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Who will be Alberta's largest metro in a decade?

Surrealplaces said:
Halifax will make its way up there if it can keep the momentum going. It had a big growth year in 2022 due to so many people moving from Ontario due to remote work options. The question is whether that high volume will keep going.
A city that's flying under the radar is Kitchener. Now at 622K and the fastest growing city out of the top 6 over the past 5 years. The proximity to Toronto could cause massive growth in the near future, It'll be a fun one to watch.
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Agreed on Kitchener - it's relative proximity to the GTA and cluster of universities, tech and manufacturing is a good combo. Very strong fundamentals that are durable to change, assuming overall growth continues. The strengthening the of the GO Transit rail connection between Toronto and Kitchener as is underway will further strengthen this link. Can't see anything but steady growth ahead. Hamilton may also increasingly benefit. It's pretty hard to not receive some spill-over growth as the GTA creeps up to 8, 9 and 10 million in the coming decades.

Notably and unsurprisingly, the big will keep getting bigger. Size has a quality in itself. For all the talk of high cost of living in Toronto and Vancouver, or a slower economy in Montreal for periods of the past few decades, all these cities are hardly changing their trend lines for growth and absorb an enormous share of urban growth even if it's at a slower rate than smaller cities. I think it will be a very long time - perhaps never - for any of the big 3 to change their ranking.

Calgary and Edmonton meanwhile seem well positioned to continue a relatively high growth rate and may trade 4th and 5th spot back and forth in the long-run. It would be pretty hard to imagine benefitting conditions that dramatically increase the growth in one city but not the other given their relative proximity, size and economic drivers. Being about 1.5M each the size factor is really starting to kick in here too. Strengthening the link and connection between the two will be a major opportunity into the future - a 3 million person economic region is more attractive than two 1.5 million person regions.
 
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Another interesting question is does Red Deer or Lethbridge become the 3rd biggest metro?

Red Deer seems better positioned, but Lethbridge has been growing at a fast rate? Or will both suffer from the big cities taking all the growth?
 
Calgary will be the biggest metro 10 years from now. There’s little chance it won’t be. 20 years down the road, who knows anything can happen, but my feeling is that once Calgary adds Okotoks and foothills MD, etc the gap will be too big for Edmonton to catch up.

If you had asked me this 10 years ago, I would have thought it possible for Edmonton to pass Calgary in 10-20 years due to the decline of oil, and how much Calgary economy relies on it, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore.
Having seen the way Calgary continued to grow, even when the oil and gas industry was in the toilet for 6 years, combined with all the new diversification that’s been happening makes me think that Calgary’s not going to slow down and will remain the Alpha city.

Edmonton will not slow down either. It won’t grow as fast as Calgary, but it will have strong growth too. Much stronger than Ottawa.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Halifax will make its way up there if it can keep the momentum going. It had a big growth year in 2022 due to so many people moving from Ontario due to remote work options. The question is whether that high volume will keep going.
A city that's flying under the radar is Kitchener. Now at 622K and the fastest growing city out of the top 6 over the past 5 years. The proximity to Toronto could cause massive growth in the near future, It'll be a fun one to watch.
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Kitchener is a sleeper for sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if it passed Winnipeg and Quebec sometime in the next 20 years.
Is it the fastest growing of the top 6, even in percentage?
 
Patrick.1980 said:
If you had asked me this 10 years ago, I would have thought it possible for Edmonton to pass Calgary in 10-20 years due to the decline of oil, and how much Calgary economy relies on it, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore.
Having seen the way Calgary continued to grow, even when the oil and gas industry was in the toilet for 6 years, combined with all the new diversification that’s been happening makes me think that Calgary’s not going to slow down and will remain the Alpha city.
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Calgary’s still tied strongly to oil and gas, but we’ve seen so much new economic diversity during the oil industry downturn, it feels less and less tied to it.
I used to worry about what would happen to Calgary once oil and gas dropped off, now I wonder if oil and gas is holding Calgary back rather than holding Calgary up.
 
konradiical said:
Another interesting question is does Red Deer or Lethbridge become the 3rd biggest metro?

Red Deer seems better positioned, but Lethbridge has been growing at a fast rate? Or will both suffer from the big cities taking all the growth?
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Lethbridge will stay #3 for the foreseeable future. Of the urban areas, their economy is the most diversified away from the energy sector, two major post-secondary institutions, and generally more attractive socially and politically. Red Deer on the other hand has stagnated for nearly a decade with very little growth.
 
UrbanWarrior said:
Lethbridge will stay #3 for the foreseeable future. Of the urban areas, their economy is the most diversified away from the energy sector, two major post-secondary institutions, and generally more attractive socially and politically. Red Deer on the other hand has stagnated for nearly a decade with very little growth.
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Agreed. The UofL is becoming quite a force of employment and will for some time.
 
Calgary and Edmonton will continue their growth pattern for the next decade with Edmonton staying close in growth, but Calgary gaining somewhere between 3-10K extra per year. In a decade Calgary will be approximately 150,000 more than Edmonton unless Calgary adds the whole Foothills MD, then it will be more like 250,000 people difference.
 
Patrick.1980 said:
If you had asked me this 10 years ago, I would have thought it possible for Edmonton to pass Calgary in 10-20 years due to the decline of oil, and how much Calgary economy relies on it, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore.
Having seen the way Calgary continued to grow, even when the oil and gas industry was in the toilet for 6 years, combined with all the new diversification that’s been happening makes me think that Calgary’s not going to slow down and will remain the Alpha city.

Edmonton will not slow down either. It won’t grow as fast as Calgary, but it will have strong growth too. Much stronger than Ottawa.
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The growth patterns of cities are mostly tied to the job market and economy, and I thought the same thing 20 years ago. Back then, looking ahead at Calgary and its reliance on oil and gas compared to Edmonton which had the provincial government, a stronger federal government presence, and a large University to fall back on, it was always likely or at least a strong possibility that Edmonton would have higher growth at a point when oil and gas went down the tube, but I agree, it's the case anymore due to a few factors:

-The Oil and Gas fade isn't going as fast as expected. Oil will fade, but won't be right away and gas could be a while. The slowness of this drop will give the opportunity for other businesses to build, and we are already seeing that happen.
-Calgary has been building up in other areas. The airport, transportation, and distribution industry has been keen on Calgary and has become a become a big employer, continuing to grow. The tech/fintech industry, also keen on Calgary has also been growing. The UofC though smaller than the UofA has been growing at the same pace as UofA
-The disadvantage of a small provincial presence is changing due to remote work trends. This would have been the biggest advantage for Edmonton 10 or 20 years ago. With remote work, a lot more provincial government positions have been coming to Calgary and other Alberta cities, whereas in the past they would have been heavily based in Edmonton. Calgary's high amount of skilled workers with office experience gives a good opportunity to get some of those jobs. In my place of work which is a federal crown corp, when jobs are posted for the prairie region, Calgary usually has the best candidates, and that's where all the jobs have been going.

There are other things that feed into growth of course, like proximity to the Rockies or whatnot.. but for the most part, jobs drive growth. Calgary is poised to do well in the coming future.
 
TysonR said:
Calgary and Edmonton will continue their growth pattern for the next decade with Edmonton staying close in growth, but Calgary gaining somewhere between 3-10K extra per year. In a decade Calgary will be approximately 150,000 more than Edmonton unless Calgary adds the whole Foothills MD, then it will be more like 250,000 people difference.
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That’s my prediction also. Edmonton will stay close but lose ground most years, and every once in a while Calgary will mop the floor with them like they did last year. In 10 years Calgary will be 250k larger and will start pulling away.
 
Another irrefutable fact of this matter is that, I. 2018 the difference between the cities was only 68,000, and in that short time has grown to 92,000 as of 2022. This trend will, of course, continue for the foreseeable future.
 
Hard to say. If interest rates keep rising, governments will be forced into austerity, which will not bode well for Edmonton (or Ottawa). If current trends continue with public sector investment and employment as the main drivers to the economy, Edmonton will pull away.
 
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