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Statscan numbers

I'm going to be bullish and predict a metro population of 3 million in 2050. I don't expect us to keep growing at nearly 100,000 a year like we have seen the last couple years, but I could see sustained growth of 30-40,000 annually, especially with us being one of the primary destinations for immigrants.
 
I’d put our long term growth between 40 and 60 k a year, but could be higher, I don’t imagine lower other than if an unforeseen catastrophe happens.

An average of 50,000 a year over the next 26 years is a growth of 1.3 million, add in the Foothills which will be added to the CMA by then, we’d be looking at about 3.3 million by 2050. However, the next couple years are likely to stick around 90 to 100k a year, so more like 3.5 million by 2050.
 
My guess is we'll probably be close to 2 Million by 2030 even without Foothills. With Foothills we'll easily be at 2 Million by then. Past 2030 and onward will be interesting. Oil and Gas won't disappear anytime soon, but it will continue its decline and at some point will hit a fairly sharp decline. Could be 10 years away, could be 20 years away who knows.
 
Hopefully our level of economic diversification has reached a point where a downturn in O&G will be much easier to weather than it has been in the past. It certainly seems like there are a lot of different drivers to our growth this time around.

My apologies, I'm probably going on about stuff better suited to the Statscan thread...
 
That said, different areas have different growth rates. Downtown and Beltline have been growing at 2-3x the citywide average for the past 20 years. Maintain that trend and will see a 50,000 person Beltline, and an urban walkable core inner city of several hundred thousand. We will see new denser clusters emerge of walkability and urban vibes, such as the new larger proposals in Marda Loop, university district and others.
Meet Urbgary, population 100k and its satellite cities, the Midgarys, total population 250k
1725999845329.png
 
I forget if these numbers have been posted yet, but the city government is forecasting (as of Spring 2024) for the city to exceed 1.6 million by 2029, and the CMA and “economic region” to approach 2 million and 2.1 million, respectively. I expected this, but still wild to see it in writing, with reasonable growth numbers (stabilizing from the current mega boom).

 
I forget if these numbers have been posted yet, but the city government is forecasting (as of Spring 2024) for the city to exceed 1.6 million by 2029, and the CMA and “economic region” to approach 2 million and 2.1 million, respectively. I expected this, but still wild to see it in writing, with reasonable growth numbers (stabilizing from the current mega boom).

And those are some pretty conservative growth numbers, which appear to anticipate the growth rate slowing down to around what it was pre-Covid, when we were in a downturn, so I see that as more of a floor than a ceiling. The thing that jumped out at me is that we are estimated to already be at 1,888,000 in the economic region (ie our "real" metro region).
 
Yeah, ever increasing population growth, when we don't have the capital to fund the necessary infrastructure to accommodate it (debatable at the Provincial level, but the City has said they are entering a "capital constrained" period) seems like a recipe for a lower quality of life.
 
How many people can the Calgary region hold? There is limited water here, so this summer's restrictions may be a preview of the future.
The City still has plenty of room on its annual water license. It may hit up against daily limits in the near future, but those are easily solvable through outdoor watering restrictions and building more treated water reservoirs.

Several decades into the future, the City will likely need to acquire additional licences from the irrigation districts. That is why additional storage is so important as it will give the irrigation districts confidence to sell more of their licenses. The Province should not have dropped the Morley reservoir from options for upstream storage and likely should have investigated the high Morley Dam concept as those would deliver meaningful storage beyond flood control. The Eyremore Dam downstream of Calgary is also important as it would support the min required downstream flow to allow greater withdrawls from the Bow by Calgary and the three irrigation districts.

Cochrane and Okotoks will have water supply challenges before Calgary.
 
Some big numbers for Calgary. Of course they're only forecasts and anything can happen, but I feel confident the numbers won't be too far off.

City of Calgary


CMA
View attachment 597019
What does the 18-24 and 28-40 mean? I thought it was age at first but that doesn't make sense since there must be people outside of these age ranges that are moving here.
 

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