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Statscan numbers

Surrealplaces said:
Cities seem to go through ebs and flows. For a while Montreal was the main laggard. Winnipeg has had times where they are less than half of Halifax, but picked up last month...probably due to a single project that started. Ottawa on the Ontario side has been very slow for quite a while now, and I have my theories on why.

When I get some time to kill, I'm going to make a graph showing that last couple of years. Calgary is probably the most consistent of all the metros over the past 2 years, with starts climbing but no real bursts or drops. Maybe due to so many smaller apartment style projects, row homes, and duplexes?
Click to expand...
I'm curious what the theories are.
 
Housing starts July 2024. Calgary still holding strong, we haven't really seen a slow month for Calgary in a long time. Montreal really dropped massively (from top to bottom) after a strong showing in June. Vancouver still sluggish.
CitySFHsemirowapartmenttotal
Toronto502447445435523
Vancouver1876616121022516
Calgary62524028013262471
Edmonton7061201726101608
Ott/Gat162262238491260
Montreal982424621767
 
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Beltline_B said:
I'm curious what the theories are.
Click to expand...
These are only observations made on my part, but I have seen plenty of anecdotal evidence of people moving out of Ottawa, to either Ontario communities outside of Ottawa's CMA. Places like Cornwall, Smith Falls, Casselman. The other trend I'm seeing is people moving to the Quebec side. A lot of French Canadians who lived on the Ontario side seem to be moving to the Quebec side where housing is much cheaper.
 
Housing starts for the big 6 metros
1724386855219.png



Comparison of the top 4 metros. Calgary consistently topping Montreal and sometimes Vancouver.
1724386452570.png


Calgary easily the leader in the mid tier metros.
1724386643990.png
 
We have been for pretty much 20 years. The big 3 (in population) may not like it, but Calgary has a lot more in common, developmentally speaking, with them than we do with Ottawa and Edmonton. We’re consistently ranked in or near their tier with housing starts, livability, “global city” rankings, economic power, economic growth/diversification (tech, film, tourism, etc), population growth, etc. and have been for quite some time. On top of that, our urban redevelopment projects, basically our streetscapes, parks, and pathways projects outnumber Edmonton and Ottawa combined 2 to 1, at least.

I remember on SSP when all the easterners would laugh if a Calgarian mentioned “the big 4”. Really it was true even 10 years ago, though questionable due to both our similarity in population to Edm and Ott as well as the oil crash, but it is a solid fact now.
 
As mentioned by Urban Warrior, Calgary has been on a higher trajectory than Ottawa and Edmonton for quite a while, since at least the mid 90's. In the early 80's Calgary trailed Ottawa and Edmonton by a significant amount having over 100,000 people less than those two cities. Back in the early 90's Ottawa was the city that was pulling away from Edmonton and Calgary. With the high tech industry booming and the government hiring it was firing on all cylinders, but it started to tamper off after the mid 90's, and outside of increasing the size of their CMA, they haven't really seen much in the way of booming growth, but it's been solid. Edmonton has been similar to Ottawa having seen solid growth over the past 40 years.
Calgary is an interesting one. At one time sitting at 120,000 people less than Edmonton and Ottawa (in 1981), it now sees itself over 100k more than Edmonton and 75K more than Ottawa, and if Ottawa didn't add Carleton Place area to their CMA, Calgary would be about 150K more. And this doesn't even include the 75K to the south of us. For the past 40 years it's been pedal to the metal for Calgary, even with a few downturns , one being especially bad (2015-2019), it's been full steam ahead.

Growth from 1981 to 2023
Calgary 1,056,543
Edmonton 822,689
Ottawa 865,984

1724627107528.png
 
Calgary even with downturns here and there had been steady over all. It blew past Edmonton during the Klein years when privatization of services benefited Calgary, plus numerous relocation of head offices to Calgary.
Calgary then blew past Ottawa when Ottawa’s high tech petered out. Edmonton managed to keep up with Calgary for a while during the O&G slump after 2014 and even had a couple years where they had higher population growth, it was also at the time the NDP was in government and doing a lot of hiring which appeared to benefit Edmonton.
But overall it’s been the Calgary show over the last 40 years, it’s an amazing run for Calgary and it looks like that run is continuing for a while.
 
UrbanWarrior said:
We have been for pretty much 20 years. The big 3 (in population) may not like it, but Calgary has a lot more in common, developmentally speaking, with them than we do with Ottawa and Edmonton. We’re consistently ranked in or near their tier with housing starts, livability, “global city” rankings, economic power, economic growth/diversification (tech, film, tourism, etc), population growth, etc. and have been for quite some time. On top of that, our urban redevelopment projects, basically our streetscapes, parks, and pathways projects outnumber Edmonton and Ottawa combined 2 to 1, at least.

I remember on SSP when all the easterners would laugh if a Calgarian mentioned “the big 4”. Really it was true even 10 years ago, though questionable due to both our similarity in population to Edm and Ott as well as the oil crash, but it is a solid fact now.
Click to expand...
Completely agree. And really, when we look at the so-called "big 3", Toronto is by far the dominant city in the country, starting to rival the degree to which London and Paris dominate their respective countries (the only difference being that obviously Toronto is not the capital city). Montreal and Vancouver are a lot larger than Cal/Edm/Ott but equally so, much smaller than Toronto (and Vancouver is as close to Calgary's size as it is to Montreal's). The whole idea of a "big 3" is kind of ludicrous at this point, as if the Japanese lump Osaka and Nagoya in with Tokyo, or the UK lumping Manchester and Birmingham in with London. I'd argue that Calgary has evolved into the regional hub of the entire Prairie region and rivals Vancouver as the business centre of western Canada to a degree where it's not far fetched to mention them in the same breath. Edmonton and Ottawa are both overshadowed by more prominent cities in their respective regions.
 
Albertasaurus said:
Completely agree. And really, when we look at the so-called "big 3", Toronto is by far the dominant city in the country, starting to rival the degree to which London and Paris dominate their respective countries (the only difference being that obviously Toronto is not the capital city). Montreal and Vancouver are a lot larger than Cal/Edm/Ott but equally so, much smaller than Toronto (and Vancouver is as close to Calgary's size as it is to Montreal's). The whole idea of a "big 3" is kind of ludicrous at this point, as if the Japanese lump Osaka and Nagoya in with Tokyo, or the UK lumping Manchester and Birmingham in with London. I'd argue that Calgary has evolved into the regional hub of the entire Prairie region and rivals Vancouver as the business centre of western Canada to a degree where it's not far fetched to mention them in the same breath. Edmonton and Ottawa are both overshadowed by more prominent cities in their respective regions.
Click to expand...
Canada is actually pretty unusual that the dominant city switched over our history. Montreal was the political, economic and cultural hub for Canada from 1600s - 1970s. It was only in 1971 that Toronto had the larger population. Now the clear hierarchy has emerged and shows little sign of changing again, Calgary being notable as it's becoming clearly the 4th city with a clearer and clearer lead over the others nearby. Probably still too close to confidently lock in that 4th spot permanently, though. On permanence, it would be unusual that Montreal got surpassed by Vancouver, just as it would also be unusual for Calgary to ever catch Vancouver. The agglomeration growth of big cities doesn't allow that to happen easily.

I think population numbers stop mattering as much once cities reach 1.5 or 2 million people, because at that point there's enough local demand to support anything, the bigger gap is how successful the city has been to convert that growth into offering newer, bigger city opportunities and amenities. After a certain size, this becomes a more useful (albeit subjective) way to classify the larger cities is the degree in which they offer these "big city" amenities and opportunities - eg. multiple nightlife districts, many walkable neighbourhoods with different vibes, fast and efficient public transit to major nodes, high quality and capacity public spaces, big airports with lots of connections etc.

Size and growth aren't everything of course. Europe is full of smaller cities than Canadian ones but have far superior transit infrastructure and nightlife compared to cities 3x their size. Better designed cities don't need as many people to offer superior amenities. Similarly, the evidence is also murky on whether fast or slow growing cities can offer better amenities in practice. High growth is not a panacea in itself to improve places and often come with baggage - the immediate needs of growth incentivize myopic views and short-term-ness.

Australia is a place to look at for some similarities and differences given a common history with Canada. Unusually, Sydney and Melbourne have been nearly the same population for their entire history, usually with Sydney being a bit larger. Meanwhile, the state capitals dominate their regions: 60 - 80% of the total provincial populations are located in a single city. This is notably higher than Canadian provinces, where cities dominate, but not to the same degree of concentrating to a single city (Manitoba being the closest).
 
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Surrealplaces said:
As mentioned by Urban Warrior, Calgary has been on a higher trajectory than Ottawa and Edmonton for quite a while, since at least the mid 90's. In the early 80's Calgary trailed Ottawa and Edmonton by a significant amount having over 100,000 people less than those two cities. Back in the early 90's Ottawa was the city that was pulling away from Edmonton and Calgary. With the high tech industry booming and the government hiring it was firing on all cylinders, but it started to tamper off after the mid 90's, and outside of increasing the size of their CMA, they haven't really seen much in the way of booming growth, but it's been solid. Edmonton has been similar to Ottawa having seen solid growth over the past 40 years.
Calgary is an interesting one. At one time sitting at 120,000 people less than Edmonton and Ottawa (in 1981), it now sees itself over 100k more than Edmonton and 75K more than Ottawa, and if Ottawa didn't add Carleton Place area to their CMA, Calgary would be about 150K more. And this doesn't even include the 75K to the south of us. For the past 40 years it's been pedal to the metal for Calgary, even with a few downturns , one being especially bad (2015-2019), it's been full steam ahead.

Growth from 1981 to 2023
Calgary 1,056,543
Edmonton 822,689
Ottawa 865,984

View attachment 591066
Click to expand...
Calgary's growth would likely look even more impressive if those numbers used historical populations of current CMA boundraries. Edmonton and especially Ottawa always had substantial population in adjacent towns.
 
Surrealplaces said:
As mentioned by Urban Warrior, Calgary has been on a higher trajectory than Ottawa and Edmonton for quite a while, since at least the mid 90's. In the early 80's Calgary trailed Ottawa and Edmonton by a significant amount having over 100,000 people less than those two cities. Back in the early 90's Ottawa was the city that was pulling away from Edmonton and Calgary. With the high tech industry booming and the government hiring it was firing on all cylinders, but it started to tamper off after the mid 90's, and outside of increasing the size of their CMA, they haven't really seen much in the way of booming growth, but it's been solid. Edmonton has been similar to Ottawa having seen solid growth over the past 40 years.
Calgary is an interesting one. At one time sitting at 120,000 people less than Edmonton and Ottawa (in 1981), it now sees itself over 100k more than Edmonton and 75K more than Ottawa, and if Ottawa didn't add Carleton Place area to their CMA, Calgary would be about 150K more. And this doesn't even include the 75K to the south of us. For the past 40 years it's been pedal to the metal for Calgary, even with a few downturns , one being especially bad (2015-2019), it's been full steam ahead.

Growth from 1981 to 2023
Calgary 1,056,543
Edmonton 822,689
Ottawa 865,984

View attachment 591066
Click to expand...
Interestingly, when you look back at 1981, Edmonton and Ottawa were the metros that were growing, while Calgary, which was heavily tied to oil was struggling at that time.
I remember all through the 80s my brother-in-law (who was from Edmonton) was constantly saying that Calgary was going to sputter, as he called it, while Ottawa and Edmonton would be the cities of the future because they were government cities with bigger universities.

I suppose back then what he was saying was an educated guess that made sense at the time
In the early 80’s Calgary was heavily tied to oil and gas and the U of C was almost half the size of the university of Alberta, and was probably half the size of the two main Ottawa universities.
I don’t know exactly what the reasons are for Calgary’s success but the predictions certainly didn’t pan out.
 
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