in such a scenario. I’m pretty sure some StatsCan agglomerations include the former already.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by mikevbar1

Hamilton’s always a fun point of discussion. I’d put it’s “true” metropolitan population at about 650,000, including places like Grimsby, Caledonia etc. One might be inclined to include Burlington, and that would place you at about 800,000. But, I think that relationship has waned in recent decades as Halton has firmly become part of the GTA. Naturally the “true” greater Hamilton area used to be the two-tier municipality, and places like Ancaster, Dundas and Waterdown still feel quite distinct from the old city proper.

I agree with earlier sentiments that as an economic region, Hamilton is part of the entire Golden Horseshoe and “Torontos area of influence” but that’s really only a recent phenomenon and on such a scale the region is somewhat decentralized anyway, so it doesn’t mean much. You could probably subdivide the GGH into various sub-economic zones with various commuter patterns; the GTA, Niagara, and KWC-Guelph. Hamilton exists at the axiom of all 3, but it’s significance in tying these areas together has waned as it’s own economy loses relative gravity and centrosity. It’s more fitting to say it’s at the economic whim of the GTA and Niagara now. Maybe Id include Aldershot and old Burlington, but the suburban growth there is certainly not Hamilton-oriented any longer as it’s switched sides to Toronto. With that said, any future economic growth in Hamilton that exceeds those of its neighbours would be easily poised to bring farther-flung cities into its sphere again, and I’d go as far to include places like Guelph and Brantford in such a scenario. I’m pretty sure some StatsCan agglomerations include the former already.

I would say the Niagara region is more in Hamilton’s orbit than the reverse. Hamilton on its own is more populace than the while Niagara CMA, which has also been fairly stagnant for decades? Having lived in St. Catherines for a bit as a kid, and Hamilton was the ‘big city’ destination for more than a few field trips and such.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Blitz

I'd say about 5.1 million for Windsor.

Except for on paper, I don't think you are wrong.
I visited a friend in Windsor a few times over the years, and it amazed me how as you approached the river, the Detroit skyline seemed to seamlessly blend into Windsor if you didn't see the water itself. That aside, the border was just a small nuisance to him. He goes over quite a few times for games, concerts, etc. He likes how he can come back and "close the door" on Detroit at night like someone living in the quiet suburbs going "downtown."

Originally Posted by Beedok

I would say the Niagara region is more in Hamilton’s orbit than the reverse. Hamilton on its own is more populace than the while Niagara CMA, which has also been fairly stagnant for decades? Having lived in St. Catherines for a bit as a kid, and Hamilton was the ‘big city’ destination for more than a few field trips and such.

Another interesting one..I also had friends who lived in Port Colbourne , and they leaned towards Hamilton and to a lesser extent, Buffalo for the bigger city stuff. More so than Toronto. The entire GGH is a tricky one to divide if you were to make up theoretical alternate metro numbers that still makes sense.

[SignalHillHiker]

In terms of what counts as actual urbanity to me (human scale commercial, attached houses, “highrise” areas, etc.), St. John’s is maybe around 50K.

In terms of what CMA is meant to convey, I’d just slap on most of the Avalon Peninsula, just excluding the extremes such as Bay de Verde, Cape St. Mary’s, and Trepassey. That’d be up somewhere around 260K over a relatively small geographic area compared to many other CMAs.

[Acajack]

Not sure about population but Ottawa's influence generally entends to:

Deep River (past Pembroke) to the NW.

Maniwaki to the N.

The Ontario-Quebec border E of Cornwall.

Hawkesbury to the E (including areas of Québec near Hawkesbury, but no further than Grenville).

Brockville to the SE.

Obviously there is some sharing with Montréal and Toronto on the fringes.

Places like Kingston and Lachute have some Ottawa(-Gatineau) influence but are much more in Toronto and Montréal's orbits.

[MonctonRad]

Moncton:

City - 72,000
POPCTR - 120,000
CMA - 165,000
Economic Region - 220,000

The economic region doesn't capture the entire sphere of influence of the city however. The economic region is more or less delimited by the boundaries of Westmorland, Albert and Kent counties. In reality, our sphere of influence extends into NW Nova Scotia around Amherst and Parrsboro, the Miramichi, and, arguably, the Acadian Peninsula and Bathurst. This would be around 350,000 people.