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

Nortel was also much better at spending money than earning it, and was overly focused on chasing government subsidies than solving customer problems. NovaTel's ultimate downfall was that it juiced revenue through vendor financing (i.e. selling product on credit). The US carrier wireless market was very fragmented at the time. Different companies would service different areas of the same city. NovaTel agressively pursued carriers with low credit quality and ultimately too many of them didn't pay. It should have pursued the Bombardier and AECL strategy of Export Development Canada financing the sketchy customers.
 
Here' are my predictions.

Toronto 12.0M
Montreal 5.0M
Vancouver 3.6M
Calgary 2.8M
Edmonton 2.3M
Ottawa 2.2M

I predict Toronto will run away with things, as they keep adding people and will probably expand their metro CSa boundaries. Maybe including Hamilton by then. Montreal will grow, but not very fast. Vancouver will do okay, but the high cost of living is going to damper their immigration numbers as immigrants (and many Vancouverites) look for places less expensive. That trend wasn't there in the past, but is starting.
Calgary will do well, especially over the next 10 years. It went through a 7 year period that was economically disastrous for the city and still had stronger growth than contemporaries Edmonton and Ottawa during that time period. Now that its coming out of that prolonged downturn it's starting to starting to put some distance between itself and the others.
Edmonton and Ottawa will do fine. Edmonton doing better than Ottawa, but Ottawa having solid growth.
 
Atticus said:
Here' are my predictions.

Toronto 12.0M
Montreal 5.0M
Vancouver 3.6M
Calgary 2.7M
Edmonton 2.3M
Ottawa 2.2M

I predict Toronto will run away with things, as they keep adding people and will probably expand their metro CSa boundaries. Maybe including Hamilton by then. Montreal will grow, but not very fast. Vancouver will do okay, but the high cost of living is going to damper their immigration numbers as immigrants (and many Vancouverites) look for places less expensive. That trend wasn't there in the past, but is starting.
Calgary will do well, especially over the next 10 years. It had stronger growth than contemporaries Edmonton and Ottawa over a 7 year period that was economically disastrous., and now that its coming out of that prolonged downturn it's starting to starting to leave some distance.
Edmonton and Ottawa will do fine. Edmonton doing better, but Ottawa having solid growth.
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I could see Toronto swallowing Durham (Oshawa), Barrie, Guelph, KW, Hamilton and St. Catherine's-Niagara, but its growth must slow due to affordability. If a median housing unit is only achievable by the top income decile, fewer people will move there. Vancouver will likley swallow Abbotsford (Fraser Valley), but its growth will also slow due to affordability. I suspect immigration will slow regardless of targets due to Canada's poor economic performance and high cost of living. I could see Calgary as the growth leader in the foreseeable future simply due to lower housing costs and taxes. It has the natural advantage of got being hemmed in by geography and neighboring communities, and is comparatively less NIMBY and socialist than other Canadian cities. Canada seems poised for a major reset given how its problems finally boiled over post-COVID.
 
Toronto 10.0M
Montreal 5.0M
Vancouver 4.0M
Calgary 2.8M
Edmonton 2.3M
Ottawa 1.9M
 
darwink said:
Edmonton surged ahead and ended single family zoning and many parking requirements which are still under consideration in Calgary.
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Isn't that just a stunt? Neighborhood residents can still file appeals based ln traffic, safety etc. Zoning is not a barrier to housing in Calgary or Edmonton. Calgary easily has enough mostly NIMBY unencumbered and underutilized inner city land to build hundreds of thousands of units: Beltline (especially the eastern side and Stampede Grounds), Mission, Sunalta, West Village, Currie, Westbrook, University District, Eau Claire, DT, and East Village, dt rail corridor. I could see huge additional lands opening I Alyth in the not too distant future if CP relocates its marshalling yard. Plus many inner city areas already have approved ARPs that allow up zoning (ex. Altadore).
 
How things turn out with blanket zoning is hard to tell at this point. I think changing minimum parking requirements would have an impact in Calgary, as developers seem to have an appetite for doing projects with little or no parking. I don't believe developments with no parking could be done everywhere, but it could certainly be done in areas that already have parking controls like permit parking, etc..
 
Surrealplaces said:
How things turn out with blanket zoning is hard to tell at this point. I think changing minimum parking requirements would have an impact in Calgary, as developers seem to have an appetite for doing projects with little or no parking. I don't believe developments with no parking could be done everywhere, but it could certainly be done in areas that already have parking controls like permit parking, etc..
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Defiantly lots of potential to reduce parking requirements.

I'd like to see the City take on something truly transformative and extremely challenging : opening up former and never built upon school sites to development.
 
DougB said:
I'd like to see the City take on something truly transformative and extremely challenging : opening up former and never built upon school sites to development.
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That would take a bit of lifting from your provincial friends I would think, isn’t the existence or non-existence of a school (and therefore whether land is empty, used or underused) all provincially triggered?

how many sites and hectares are we talking about here ? What’s the scale of opportunity for random non-built (and never will be built) school sites ?
 
I think the idea of building on a portion of school lands is worth looking into on a site by site basis.
There’s no question there are lots of schools that have big open fields that are rarely used for much. Especially in the inner city where there are multiple schools in short distances ic each other.
Perhaps a portion of the schoolyard, at the end of the field for example, could be sold to developers, and part of the money goes back to the school board as an overall endowment fund and a smaller portion could go into an endowment fund for the specific school.

I'll pick on this NW school as my son went there so I'm very familiar with it. The section of playground marked in red is rarely used as 80% of the students play and hang within 30m of the school, and another 15% hanging in the 90m range. The ball diamond is used only once in a while during the summer, but could still be moved.

1694375965410.png





The ball diamond moves south, and a small low-rise multifamily development goes in at the far end as shown. I've used an example of a 4 storey development from 17th ave NW that has 36 units per building. Two buildings would make a nice 72 units to an area which is adjacent to a bus route and a bike lane, and a stone's throw from a beautiful park.
I'm guessing here, but suppose the land was sold for $7 million. The province or school board could take $5 Million and put into an endowment fund, and the school could take $2 million. After all it is the school who's losing some of its land. This could be a game changer as many inner city schools have the land available on main arteries and bus routes and is attractive to developers.
The endowment fund ensures that inner city schools have options to offer programs or incentives to attract students and keep schools well maintained as the inner city child populations increase. If the schools do well it's an extra incentive for people to raise children in the inner city and send them to schools already built.

1694377339072.png
 
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Surrealplaces said:
I think the idea of building on a portion of school lands is worth looking into on a site by site basis.
There’s no question there are lots of schools that have big open fields that are rarely used for much. Especially in the inner city where there are multiple schools in short distances ic each other.
Perhaps a portion of the schoolyard, at the end of the field for example, could be sold to developers, and part of the money goes back to the school board as an overall endowment fund and a smaller portion could go into an endowment fund for the specific school.

I'll pick on this NW school as my son went there so I'm very familiar with it. The section of playground marked in red is rarely used as 80% of the students play and hang within 30m of the school, and another 15% hanging in the 90m range. The ball diamond is used only once in a while during the summer, but could still be moved.

View attachment 505517




The ball diamond moves south, and a small low-rise multifamily development goes in at the far end as shown. I've used an example of a 4 storey development from 17th ave NW that has 36 units per building. Two buildings would make a nice 72 units to an area which is adjacent to a bus route and a bike lane, and a stone's throw from a beautiful park.
I'm guessing here, but suppose the land was sold for $7 million. The province or school board could take $5 Million and put into an endowment fund, and the school could take $2 million. After all it is the school who's losing some of its land. This could be a game changer as many inner city schools have the land available on main arteries and bus routes and is attractive to developers.
The endowment fund ensures that inner city schools have options to offer programs or incentives to attract students and keep schools well maintained as the inner city child populations increase. If the schools do well it's an extra incentive for people to raise children in the inner city and send them to schools already built.

View attachment 505521
Click to expand...
Not a bad idea. But should we seek to burn political capital at two levels of government to create 50 Richmond Green conflicts.
 
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