Toronto Is The Fastest-Growing City In U.S. And Canada, And That’s Not Good

[dc_denizen]

somebody here mentioned montreal as being very immigrant friendly, which it probably is - in the most recent decade or so.

meanwhile french-canadians are some of the most genetically homogenous people on earth, 8 million people descended from 10,000 french colonists 400 years ago.

this is like new england continuing to be 100% english origin 400 years after the fact, instead of the poly-ethnic society it is currently, the result of hundreds of years of immigration and population replacement/churning.

over the past 400 years, which society has been more immigrant-oriented?

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Anyhow this discussion seems to assume that the us gets few immigrants

Whereas in reality, 1 million people emigrate to the USA each year.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...-s-immigrants/

Yeah and 2017 saw the least amount of deportations since 2006.

That stat shows how dumb Americans are. Trump supporters think hes out here kicking everyone out and Democrats think Trump is *literally Hitler in his treatment of illegals.

Fact is, most shit is about the same.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

It's not simply about having the space to physically accommodate these people, but rather the space to sustain these people. Ever take a cross country flight across the USA, there isn't much land that isn't used for human consumption. The Chinese and Indians historically have been poor developing societies and the Chinese went to great lengths to lift themselves out of poverty and still aren't quite there yet and the Chinese have far less arable land then the US.

We also have a bunch of cities with very under utilized infrastructure in the Rust Belt. The major Rust Belt metros alone could all probably support double their current populations. That's another 30+ million people without even adding infrastructure.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

There's actual data points on this question, we don't need to guess:

They say home is where the heart is. But for a large proportion of the world’s population, home is where the work is. Or the food is. Or safety.

14% of the world’s adults – nearly 710 million people – said they want to permanently migrate to another country, according to analytics company Gallup.

Conflict, famine and disaster are driving large numbers of people from countries such as Syria, South Sudan and Congo, while chronic high unemployment is at the root of people’s desire to leave Albania.

And where do they want to go? The US primarily: one in five potential migrants named the country as their preferred destination. Meanwhile, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and Saudi Arabia appeal to at least 25 million adults each. Roughly 20 countries attract more than two-thirds of all potential migrants worldwide.




https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/...nt-to-move-to/

This post really illustrates how silly of an idea it is that most immigrants to Canada moved there as their second choice. When there's over 5% of immigrants or 36 million people naming Canada as their first choice, (over 100 years worth of immigrants at the current 350k/year) there's more 1st choice immigrants available than Canada could even hope to accept. I wonder if there's data to show the "preference pool" from which Canada's immigrants are primarily pulled from.

Originally Posted by jtown,man

But I keep being told how evil and racist the West is, why do all these black and brown people want to be treated so bad by moving to the West?

I am joking, of course. But that narrative does fall apart when actual people are involved.

I don't see how anything falls apart by such a silly argument. Obviously the majority of people who want to immigrate to another country want for economic (higher incomes) or general quality of life (lower crimes rate, less conflict/oppression, etc.) reasons. Nothing to do with whether or not there's racism in the receiving countries. That would be like like if you shopped at a particular store for economic or quality of life reasons such as the prices were far lower, it had better hours, was in a better area etc. that the fact that these reasons compelled you to shop there meant that the staff couldn't be racist. I don't see the connection...

[Innsertnamehere]

The US accepts immigrants at a rate per capita roughly 1/3rd of Canada. It’s very much still an immigrant nation, but Canada is more extreme on that front.

Toronto’s rapid growth in 2018 has two primary driving factors.

1. Increased immigration rates set by the Feds
2. A depressed economy in Western Canada.

First one has been well discussed in this thread. Second one is equally interesting to me though. As Alberta’s economy has cratered, the rapid (2-3%) annual population growth slowed, and those people started moving to Ontario and Quebec instead.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

This post really illustrates how silly of an idea it is that most immigrants to Canada moved there as their second choice. When there's over 5% of immigrants or 36 million people naming Canada as their first choice, (over 100 years worth of immigrants at the current 350k/year) there's more 1st choice immigrants available than Canada could even hope to accept. I wonder if there's data to show the "preference pool" from which Canada's immigrants are primarily pulled from.



I don't see how anything falls apart by such a silly argument. Obviously the majority of people who want to immigrate to another country want for economic (higher incomes) or general quality of life (lower crimes rate, less conflict/oppression, etc.) reasons. Nothing to do with whether or not there's racism in the receiving countries. That would be like like if you shopped at a particular store for economic or quality of life reasons such as the prices were far lower, it had better hours, was in a better area etc. that the fact that these reasons compelled you to shop there meant that the staff couldn't be racist. I don't see the connection...

I've heard people act like its literally dangerous to drive while black in America. One professor said she Ubers to protests because shes scared of being killed by the police. This type of rhetoric is widespread and is extreme. Yet the rhetoric in the West doesn't paint the actual picture of how good things actually are. Immigrants, people who actually come from places with huge issues, reveal that the country is much better than people pretend here in the states.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

somebody here mentioned montreal as being very immigrant friendly, which it probably is - in the most recent decade or so.

meanwhile french-canadians are some of the most genetically homogenous people on earth, 8 million people descended from 10,000 french colonists 400 years ago.

this is like new england continuing to be 100% english origin 400 years after the fact, instead of the poly-ethnic society it is currently, the result of hundreds of years of immigration and population replacement/churning.

French Canadians stand out in the new world but in the rest of the world there is nothing exceptional at all about their population makeup.

Two other points:

- Only about 6.5 to 7 million of Quebec's population is of French Canadian origin, roughly 80-85% of the population of the province.

- The French Canadian population is not 100% "French" in origin, and while French is the main origin of most, very roughly half have some measure of indigenous origin and almost as many have Irish blood. Lots of French Canadians have English or Scottish names as well.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Acajack

French Canadians stand out in the new world but in the rest of the world there is nothing exceptional at all about their population makeup.

Two other points:

- Only about 6.5 to 7 million of Quebec's population is of French Canadian origin, roughly 80-85% of the population of the province.

- The French Canadian population is not 100% "French" in origin, and while French is the main origin of most, very roughly half have some measure of indigenous origin and almost as many have Irish blood. Lots of French Canadians have English or Scottish names as well.

7% of French Candian live outside of Quebec, There almost 600,000 Franco-Ontarioans, 250,000 Franco-New Brunswickers (Acadians), and another 300,000 in the rest of Canada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language_in_Canada

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

We also have a bunch of cities with very under utilized infrastructure in the Rust Belt. The major Rust Belt metros alone could all probably support double their current populations. That's another 30+ million people without even adding infrastructure.

The rust belt already had twice the population. Some places even more. But the US population is more spread out now. We have places that aren't meant to be lived in...looking at you CA, AZ, etc...and where the population is surging. The US had something like 100 million when the rust belt was at its peak. It's about 330 million.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Nite

7% of French Candian live outside of Quebec, There almost 600,000 Franco-Ontarioans, 250,000 Franco-New Brunswickers (Acadians), and another 300,000 in the rest of Canada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language_in_Canada

Well the French are the first wave of immigrants and both in Canada and in the United States birth rates were very high until they became more heavily urbanized in the early-mid 20th century. I wouldn't be surprised if the first 100,000 immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies had several million descendants.

I think a lot of American states like Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee were settled by the rapidly multiplying descendants of Scottish-Irish and German immigrants the initially settled along the coastal regions, more so than by first wave immigration.

Quebec got probably a few hundred thousand immigrants from the United States, Ireland and Britain by the mid-late 19th century, but by that point they were diluted among the base population of French Canadians that had multiplied to well over a million. I think the French Canadian population also continued to growth thanks to relatively high birth rates and low rates of emigration to western Canada while the British/Irish immigrants to Quebec were probably more likely to have low birth rates since they mostly lived in cities and were more likely to move on to western Canada. They probably assimilated a lot too, just like how about 1/3 of French Canadians emigrated to New England's mill towns and although many of those moved back to Quebec a lot of them assimilated.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Yes China and India are examples exactly of how many more people we can fit.

Zoom in on the north China Plain, Northern India or Pakistan along the Indus, even western Europe in Rural France, look at the density of villages and cities and towns in these areas.

Now zoom into Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, hell even Mississippi or Virginia the USA has some of the largest stretches of arable land in the world, vastly more than China or India with only 330 million people.

And thats just considering the temperate areas that are easiest to develop. With Modern technology areas that were not very habitable before can now house millions. And without considering how we could change farming tech to be more efficient and smaller footprint. Right now we dont have too.

If China and India can have over a billion people the USA most certainly can easily.

Now, if that will or should happen is an entirely different discussion but the USA can easily fit hundreds upon hundreds of millions more with today's technology.

This is also true for the prairie states of central/west Canada and the massive sparsely populated temperate and moderate parts of Australia.

Why should it be a goal to fit as many people into the USA as China and India do into their countries?

I think it's good for America that they have enough land to feed their people without having to import food.

Also, India actually has more arable land than the United States, and China produces more tonnes of grain than the United States (I'm including corn in these stats btw) despite having a bit less arable land. So it seems like their soils and climates might make their land more productive.

They also produce significantly more fruits and vegetables than the United States which mostly produces feed-stock, so if the United States gets such a big population it can say goodbye to cheap meat. The large amount of farmland per capita also helps its balance of trade since it's still a major importer of energy and minerals, as well as manufactured goods. Despite that it has a significant trade deficit that doesn't seem sustainable to me.

If you look at the different regions of the world, Africa is kind of f'ed because it's a net food importer and it's population is growing faster than its agricultural productivity.

The continent is too undeveloped to produce export manufactured good in large quantities, so this is probably a big part of the reason why they have such big issues with poverty. Some countries there manage to get by with oil/gas and mining exports but ultimately that's not sustainable because those resources will get depleted. Africa also doesn't have *that much* of those resources, it's more like their standards of living are so low that they use so little that they get still export most of what they produce.

China and India are also net food importers. China does have decent mineral resources and coal and has been able to use that to drive a manufacturing sector whose exports can offset their food and oil imports. India has less coal, steel, aluminum, copper, and it has less manufacturing and is poorer and a slower growing economy compared to China. Still China is somewhat at the mercy of the United States' willingness to import their manufactured goods.

Europe is in a decent position for food, many countries in Western and Southern Europe are net importers but France and most of Eastern Europe are net exporters so overall they're pretty balanced. I think they do benefit from generations of built up cultural and infrastructural wealth built from colonialism and coal reserves that fueled the world's first industrial revolution, but Europe is a bit more vulnerable now that it's not as much of an exporter of manufactured goods and is dependent on Russia for energy.

In the past it used to be that having a big population could still be advantageous for a big army to invade/wipe out your neighbours and take their land and resources but even that's a non-factor for the US now, who don't really need a big army since no-one will dare invade when their country can be wiped out with the push a button.

[memph]

By the way is anyone else surprised at how much of Toronto's growth seems to be from the city proper? The stats seem a bit hard to believe... 77k out of 125k? That's 60%...

I think Toronto has had about 40% of housing starts in the CMA, but the homes being built there are mostly condos with average household sizes of 1.7 or so, while the suburbs have been building a lot subdivisions with average household sizes of 3.0-4.5... So based off that you'd only expect about 25% of growth to be from Toronto.

Even if a lot of the growth is from increasing household sizes rather than new housing completions, Toronto's suburbs have a large population so you'd expect the population growth due to increasing household sizes to be just as significant there.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

This post really illustrates how silly of an idea it is that most immigrants to Canada moved there as their second choice. When there's over 5% of immigrants or 36 million people naming Canada as their first choice, (over 100 years worth of immigrants at the current 350k/year) there's more 1st choice immigrants available than Canada could even hope to accept. I wonder if there's data to show the "preference pool" from which Canada's immigrants are primarily pulled from.

Yeah, from those stats looks like Canada and the US are each letting in about 1% of the people who want to move into their countries each year, so neither is more exclusive than the other.

Anyways, the immigration criteria for each country are different. Some people might be able to immigrate to one country rather than the other, it goes both ways. If the US has become more difficult to immigrate into, and Canada, by increasing the amount of immigrants it lets in, has become more difficult, that means some people who had the US as their #1 choice get redirected to their #2 choice of Canada, but also some people who had Canada as their #1 choice and would have previously only been able to get into their #2 choice of the US can now immigrate into their #1 choice of Canada.

And Canada also pulled in immigrants who otherwise would've stayed in their home countries or gone to the UK or Australia or elsewhere. The increase in immigration to Canada is 100% tied to the change in Canada's immigration policies. The changes down south only had an impact on the source of immigrants, not the quantity, and probably a rather minor impact considering the increase in a couple hundred thousand US immigrants turned away is a drop in the bucket compared to the 35m+ people with Canada as their 1st choice that are getting held back by Canada's 350k/year limit.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Dallas is the fastest growing major city in U.S./Canada.

Also, how many articles have we seen lamenting the supposed lack of multifamily in Toronto? Bizarre. They have tons of multifamily, and moreover, the multifamily is quite cheap compared to SFH, obviously suggesting that the problem isn't too little multifamily.

Also, LOL at the first sentence. Yeah, there are no immigrant families doubling up in Toronto presently. The Indian grannies you see walking around Brampton would never consider multigenerational living.

It's not about a lack of a housing type so much as a lack of housing in general that's pushing up prices. Part of the situation is that the governments have decided they don't want too much new greenfield growth, which is one limitation on new housing, but the demand is definitely higher in the core where the only way to built more is to build up, not out.

I think there's demand for more housing in the next ring of neighbourhoods built in the 40s-60s in Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough as well, where housing costs are lower and multi-family could be built at a more affordable price. The housing in those areas is not that cheap (compared to outer suburbs), and those are often less dense than the outer suburbs which means it's easier to densify. The pressures to better utilize the land in those neighbourhoods has led to the bungalows being replaced with 5000 sf homes, but the market for 6 bedroom, 5000 sf homes is only so big, I think the market for affordable 3 bedroom apartments and townhouses is much bigger.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nite

7% of French Candian live outside of Quebec, There almost 600,000 Franco-Ontarioans, 250,000 Franco-New Brunswickers (Acadians), and another 300,000 in the rest of Canada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language_in_Canada

Yes, I know.

Though I live in Quebec now I am a French Canadian born and raised outside Quebec, in the so-called "Anglo-Canada". Both sides of my family have their roots there. This is also the case for my wife so I've got plenty of exposure to that reality.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

I've heard people act like its literally dangerous to drive while black in America. One professor said she Ubers to protests because shes scared of being killed by the police. This type of rhetoric is widespread and is extreme. Yet the rhetoric in the West doesn't paint the actual picture of how good things actually are. Immigrants, people who actually come from places with huge issues, reveal that the country is much better than people pretend here in the states.

A place can be better than where they came from and still have huge problems of racism, injustice and discrimination.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by memph

Why should it be a goal to fit as many people into the USA as China and India do into their countries?

I think it's good for America that they have enough land to feed their people without having to import food.

Also, India actually has more arable land than the United States, and China produces more tonnes of grain than the United States (I'm including corn in these stats btw) despite having a bit less arable land. So it seems like their soils and climates might make their land more productive.

They also produce significantly more fruits and vegetables than the United States which mostly produces feed-stock, so if the United States gets such a big population it can say goodbye to cheap meat. The large amount of farmland per capita also helps its balance of trade since it's still a major importer of energy and minerals, as well as manufactured goods. Despite that it has a significant trade deficit that doesn't seem sustainable to me.

If you look at the different regions of the world, Africa is kind of f'ed because it's a net food importer and it's population is growing faster than its agricultural productivity.

The continent is too undeveloped to produce export manufactured good in large quantities, so this is probably a big part of the reason why they have such big issues with poverty. Some countries there manage to get by with oil/gas and mining exports but ultimately that's not sustainable because those resources will get depleted. Africa also doesn't have *that much* of those resources, it's more like their standards of living are so low that they use so little that they get still export most of what they produce.

China and India are also net food importers. China does have decent mineral resources and coal and has been able to use that to drive a manufacturing sector whose exports can offset their food and oil imports. India has less coal, steel, aluminum, copper, and it has less manufacturing and is poorer and a slower growing economy compared to China. Still China is somewhat at the mercy of the United States' willingness to import their manufactured goods.

Europe is in a decent position for food, many countries in Western and Southern Europe are net importers but France and most of Eastern Europe are net exporters so overall they're pretty balanced. I think they do benefit from generations of built up cultural and infrastructural wealth built from colonialism and coal reserves that fueled the world's first industrial revolution, but Europe is a bit more vulnerable now that it's not as much of an exporter of manufactured goods and is dependent on Russia for energy.

In the past it used to be that having a big population could still be advantageous for a big army to invade/wipe out your neighbours and take their land and resources but even that's a non-factor for the US now, who don't really need a big army since no-one will dare invade when their country can be wiped out with the push a button.

Africa is a net food importer for 2 reasons first it's cheaper to import heavily subsidize foods produce in the west than produce domestically.
and second Africa are wealthier now than before and consume much more food per capita and more than before

if food importation becomes more expensive then domestic production will explode to meet the demand. also, this chart only goes up to 2010 and West Africa, in particular, has really boomed in food production since then especially in rice production which.

in any chase, hunger has been falling in Africa for a while now



the second chart is for Undernutrition for children under 5



Also India has been growing faster than China for 5 years now and for the foreseeable future as per the IMF

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by memph

Why should it be a goal to fit as many people into the USA as China and India do into their countries?

I think it's good for America that they have enough land to feed their people without having to import food.

Also, India actually has more arable land than the United States, and China produces more tonnes of grain than the United States (I'm including corn in these stats btw) despite having a bit less arable land. So it seems like their soils and climates might make their land more productive.

They also produce significantly more fruits and vegetables than the United States which mostly produces feed-stock, so if the United States gets such a big population it can say goodbye to cheap meat. The large amount of farmland per capita also helps its balance of trade since it's still a major importer of energy and minerals, as well as manufactured goods. Despite that it has a significant trade deficit that doesn't seem sustainable to me.

If you look at the different regions of the world, Africa is kind of f'ed because it's a net food importer and it's population is growing faster than its agricultural productivity.

The continent is too undeveloped to produce export manufactured good in large quantities, so this is probably a big part of the reason why they have such big issues with poverty. Some countries there manage to get by with oil/gas and mining exports but ultimately that's not sustainable because those resources will get depleted. Africa also doesn't have *that much* of those resources, it's more like their standards of living are so low that they use so little that they get still export most of what they produce.

China and India are also net food importers. China does have decent mineral resources and coal and has been able to use that to drive a manufacturing sector whose exports can offset their food and oil imports. India has less coal, steel, aluminum, copper, and it has less manufacturing and is poorer and a slower growing economy compared to China. Still China is somewhat at the mercy of the United States' willingness to import their manufactured goods.

Europe is in a decent position for food, many countries in Western and Southern Europe are net importers but France and most of Eastern Europe are net exporters so overall they're pretty balanced. I think they do benefit from generations of built up cultural and infrastructural wealth built from colonialism and coal reserves that fueled the world's first industrial revolution, but Europe is a bit more vulnerable now that it's not as much of an exporter of manufactured goods and is dependent on Russia for energy.

In the past it used to be that having a big population could still be advantageous for a big army to invade/wipe out your neighbours and take their land and resources but even that's a non-factor for the US now, who don't really need a big army since no-one will dare invade when their country can be wiped out with the push a button.

I never suggested it be a goal I simply stated it as a factual reality, the USA could fit many many many more people.

What the USA produces now is not what the USA is capable of producing because there isn't demand. Our farmland is not used to its most efficient purpose at all and much of what could be farmland isnt utilized at all.

[Steely Dan]

* moderator edit *


i cleared out all of the toronto vs. chicago metro area stupidity.

we don't need to keep rehashing that same old retard festival every other month.

let it die.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Obadno

I never suggested it be a goal I simply stated it as a factual reality, the USA could fit many many many more people.

What the USA produces now is not what the USA is capable of producing because there isn't demand. Our farmland is not used to its most efficient purpose at all and much of what could be farmland isnt utilized at all.

Is there really that much farmland that isn't utilized? I know there is in the Eastern Great Lakes and parts of the Southeast land that has gone fallow but as far as I understand that wasn't the greatest farmland in the country (hence why it's gone fallow). It could be put back into production but it would still be tied to an increase in food prices.

On the other hand, you also have the high productivity farmland in the southern Ogallala aquifer region around the TX/OK/KS/CO/NM border where basically there's not enough precipitation to sustain much agriculture, and agriculture is taking place only thanks to the unsustainable rapid depletion of the ground water aquifer, a water resource that took thousands of years to fill up, so once it's depleted, basically we're not getting it back.

You also have the Central Valley, Imperial Valley and Southern Florida which are specialty crop regions that are threatened by a mix of urban development, groundwater depletion and salt-water infiltration/contamination due to rising sea levels. The Mississippi "Delta" is also experiencing groundwater depletion, although if push comes to shove I suspect it would be possible to built irrigation projects using the Mississippi River waters or use less water intensive crops (although that could lead to more erosion of the real Mississippi Delta).

Then there's climate change. The impact of heat might not be too bad since it could extend growing seasons, although it would lead to increased evaporation. The main difference between the arid scrub land of West Texas and the fertile Canadian Prairies isn't in precipitation, West Texas might actually get a bit more of that, but in the higher temperatures that lead to more evapotranspiration. So the northern Great Plains would need to experience an increase in precipitation to make up for that, which they might, but future precipitation patterns are much harder to predict than temperature.

There's soil depletion/erosion, which is an issue in the bread-basket of IA/SD/ND/MN/IL.

Perhaps the biggest concern in my opinion though, is the question of mined fertilizer. Fertilizer that comes from recycling of the minerals that are removed from farmland is sustainable, ie using plant waste, animal waste, even human waste. Factory farming of livestock is an issue for that though, you remove all these nutrients from farms across the country by harvesting livestock feed, then send it to these factory farms where it gets released back into the environment as pig/cow shit. But instead of spreading it out across all the farms where it can be taken back up by plants as fertilizer, it gets concentrated into a few small areas where it overloads the local environment and gets washed into the ocean where it's lost forever (and pollutes lakes and rivers along the way to the ocean).

Even if you solve the factory farming problem though, I don't think that complete resolves the world's reliance on industrial/synthetic fertilizer. I think that has been responsible for something like a doubling of agricultural yields worldwide. And most of that comes from potash mined from Saskatchewan, Belarus and Russia, and phosphorus from Morocco/Western Sahara. So not a renewable resource and something that could be depleted in a short enough time-frame that it's definitely relevant to discussions about how things will be when/if the USA reaches a population of 500 million.