Population within a 150km radius of your city

[MolsonExport]

Has the number from Calgary gone up?

[koops65]

Of course it has... if Calgary gets 36 500 new residents a year, that means 100 a day...

[craneSpotter]

Originally Posted by lio45

I'm not a bird, I'm a driver. Any metric that considers that I'm a bird is flawed. Period.

The 150km (or whatever) radius is just a measure of population density within a given area/region around a point. It is what it is! 150km is not a far distance! In the US I believe they use 100 miles (161km) as a market service radius. A good example is the oft quoted 100 mile diet

A road between two points might be two lanes and curvy, so 100km may take 1.5 hours. Or maybe it is straight and freeway class with light traffic, so in that 1.5 hours you can go 160km. Or may that freeway has heavy traffic for most of the day and in that 1.5 hours you can only make it 100km. Travel time has too many variables (congestion/construction/speed limits/inclement weather) to be used as a metric - distance makes more sense so they use that. Places within that 150km radius, some educated persons have deemed, have influence on each other and can be visited and serviced fairly easily via the roads and such that are in place - and of course the higher the population density the more travel options/routes are in place (secondary highways/freeway/ferry/train/bridge)

For example Victoria has 4 ferry services off Island, 1 to the Lower mainland and 3 to Washington State (Anacortes, Port Angeles and downtown Seattle). Ferries are really just in place of bridges that would be too costly to build. BC ferries even used to managed under the Ministry of Highways, before it became quasi-crown.

[GernB]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Alberta is now the fastest growing province by both percentage and Absolute numbers, only in the last year has it passed Ontario, but still it's impressive, hardly a backwater. Or did you mean that Lethbridge isn't seeing a big influx? Because even still, I think that is false. Lethbridge has been growing by over 2% per year for over a decade.

Oh no Chad, Lethbridge is growing, and fairly rapidly. But not as much as those places more affected by the oil boom. It was only a few decades ago that Lethbridge was twice the size of Red Deer; now we're smaller, and losing ground steadily. Although much of that was a result of the regressive policies of city council (an old cliche was that Red Deer's chamber of commerce considered Lethbridge's city council their biggest booster) most of it is that we are outside the oilfield administrative and service area. We are more or less a different province than the north and are treated that way by the provincial government. Generally we are treated as an afterthought (if even that) by Her Majesty Allison and her court.

Sorry for the rambling.

[Mike K.]

Originally Posted by lio45

Actually, I think the best "case" to highlight how useless this metric is is Victoria. (Free pro tip for Seattle storeowners: don't spend your money on marketing in Victoria.)

People go on one or two day shopping trips to Seattle all the time, and vice versa. The Clipper ferry sails between downtown Seattle and downtown Victoria up to three times per day. Seattle businesses advertise in Victoria regularly, and vice versa. If you want to take your car you catch the Coho ferry to Port Angeles and drive over. It's no big deal.

Far too many people think living in Victoria is like living in a silo, but hell, we've got two massive cities on our doorstep and more sea and air-based infrastructure connecting them than you'd imagine. There are more flights between Victoria International and Vancouver International than any two airports in Canada, and if you add floatplanes and helicopters into the mix there are over 60 daily flights during the low season (far more in the high season) between Victoria and metro Vancouver.

[Dylan Leblanc]

Originally Posted by craneSpotter

Outside what city? Victoria proper?

Certainly not everyone has this problem, but I live in deep Fairfield and when I want to get out of the city during afternoon rush hour it takes the better part of an hour to get to the Malahat Drive

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Mike K.

Far too many people think living in Victoria is like living in a silo, but hell, we've got two massive cities on our doorstep and more sea and air-based infrastructure connecting them than you'd imagine. There are more flights between Victoria International and Vancouver International than any two airports in Canada, and if you add floatplanes and helicopters into the mix there are over 60 daily flights during the low season (far more in the high season) between Victoria and metro Vancouver.

So, so, so painfully jealous of B.C.'s internal transportation options.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Mike K.

Far too many people think living in Victoria is like living in a silo, but hell, we've got two massive cities on our doorstep and more sea and air-based infrastructure connecting them than you'd imagine.

It's somewhere in between a 2-hour drive and a 2-hour flight. A 3-hour drive with a ferry ride feels to me like the equivalent to driving for 4 or 5 hours, like going from Vancouver to Kelowna. It costs a bit more though.

I think part of the reason for these debates is that the "radius" numbers are often used by people talking about things like pro sports teams. Victoria's a nice long weekend destination for people from Vancouver or Seattle but it's not a "hub" for the region.

The dynamics are pretty similar everywhere. The Maple Leafs aren't going to move to Hamilton, even though it probably has more people within a 150 km radius than Toronto. Part of the reason for that is that you have to "discount" people who are farther away. A person living in a city is not the same as a person 45 minutes away or 1.5 hours away, and the gap is even larger once you start talking about international borders or multiple modes of transportation.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Mike K.

So if I see a TwoDaysInCuba.com or a TwoDaysInVegas.com or a TwoDaysInMiami.com on a Montreal city bus, which are actually things that you'll see once in a while (well, obviously, it's going to be more than only two days), it means Cuba is within the "marketing radius of Montreal"...?

[bt04ku]

Originally Posted by cam477

It’s funny you bring up Invermere. I used to live there and despite being almost 3 hours from Calgary, the town has very strong ties to Calgary, much more than any city in BC. The nearest city is Cranbrook BC which is still 75 to 80 minutes away and it’s still a small city. Most people in Invermere (and the rest of the Columbia Valley) would drive to Calgary pretty much every month for shopping, etc. On the other hand, the entire tourism industry in the Columbia Valley is based on people from Calgary. Of course there would be tourists from all over Alberta and the world, but the vast, vast majority were from Calgary. Invermere is also on Mountain Time which probably further highlights it’s link to Calgary. The Calgary Herald was also the most common paper you’d see around town.

There is no set driving distance or time that would stop a community from have a strong tie to another community. It’s all relative.

When you consider the sheer amount of property owners in the Columbia Valley who are from Calgary, it is definitely appropriate to consider it in the city's "sphere of influence", certainly moreso than the likes of Red Deer or Lethbridge ever would be.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by cam477

It’s funny you bring up Invermere. I used to live there and despite being almost 3 hours from Calgary, the town has very strong ties to Calgary, much more than any city in BC. The nearest city is Cranbrook BC which is still 75 to 80 minutes away and it’s still a small city. Most people in Invermere (and the rest of the Columbia Valley) would drive to Calgary pretty much every month for shopping, etc. On the other hand, the entire tourism industry in the Columbia Valley is based on people from Calgary. Of course there would be tourists from all over Alberta and the world, but the vast, vast majority were from Calgary. Invermere is also on Mountain Time which probably further highlights it’s link to Calgary. The Calgary Herald was also the most common paper you’d see around town.

There is no set driving distance or time that would stop a community from have a strong tie to another community. It’s all relative.

You can see that here as well. It's my impression that south of Corner Brook, the southwest coast of Newfoundland is much much closely aligned with the Maritimes than with St. John's. Places like Stephenville, Port-aux-Basques, etc. Halifax is an easier trip for them than St. John's, and seems to be the direction they head more often.

[Razor]

How about QC? any-one have an educated guess?

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by Razor

How about QC? any-one have an educated guess?

Maybe between 1 and 1.5 million.

[MTLskyline]

Quebec City


http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm

Capitale-Nationale Region 700,616
Chaudière-Appalaches Region 410,829
Mauricie Region 263,063
Centre-du-Québec Region 234,163
Estrie Region (Les Sources RCM and le Granit RCM) 37,015
Bas-Saint-Laurent Region (Kamouraska RCM) 21,492
Plus some mostly unhabited areas of Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean Region and Maine.
Total = 1,667,178

[FrAnKs]

You forgot Arthabaska, becancour and Drummond counties. They count for ±190 000 peoples.

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by FrAnKs

You forgot Arthabaska, becancour and Drummond counties. They count for ±190 000 peoples.

Arthabaska MRC is in Centre-du-Québec, biggest city is Victoriaville.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthaba...d.27Arthabaska

Victoriaville population in 2011 : 43,462 metro 46,354 • Pop 2006-2011 Increase 7.4% unemployment rate less than 5%
early 2013 : 44 313 should hit 50,000 before 2020.

this small city is doing pretty good.

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by MTLskyline

I was kind of curious to see what it would be for Cornwall, Ontario since it is within the radius of both Ottawa and Montreal.
'
http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm

This is a bit of a rough estimate since I mostly used counties rather than city borders.

Ontario: 1,253,043
Quebec: 4,666,340
Total Canada: 5,919,383

New York: 428,494
Vermont: 213,220
Total US: 641,714

Total within 150km radius of Cornwall, ON (approx): 6,561,097

This is nice, but can we actually see a radius for Montreal itself? I'm curious.

[Razor]

As far as Canada goes, the area around QC is actually decently populated..All in all Ottawa and QC have roughly the same market area even though Ottawa is technically a larger city...I'm no marketer or human geographer, but I would be curious to know if a city like QC with a population of 800,000 anchoring a region of 1.6 million draws in the same consumer dollars as say a city of even a million anchoring a more sparsely populated region of let's say 1.3 ..Bear in mind that not all people in that 150 km radius would make regular trips into the city, especially if their town is decently serviced already...Probably next to impossible to guage....Hamilton is a perfect example..Actually, any city in the GTA would draw in more dollars than their size would allude to. People do travel for something worthwhile, so if you have some famous bakery in the outskirts of Cornwall, you may do just as as well as you would if you were in dt Ottawa just by default of the market size around you.

[lio45]

If you want a concrete example of why this radius way of measuring spheres of influence sucks, I just have one that happened to me yesterday night...

I'm spending a few days at my girlfriend's place in St. Albans VT (northernmost town along I-89, really not far from St-Jean-sur-Richelieu)... it's squarely within Montreal's radius sphere of influence... it's also within Cornwall's, as we can see from the pic quoted above... (When we were discussing the possibility of me moving here, she was like "are you sure?" and I was "you know, me moving from Sherbrooke to your place in VT would actually mean me moving CLOSER to my Montreal south shore customers... (and I'm self-employed, so why not?)")


So, yesterday, her roommate's kid's friend (they're both 9 years olds) was small talking me asking me if I were a Bruins fan (he had a Bruins hat on)... I've observed that people here will generally be wearing gear with the logos of the Bruins, Patriots, Celtics... it's their local teams.

The thing is, if someone in charge of deciding which NHL hats they should be shipping to stock the shelves of the local store here was using the metric described in this thread, he would conclude that the proper business choice is to stock the shelves mostly with Canadiens hats and then some Senators hats as a second choice...

...and they wouldn't sell, because the right decision would have been to load up the shelves with Boston Bruins hats. Which the bird fly influence metric does not tell you.

Just pointing out... (I personally don't have anything against it, I just think it's very flawed, is all.)

[Southpaw78]

A fun way to spend a lazy New Years Day...For Saint John, NB

Includes:

NEW BRUNSWICK

Saint John 127 761
Moncton CMA 138 644
Fredericton 94 268
Charlotte County 26 549
Sussex Corner 1 495
Sussex 4 312
Queens County 11 086
Sunbury County 25 776
Kingsclear Parish 6 689
Nackawic 1 049
TOTAL 437 629

MAINE

Eastport 1 331
Calais 3 123
Machias 2 221
TOTAL 6 675

NOVA SCOTIA

Digby County 18 036
Annapolis County 20 756
Kings County 60 589
TOTAL 99 381

OVERALL TOTAL = 543 685