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Statscan numbers

I decided to plug away at some numbers for comparison. A higher amount of people commuting with their own CSD on the Foothills side. You can see that Okotoks and High River have a high percentage of local commuters. Also, I'm unsure of the numbers for Foothills and Rocky View. For example those in Foothills MD commuting to another CSD could be going to Calgary, but could also be going to Okotoks or High River.

Source https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/index.cfm?Lang=E

CSD = Census subdivision CD = Census Division

PlaceTotal workers with routine commute destinationCommute within same CSDCommute to different CSD within same CD
Okotoks10,8403,9356,480
Foothills7,5258906,280
High River4,8702,3552,270
Black Diamond860620210
Turner Valley880725130
Longview904040
Eden Valley554010
25,1208,60515,420
34%62%


PlaceTotal workers with routine commute destinationCommute within same CSDCommute to different CSD within same CD
Airdrie25,2758,32016,035
Rocky View MD13,5901,63511,425
Chestermere8,1251,0706,720
Cochrane10,6653,9905,915
Beiseker29055219
Irricana45535315
Crossfield1,150285800
59,55015,39041,429
26%70%
 
Last edited:
The table that has more detail the Place of Work table.
(StatsCan has the worst detail on home/work location of any major English speaking country, for what it's worth.)

Here's the breakdown in the Calgary region; most people either work in the place they live ("Self") or in Calgary. There are relatively small numbers commuting between places in the region ("Region") and to places in Canada outside the ones on this list ("Other").

1643656323777.png


About half the outflow from Calgary to the region is to Rocky View; I'm guessing mostly the greater Cross Iron retail/logistics/light industrial area.

The major flows between places in the region that don't involve Calgary are these:
Home locationWork locationWorkers
AirdrieRocky View County
1420​
High RiverFoothills No. 31
840​
Foothills No. 31Okotoks
745​
Wheatland CountyStrathmore
710​
OkotoksFoothills No. 31
670​
Foothills No. 31High River
555​
Rocky View CountyCochrane
530​
Rocky View CountyAirdrie
505​
OkotoksHigh River
425​
StrathmoreWheatland County
400​
High RiverOkotoks
400​
CochraneRocky View County
400​

Note that these are relatively small in the scale of things; we're talking about 600,000 workers and looking at flows down to 400.

Of the flows outside of the region, the Wheatland County flow is largely to small towns in Wheatland (Hussar, Rockyford, etc) and to Drumheller. Cochrane's is mostly to the Bow Valley corridor; Airdrie's is 1/3 into Mountain View County and the towns in it (Olds, Carstairs, etc), 1/3 to Wood Buffalo (ie Fort Mac) and 1/3 elsewhere. Calgary's flow -- the vast majority of the out-of-region flow -- is very mixed; a little under 3K to Wood Buffalo, a little over 1K to the Edmonton region, a little under 1K to the Bow Valley corridor; about 2K scattered to the rest of the province (a couple hundred each to Red Deer and Lethbridge) and about 2K scattered to the rest of the country (about 500 each to the Lower Mainland and the GTHA). Note that just because you live one place and work another doesn't mean you commute every day.
 
Thanks for the extra digging of those numbers. It gives a better idea of what's happening. There is definitely a fair number of people working in foothills working within Foothills, and thus why we haven't seen them join Calgary's CSD yet. I imagine the key to all of this is Okotoks. The larger it gets, the more likely those extra people will commute to/from Calgary as opposed to High River or some of the other areas.
 
The core is set for strong population growth over the next 3 years given what's u/c now. For downtown and Beltline it translates roughly to 6k in growth. Throw in projects u/c for Mission, Kensington, and Bridgeland, and there is a good solid amount of growth for the inner city core.

U/C Units in Beltline/DT/EV

Oliver - 866
Sunalta Towers - 333
The Hat 14th - 239
1334 10th - 80
Arris Tower west - 310
Park Central II - 460
Sierra Place - 80
West Village Towers - 554
The Fifth - 34
Nude - 177
Curtis Block - 628
11th and 11th - 369
Total Units: 4,130
 
CBBarnett said:
For the data nerds out there, there's a ton of detailed work that went into defining what "downtown" is so it's consistently applied in all cities across Canada. Check it out here: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91f0015m/91f0015m2021001-eng.htm

The result, this is the Statscan definition of downtown:
View attachment 379372
Click to expand...

For the non-data nerds out there, can you explain why Prince's Island Park and the Stampede grounds are part of "Downtown Calgary"? The rest of the boundaries make intuitive sense to me.
 
Screen Shot 2022-02-09 at 9.53.28 AM.png

Population change: https://censusmapper.ca/maps/3054#10/51.0543/-114.0710

The red area around Sunnyside is surprising, but I imagine it is a result of the demolition of a large number of rental units in recent years. The condemned rental apartment on 10th street would have taken a couple hundred residents away alone.

The other thing to note is that the trend of strong growth in the inner city and greenfield suburbs coupled with population loss in 1960s-2000s era suburbs continues.
 
As large as Calgary's downtown looks in that diagram, it's interesting that it has the smallest area of the "Big 6" cities in Canada. It's interesting how large they drew Toronto and Edmonton's downtowns. They're capturing a lot of single family home neighbourhoods within those boundaries.

Here's the geographic sizes of each big city downtown, along with population densities in 2016 and 2021. I'm quite surprised by Montreal's growth. I clearly haven't been paying enough attention to that city.

CityArea (km2)Pop Density (2016)Pop Density (2021)Growth Rate
Vancouver
6.2​
18,309​
18,837​
3%​
Toronto
16.6​
14,319​
16,608​
16%​
Montréal
13.2​
6,679​
8,367​
25%​
Ottawa
9.7​
6,466​
6,847​
6%​
Calgary
6​
6,444​
7,778​
21%​
Edmonton
11.5​
4,869​
4,845​
0%​
 
Mountain Man said:
Montreal's population density is barely larger than Calgary's. I'm sure those guys are all freaking out on SSP right about now lol.
Click to expand...
It's really interesting, but it's also worth noting that they sustain that density over more than twice as large an area. My guess is that there are not as many high-rise residential buildings in downtown Montreal (but maybe that is changing, considering the 25% population growth).

Montreal is THE city of the "missing middle". It has very few single family homes (only 7% of housing units!!), and also few residential high-rises (at least compared to Toronto and Vancouver). Over 70% of its housing units are low-rise apartments. So it is a dense city, but its density is spread out over the entirety of the city. It's not an island of super-dense high-rises in a sea of low-density suburbs.

Dwelling TypeCanadaCalgaryVancouverTorontoMontreal
Single-detached house
54%​
56%​
15%​
24%​
7%​
Semi-detached or row house
11%​
16%​
5%​
12%​
7%​
Low-rise apartment
24%​
20%​
51%​
19%​
71%​
High/mid-rise apartment
10%​
7%​
29%​
44%​
14%​
(2016 census data for cities proper, not CMAs)
 
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