2019 Population Estimate of Canadian Metropolitan Areas

[Nite]

Statscan just released the latest metropolitan stats for Canadian cities


https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1...uest_locale=en

I know it's against statcan's rule to merge CMA's once they are created but I wish the following CMA's were merged into one

Toronto - Hamilton - Oshawa: 7,680,502
Vancouver - Abbotsford - Mission: 2,893,304
Kitchener - Waterloo - Guleph: 749,495

[edale]

I always forget how small the major Canadian cities are (Toronto excluded). Their skylines way over-perform compared to their size. Impressive growth all around, though!

[Nite]

Originally Posted by edale

I always forget how small the major Canadian cities are (Toronto excluded). Their skylines way over-perform compared to their size. Impressive growth all around, though!

Canada and the US don't use the methodology when measuring metropolitan populations so no use comparing the two results

[edale]

Originally Posted by Nite

Canada and the US don't you the methodology when measuring metropolitan populations so no use comparing the two results

I know this. Doesn't change the fact that Vancouver is roughly a ~3 million person metro, which is roughly the size of Tampa or San Diego. Vancouver just seems so much larger and more important than those cities, and obviously has way more skyscrapers. Canadian cities punch above their weight when it comes to urban development.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Nite

Canada and the US don't you the methodology when measuring metropolitan populations so no use comparing the two results

They don't but our metros are still small relative to US metros. They have 53 metros over 1 million people. One could use US criteria and we'll still only have 6.

[GreaterMontréal]

If Montréal would be in the US, its MSA would be about 5M.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

If Montréal would be in the US, its MSA would be about 5M.

Highly unlikely. If Montreal were in the U.S. it would probably be significantly smaller, owing to cold weather, isolated location, and would be completely different structurally and culturally.

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Highly unlikely. If Montreal were in the U.S. it would probably be significantly smaller, owing to cold weather, isolated location, and would be completely different structurally and culturally.

I'm talking about how you mesure your metropolitan statistical areas.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Highly unlikely. If Montreal were in the U.S. it would probably be significantly smaller, owing to cold weather, isolated location, and would be completely different structurally and culturally.

That's taking the discussion to a whole different place, though.

His point is that Montreal is a Boston-sized city/metro. Different criteria for calculating metro area populations are what make it appear smaller to some.

I doubt most people in the U.S. would consider Boston or Philadelphia and others in the U.S. in Montreal's weight class, to be "small" cities.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Acajack

That's taking the discussion to a whole different place, though.

His point is that Montreal is a Boston-sized city/metro. Different criteria for calculating metro area populations are what make it appear smaller to some.

So the actual point is "if Canada used U.S. MSA classifications instead of Canadian metro classifications, Montreal would be more populous". That's possibly true, but irrelevant.

U.S. metros, apples-to-apples are much more expansive than non-U.S. metros. Atlanta is (physically) much bigger than Tokyo, even by MSA. But Atlanta really is that big; it would be silly to apply Tokyo standards to Atlanta.

Originally Posted by Acajack

I doubt most people in the U.S. would consider Boston or Philadelphia and others in the U.S. in Montreal's weight class, to be "small" cities.

I think that's a different argument. I also don't think Montreal is in Boston/Philly's weight class outside of urbanity.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think that's a different argument. I also don't think Montreal is in Boston/Philly's weight class outside of urbanity.

MTL and Boston feel about the same, Philly feels/is a bit bigger.

[GreaterMontréal]

Montréal has a lower GDP than Boston or Philadelphia but our population growth is a lot higher than these 2 cities combined. +176k since 2016-2017, July 1st.

Quebec added 100k people last year alone.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

Montréal has a lower GDP than Boston or Philadelphia but our population growth is a lot higher than these 2 cities combined. +176k since 2016-2017, July 1st.

Quebec added 100k people last year alone.

Montreal's recent growth has been a pleasant surprise. By mid century (30 years from now) I wouldn't be surprised if Montreal became more populous than both Boston and Philadelphia.

[Capsicum]

One thing that's a striking contrast to the US is that in Canada, all of the cities (above a certain size, like the ones making the list) aren't declining in population.

In the US, inter-city mobility means some lose, some gain. But in Canada, it's like all the cities are gaining.

I wonder why that is? It can't only be international migration (which indeed props up the growth of bigger cities) because even small cities that are not known for being super major international/interprovincial migrant destinations aren't dropping (they are all keeping steady and growing, even if slowly).

There's no equivalent of something like a city of a million (or even half million or quarter million) or more bleeding population and another city elsewhere in the same or different part of the country picking up or gaining that loss, the way the Rust Belt loses to the Sunbelt.

What's up -- just that Canada doesn't really get the dynamic city-to-city movement that the US gets (or all the growth is small town to big city?).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

One thing that's a striking contrast to the US is that in Canada, all of the cities (above a certain size, like the ones making the list) aren't declining in population.

In the US, inter-city mobility means some lose, some gain. But in Canada, it's like all the cities are gaining.

I wonder why that is? It can't only be international migration (which indeed props up the growth of bigger cities) because even small cities that are not known for being super major international/interprovincial migrant destinations aren't dropping (they are all keeping steady and growing, even if slowly).

There's no equivalent of something like a city of a million (or even half million or quarter million) or more bleeding population and another city elsewhere in the same or different part of the country picking up or gaining that loss, the way the Rust Belt loses to the Sunbelt.

What's up -- just that Canada doesn't really get the dynamic city-to-city movement that the US gets (or all the growth is small town to big city?).

Do you mean city or regional population? It isn't exactly common for major U.S. metros to lose population, either. But declining inner cities usually get all of the media attention.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Do you mean city or regional population? It isn't exactly common for major U.S. metros to lose population, either. But declining inner cities usually get all of the media attention.

Actually I think that raises a good point. Canadian cities had a tendency to amalgamate (merge) cities with their suburbs during some phases of growth (e.g. Toronto pre-1998 was much smaller until it merged with former suburbs) which might mask the decline of some cities that do lose population in one part but gain in another (not Toronto in particular now, although it too had population drops due to suburbanization in the latter part of the 20th century, but the effect may still apply elsewhere in contemporary times).

I wonder if the difference would be smaller if this was considered (imagine if Chicago or Detroit offset their decline by annexing/amalgamating suburbs, not that politically that would be feasible!).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Actually I think that raises a good point. Canadian cities had a tendency to amalgamate (merge) cities with their suburbs during some phases of growth (e.g. Toronto pre-1998 was much smaller until it merged with former suburbs) which might mask the decline of some cities that do lose population in one part but gain in another (not Toronto in particular now, although it too had population drops due to suburbanization in the latter part of the 20th century, but the effect may still apply elsewhere in contemporary times).

I wonder if the difference would be smaller if this was considered (imagine if Chicago or Detroit offset their decline by annexing/amalgamating suburbs, not that politically that would be feasible!).

I can speak pretty authoritatively of Detroit, but it absolutely would not have deteriorated as badly as it did if the city government had more control over regional land use policies. I suspect that other places in the Midwest would be similar.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I can speak pretty authoritatively of Detroit, but it absolutely would not have deteriorated as badly as it did if the city government had more control over regional land use policies. I suspect that other places in the Midwest would be similar.

Agreed, but that isn't the main difference between Canadian/U.S. cities. A deamalgamated Toronto probably wouldn't be less healthy city and region, and I'm not sure if an amalgamated Detroit would be in much better shape than today, especially if said amalgamation had occurred in the late 60's through 2000 or so.

The differences are mostly nation-specific. Race, immigration, inequality, govt. intervention in housing markets, no Sunbelt, no GI Bill, etc.

[Handro]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I can speak pretty authoritatively of Detroit, but it absolutely would not have deteriorated as badly as it did if the city government had more control over regional land use policies. I suspect that other places in the Midwest would be similar.

True, Chicago metro has like 500 local government bodies with all sorts of differing priorities. One of the major victims is regional transit, which could have been a major catalyst for growth during the urban renaissance of the past 20 years.

[Handro]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

One thing that's a striking contrast to the US is that in Canada, all of the cities (above a certain size, like the ones making the list) aren't declining in population.

In the US, inter-city mobility means some lose, some gain. But in Canada, it's like all the cities are gaining.

I wonder why that is? It can't only be international migration (which indeed props up the growth of bigger cities) because even small cities that are not known for being super major international/interprovincial migrant destinations aren't dropping (they are all keeping steady and growing, even if slowly).

There's no equivalent of something like a city of a million (or even half million or quarter million) or more bleeding population and another city elsewhere in the same or different part of the country picking up or gaining that loss, the way the Rust Belt loses to the Sunbelt.

What's up -- just that Canada doesn't really get the dynamic city-to-city movement that the US gets (or all the growth is small town to big city?).

Fewer optoins, perhaps. The US has four times the number of cities with populations over 500k than Canada--that's a lot of economic clusters vying for people and jobs.