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

Surrealplaces said:
The gap between Montreal and Vancouver is large, but I still think Vancouver has a chance to overtake Montreal someday. Based mainly on the that Vancouver's growth doesn't seem to ever slow down, whereas Montreal's growth over the past 30 years has been inconsistent. In saying that, I'm also saying there's a chance for it to happen, but I'm not necessarily expecting it to happen, but I think even if it doesn't pass Montreal someday, it'll narrow the gap. This is based on the solid growth of Vancouver over the past 30 years, but as people have mentioned, Vancouver has a land issue, and who knows, we might see a different trend in the future.
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While Vancouver does have a land issue, if the population growth continues there's plenty of land in Delta and if they build a stronger commuter rail network, the metro area could get larger. I'm actually pretty optimistic on Montreal's growth. Our immigrants have mostly been English speaking, especially from East and South Asia in the past 20/30 years. However, as African countries' middle class get larger, we could definitely see an increase in immigrants from Francophone countries in Africa which the language would actually be a draw, not to mention the lower cost of living.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Calgarians and Edmontonians will often micro pick at the differences between the two cities, but in reality, they are quite similar. Especially when comparing to American cities, or even cities in Eastern Canada. Out of the three second tier cities in Canada (Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa), Calgary and Edmonton are the most alike. Employment demographics are somewhat different between Edmonton and Calgary, but not majorly different, and other demographics, such as age and ethnicities are quite similar. The cities even have a lot of the same look and feel when comparing to cities like Hamilton or Ottawa.
I tend to agree about the assessment of Calgary/Edmonton Houston/Austin. I've never felt like Calgary or Edmonton are much like those cities. Us Canadians always like to make comparisons to American cities, but I've never felt much similarities other than maybe visual. From a purely visual comparison, Edmonton's geography and skyline reminds me of Austin, and Calgary geography and skyline reminds me of Denver.
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Bingo. Edmonton has just as much in common with Houston as Calgary does and Calgary has just as much in common with Austin as Edmonton does. And it’s not a lot. Edmonton and Calgary are much more alike to each other than to those cities.
If one compares Canadian cities to American cities, there are always some comparisons that can be made. Ottawa and Washington are similar because both are national capitals. Calgary and Denver are similar because both of nearby ski resorts and mountains. Winnipeg’s exchange district is similar to many of the old buildings in Chicago. Hamilton and Pittsburgh are both the steel capitals of their respective countries. Vancouver and Seattle are both large coastal cities on the Pacific.
Calgary is similar to Houston in that both cities have head offices for oil companies, Edmonton and Houston are similar in that both cities have refineries and are the operational support oil field services.
Edmonton and Austin are similar in that both cities are capitals, Calgary and Austin are similar in that both have a significant tech sector. Houston has a large medical sector, as does Edmonton. Calgary and Austin both have a higher percentage of University graduates.
There are many things that are somewhat similar but many things that aren’t similar between the Canadian cities and the American cities.
 
trtcttc said:
While Vancouver does have a land issue, if the population growth continues there's plenty of land in Delta and if they build a stronger commuter rail network, the metro area could get larger. I'm actually pretty optimistic on Montreal's growth. Our immigrants have mostly been English speaking, especially from East and South Asia in the past 20/30 years. However, as African countries' middle class get larger, we could definitely see an increase in immigrants from Francophone countries in Africa which the language would actually be a draw, not to mention the lower cost of living.
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If Vancouver can keep up growing by numbers like 77K per year, then anything's possible. It's so hard to tell what's coming down the pipe. My only prediction that I'm certain of is that Vancouver will close the gap on Montreal, and it might not be a lot, but in 20 years, I could see Vancouver sitting at just over 4M and Montreal just over 5M.
 
For me comparisons are always context based. I agree, to me Dallas, Atlanta and Houston are very similar, yet also have some differences. Calgary and Edmonton seem more alike than those 3 cities are to each other. That said, Calgary and Edmonton do have some similarities to those cities as well. Much the way eastern Canadian cities might seem somewhat similar to Eastern American cities. I find it's as easy to find similarities as it is differences in most city comparisons.
 
My prediction is the order of Canada’s top six cities today will remain in the same order 20 years from now with the gaps widening or lessoning, but keeping the same order.

Toronto 9.0M
Montreal 5.0M
Vancouver 4.0M
Calgary 2.6M
Edmonton 2.1M
Ottawa 1.9M
 
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Patrick.1980 said:
My prediction is the order of Canada’s top six cities today will remain in the same order 20 years from now with the gaps widening or lessoning, but keeping the same order.

Toronto 9.0M
Montreal 5.0M
Vancouver 4.0M
Calgary 2.6M
Edmonton 2.1M
Ottawa 1.9M
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Quite a gap between Calgary and Edmonton. I would have predicted probably closer to 300K difference. Toronto no surprise, it'll be keep exploding., bit I'm not sure Vancouver will be at 4.0M in 20 years. They had huge numbers due to the backlog of immigration, but I would expect to see Vancouver more like 3.6M.

Here are my predictions. Same order, but different numbers.

Toronto 8.5M
Montreal 4.9M
Vancouver 3.6M
Calgary 2.4M
Edmonton 2.1M
Ottawa 2.0M
Kitchener Waterloo 1.1M
Winnipeg 1.0M

An interesting race will be Winnipeg and Kitchener-Waterloo. Right now KW trails by 200K, but I predict they'll pass Winnipeg in 20 years or less. Winnipeg is growing solely on Philippine immigrants, which could and probably will drop beyond Winnipeg's control whereas KW is really starting to kick it in gear and will be a hub of job creation. KW will also be big benefactor of intra-provincial migration from Toronto.
 
Once the government satisfies the backlog of intl immigration, we'll have a better idea of how the growth looks for Canada's large metros. I always forget about KW, but they are an upcoming force, and I wouldn't be shocked to see them overtake Winnipeg sometime in 20 years. As you pointed out Winnipeg's growth is heavily reliant on Filipino immigrants and could drastically change. Without that immigration, growth would be heavily curbed, maybe even going flat. I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, but IIRC Winnipeg's growth overall was actually less than the net amount from intl immigration.
 
Here’s mine,

Toronto 9.0M
Montreal 5.0M
Vancouver 3.8M
Calgary 2.5M
Edmonton 2.1M
Ottawa 1.8M

Calgary and Edmonton will be 400k apart. They’re essentially 200k apart now and Calgary will grow by an average of 10k more per year. Calgary is just starting to find its stride and is now starting to push that pedal to the metal. If Calgary can keep housing costs down, there don’t be anything stopping it. Edmonton will also do well with solid growth.

Vancouver will see it’s growth slow down as it simply becomes too expensive. This will be especially noticeable when immigration numbers go back to normal.

Ottawa will slow as it has always relied on public sector jobs, and those jobs will be increasingly spread to other cities via remote work. It’s status as Silicon Valley North stalled out some time ago and those jobs are now spreading out to other cities. The GTA and to lesser extent Vancouver are taking that role.

Montreal will plod along at a decent pace, but the French language will hold it back. There won’t be enough immigrants from French speaking African counties for it to see explosive growth, but it will do okay.

Toronto will keep growing at a high pace. It’s Canada’s version of London of New York and nothing’s going to slow it down.
 
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Yeah I firmly believe that at the end of the day, Edmonton and Calgary are most similar to each other than any other cities in Canada or in the US for that matter. I should've rephrased my initial post better to say that the comparisons with Houston and Austin are more so in the sense of their perception and importance on a national scale then in culture, environment, people etc. Edmonton and Calgary are very much alike and are really intertwined with each other.

My predictions:

Toronto 9.0M
Montreal 5.0M
Vancouver 3.9M
Calgary 2.6M
Edmonton 2.3M
Ottawa 1.9M
 
Beltline_B said:
As a population stats nerd I approve of this thread 😎
I won’t make any long range predictions other than the existing order of the top 6 will be the same.
If housing starts are anything to go by population growth of the top 6 cities this year will be the same as last year.
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Hard to say with housing starts as to how the population numbers will shake out. We see from last year that Cgy/Van/Edm population was fairly consistent with housing starts, but Montreal had quite a few more starts...almost as many as Van, but half the population growth. Housing starts for the first 6 months of 2023 are similar to last year's pace except Mtl, which has dropped off, Mtl had quite a few apartment units as housing starts and maybe overbuilt?
It'll be interesting to see how the last half of 2023 goes, and also what the population growth looks like at the end of it.

Calgary
2022 - 49000 / 17,306 population growth per housing start 2.831
2023 - ? / 8106

Edmonton
2022 - 35000 / 14,586 population growth per housing start 2.399
2023 - ? / 5072

Vancouver
2022 - 77000 / 25,983 population growth per housing start 2.963
2023 - ? / 17,458

Montreal
2022 - 38000 / 24,149 population growth per housing start 1.573
2023 - ? / 5,927
 
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Surrealplaces said:
Hard to say with housing starts as to how the population numbers will shake out. We see from last year that Cgy/Van/Edm population was fairly consistent with housing starts, but Montreal had quite a few more starts...almost as many as Van, but half the population growth. Housing starts for the first 6 months of 2023 are similar to last year's pace except Mtl, which has dropped off, Mtl had quite a few apartment units as housing starts and maybe overbuilt?
It'll be interesting to see how the last half of 2023 goes, and also what the population growth looks like at the end of it.

Calgary
2022 - 49000 / 17,306 population growth per housing start 2.831
2023 - ? / 8106

Edmonton
2022 - 35000 / 14,586 population growth per housing start 2.399
2023 - ? / 5072

Vancouver
2022 - 77000 / 25,983 population growth per housing start 2.963
2023 - ? / 17,458

Montreal
2022 - 38000 / 24,149 population growth per housing start 1.573
2023 - ? / 5,927
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Interesting data!

I would imagine short-term population fluctuation would make this pop growth/ housing start metric flutter around quite substantially and therefore not be all that meaningful. A 5 year or 10 year moving average is likely a more accurately measuring the ability to produce housing at pace with to population growth maybe?

The other angle here that one of @ByeByeBaby's cool data graphs would inform is that you aren't really trying to measure population growth to housing, I would assume you really are more interested in net new household formations. That's way more complex, but would include all the regular stuff around population growth but also the demographic nuances.

For example if Montreal's robust rental market and long-term rental culture likely has unique capacities that other places wouldn't. Many new people will find roommates within the existing stock, whereas that may not be as common in other places and therefore seek a unit entirely on their own. So for every unit of growth, Montreal may not need to produce as much housing to keep everyone housed. That's just a theory and likely not a huge factor - but I'd imagine every city and variable would have that kind of nuance.

Calgary's numbers look almost as bad as Toronto's but - we had a particularly large one-year spike and our housing starts have more SFHs - around 30 - 50% I think? Toronto would be close to zero. So a unit in Calgary is likely larger and (in theory) accommodates more people on average as a result.

Perhaps what we are after is household formation rate / liveable sqft production rate or something? No idea if that's a knowable ratio, I will leave that to our housing and demography nerd friends on here :)
 
The census estimates housing suitability against the National Occupancy Standard:
The Canadian National Occupancy Standard assesses the bedroom requirements of a household based on the following criteria:
  • There should be no more than two persons per bedroom;
  • Children less than 5 years of age of different sexes may reasonably share a bedroom;
  • Children 5 years of age or older of opposite sex should have separate bedrooms;
  • Children less than 18 years of age and of the same sex may reasonably share a bedroom; and
  • Single household members 18 years or over should have a separate bedroom, as should parents or couples.
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here is the 2021 map:
censusmapper.ca

Unsuitable Housing

This map shows the percentage of households living in 'unsuitable' housing. Unsuitable means that there are too many people occupying the dwelling unit to live comfortably together, according to the N
censusmapper.ca censusmapper.ca
 
Munanyo said:
Yeah I firmly believe that at the end of the day, Edmonton and Calgary are most similar to each other than any other cities in Canada or in the US for that matter. I should've rephrased my initial post better to say that the comparisons with Houston and Austin are more so in the sense of their perception and importance on a national scale then in culture, environment, people etc. Edmonton and Calgary are very much alike and are really intertwined with each other.

My predictions:

Toronto 9.0M
Montreal 5.0M
Vancouver 3.9M
Calgary 2.6M
Edmonton 2.3M
Ottawa 1.9M
Click to expand...
For sure, I get where you’re coming from. Not being originally from Alberta, and not being here that long I haven’t had a chance to get to know all the differences between the two cities.
I lived in Texas for two years and when I moved to Calgary I sometimes heard people say Calgary was similar to Houston and I was always puzzled. Lol
I’ve heard people say Calgary is the Denver of Canada, and I can see some similarities there because if the mountains but I could never see any resemblance between Houston and Calgary. I suppose other than the oil company head offices.
A thing I don’t think of a lot of people realize is even though Houston is the oil company capital of the US, the oil industry itself doesn’t have as big s profile in the city as one might expect. I used to travel between Houston and Atlanta regularly, as I had a girlfriend in Atlanta, and to be honest, the two cities could’ve been twins lol.
Anyhow, back to Calgary and Edmonton, I haven’t spent much time in Edmonton but when I was there, I liked it. It reminded me a lot of Calgary and so far I’m really liking Calgary.
 
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