The 20 fastest growing cities between Canada and the US

[Nite]

StatsCan just released the July 2023 population estimates for CMAs and CA here for Canada so here are the 20 fastest growing cities between Canada and the US

[goat314]

Tampa and Orlando do not have the infrastructure to handle the type of growth they are getting and it's really lowering the quality of life of central Florida. There is no plan for meaningful public transportation and the highway/road infrastructure should have been beefed up decades ago.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by goat314

Tampa and Orlando do not have the infrastructure to handle the type of growth they are getting and it's really lowering the quality of life of central Florida. There is no plan for meaningful public transportation and the highway/road infrastructure should have been beefed up decades ago.

Welcome to southwestern Ontario - we have a bunch of transit underway in Toronto, but it's still a fraction of what's needed to handle the growth. Plus we have only a handful of hyper-politicized roads projects which get nowhere close to addressing increasing demands on the regions roads. Basically the entire region locks up in congestion for 6 hours a day at this point. Meanwhile a quarter million people moved to the larger metro in 2023 (Toronto+Hamilton+Oshawa) and that growth has continued, meaning another likely 250,000+ year of growth next year. It's insane. We are a region of 8 million operating on basically the same infrastructure, plus a few minor additions, that we operated on with 5 million people in the region 25 years ago.

[Nite]

Canadian cities in terms of percentage change last year

[iheartthed]

Take those US growth estimates with a grain of salt. The estimate for NY metro in 2019 only estimated the region growing by about 320k since 2010, but the actual census recorded a nearly 1.2m growth for NY metro between 2010 and 2020.

[Innsertnamehere]

Calgary growing at 6% annually is just absolutely insane for such a large city. A metro of 1.5 million added almost 100,000 people in a single year..

[Crawford]

What's going on in Moncton? Lots of those for-profit colleges?

Also, who is moving to Saskatoon? Mostly domestic or intl.?

[edale]

Those are insane growth numbers for the Canadian cities, and the growth is almost entirely fueled by immigration, right? Toronto growing by 220,000 in one year is asinine. It's no wonder there's a huge housing crisis there. There is no way to build fast enough to accommodate that level of growth.

[softee]

Toronto city proper is estimated at 3,110,984. Seems it took forever for it to creep up to 3 million and then it just blew right past it!

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1...pid=1710015501

[Nite]

Originally Posted by edale

Those are insane growth numbers for the Canadian cities, and the growth is almost entirely fueled by immigration, right? Toronto growing by 220,000 in one year is asinine. It's no wonder there's a huge housing crisis there. There is no way to build fast enough to accommodate that level of growth.

Canadian house prices peaked 2 years ago around 820K CAD and have since fallen ~15%

The current average house price in Canada is 719K CAD or 525K USD
The current average house price in the US is 525K USD

So right now both countries have the same average house prices.

Housing is still a problem in Canada but prices for the most part are no longer rising on average.
Toronto average house prices peaked at 1.2 million CAD 2 years ago, now at 1.0 Million CAD
but there are a huge amount of housing that's not selling at current prices so I expect more price falls in Toronto.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Crawford

What's going on in Moncton? Lots of those for-profit colleges?

Also, who is moving to Saskatoon? Mostly domestic or intl.?

Without immigration Saskatoon would have lost 3000 people

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by edale

Those are insane growth numbers for the Canadian cities, and the growth is almost entirely fueled by immigration, right? Toronto growing by 220,000 in one year is asinine. It's no wonder there's a huge housing crisis there. There is no way to build fast enough to accommodate that level of growth.

You should check out the traffic. LA traffic is a comparative breeze.

I was at a wedding last summer, near downtown, in an area called Exhibition Place, maybe a mile from our downtown hotel. Traveling back and forth about a half-dozen times, over a normal weekend, no major city events, took over an hour every single time.

There's basically one small freeway serving the core, and it's perpetually u/c. There are no other major arterials anywhere around the core. E-W travel absolutely sucks. N-S not as bad.

[Blitz]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Welcome to southwestern Ontario - we have a bunch of transit underway in Toronto, but it's still a fraction of what's needed to handle the growth. Plus we have only a handful of hyper-politicized roads projects which get nowhere close to addressing increasing demands on the regions roads. Basically the entire region locks up in congestion for 6 hours a day at this point. Meanwhile a quarter million people moved to the larger metro in 2023 (Toronto+Hamilton+Oshawa) and that growth has continued, meaning another likely 250,000+ year of growth next year. It's insane. We are a region of 8 million operating on basically the same infrastructure, plus a few minor additions, that we operated on with 5 million people in the region 25 years ago.

"Southwestern Ontario" does not include any part of the Greater Toronto area or Hamilton (it only covers the 519 area code...Kitchener, London, and Windsor).

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Nite

Canadian house prices peaked 2 years ago around 820K CAD and have since fallen ~15%

The current average house price in Canada is 719K CAD or 525K USD
The current average house price in the US is 525K USD

So right now both countries have the same average house prices.

Housing is still a problem in Canada but prices for the most part are no longer rising on average.
Toronto average house prices peaked at 1.2 million CAD 2 years ago, now at 1.0 Million CAD
but there are a huge amount of housing that's not selling at current prices so I expect more price falls in Toronto.

C'mon, you know that's a disingenuous comparison unless you're also going to compare Canadian salaries in USD. The median pre-tax household income in Canada is US$51,350, versus $74,755 in the US.

Also, it's been mentioned many times before, but despite prices decreasing, affordability has also gotten worse on account of the rising interest rates. Unless you can buy a house in cash, housing costs as a percentage of income were at their highest ever as of Q4 2023: https://betterdwelling.com/buying-a-...o-correct-rbc/



As noted in the article, affordability is likely to improve somewhat in the near future (given the massive amount of inventory that nobody can afford at current prices); but not by much, and not for long if & when interest rates drop - and particularly given rising demand for housing, now that 2024 is on track to track to smash even 2023's record-breaking population growth numbers. Rents meanwhile are also continuing to rise country-wide: https://www.spscanada.com/blog/canad...-january-2024/

Originally Posted by Nite

Without immigration Saskatoon would have lost 3000 people

Good thing we have a choice that lies somewhere between 0 immigrants and 1.3 million+ immigrants per year. Back in the days where we were only growing by a half a million or so every year, Saskatoon's annual growth was averaging around +4,400 (2006-2016).

[Nite]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

C'mon, you know that's a disingenuous comparison unless you're also going to compare Canadian salaries in USD. The median pre-tax household income in Canada is US$51,350, versus $74,755 in the US.

Also, it's been mentioned many times before, but despite prices decreasing, affordability has also gotten worse on account of the rising interest rates. Unless you can buy a house in cash, housing costs as a percentage of income were at their highest ever as of Q4 2023: https://betterdwelling.com/buying-a-...o-correct-rbc/



As noted in the article, affordability is likely to improve somewhat in the near future (given the massive amount of inventory that nobody can afford at current prices); but not by much, and not for long if & when interest rates drop - and particularly given rising demand for housing, now that 2024 is on track to track to smash even 2023's record-breaking population growth numbers. Rents meanwhile are also continuing to rise country-wide: https://www.spscanada.com/blog/canad...-january-2024/






Good thing we have a choice that lies somewhere between 0 immigrants and 1.3 million+ immigrants per year. Back in the days where we were only growing by a half a million or so every year, Saskatoon's annual growth was averaging around +4,400 (2006-2016).

My point is that home prices have ben falling in Canada for the past 2 years while still increasing in the US and we are at the point where US prices will move ahead of Canadians ones while prices still continue to fall in Canada.

Rents in Canada are also falling or growing below inflation in the most expensive markets.
https://rentals.ca/national-rent-report

[lio45]

As MonkeyRonin pointed out, we’re letting in even more FNSs this year than the previous year; rents aren't going anywhere but up (and so are, obviously, our already record-breaking homelessness levels).

[Yuri]

There is this Canadian guy I made "friends" with last month. He wants to keep living in São Paulo for longer and it's now subleting his 2bed place in Cabbagetown (Toronto) for CAD 1,400. Compared to SP is obviously expensive, but it's not as bad as I thought.

Maybe it's a price accomodation you guys are talking about it.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Yuri

There is this Canadian guy I made "friends" with last month. He wants to keep living in São Paulo for longer and it's now subleting his 2bed place in Cabbagetown (Toronto) for CAD 1,400. Compared to SP is obviously expensive, but it's not as bad as I thought.

Maybe it's a price accomodation you guys are talking about it.

$1,400CDN is well below market rate for a 2 bedroom in that area, though this could also be affected by the fact it's sublet and not a full lease. Depends a lot on the size/condition but a 2bdrm in central Toronto being rented today can range anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000+. A lot of people are grandfathered in at considerably lower rents though, so if you're paying less it can make sense to give a deal subletting to someone you trust (we did this when living in Johannesburg).

But yes, in general the rent here is still relatively "affordable" (read - at least somewhat attainable) compared to purchase price. Though it's gone up a lot in recent years.

[Crawford]

CAD $1,400 sounds dirt cheap for a two-bedroom in a good, core area of Toronto. That's $1,000 USD. I'd definitely pounce on that.

If it's a real two-bedroom, and not some basement migrant bunker, it's a steal. You'd likely pay more than that for a cheap two bedroom in a so-so area even in a relatively undesirable area, like Memphis or Tulsa.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Crawford

You should check out the traffic. LA traffic is a comparative breeze.

I was at a wedding last summer, near downtown, in an area called Exhibition Place, maybe a mile from our downtown hotel. Traveling back and forth about a half-dozen times, over a normal weekend, no major city events, took over an hour every single time.

There's basically one small freeway serving the core, and it's perpetually u/c. There are no other major arterials anywhere around the core. E-W travel absolutely sucks. N-S not as bad.

I was driving across Vancouver to get into the coast ranges of BC a few years ago and it was easily a top 5 traffic jam of my life - not sure I have seen much worse in China - and it was mostly on surface streets with poor side street connectivity for whatever reason so was kind of trapped. It was bad enough that we could run into a convenience store and get back into the car (a passenger of course). The bad traffic jams of LA and Chicago have usually been on expressways and I could always get off and drive side streets if I had enough - or a different way - but had few options crossing metro Vancouver.