Under the Radar: Darkhorse small cities that could one day be very big

[Drybrain]

As others said, maybe Kelowna. Also Moncton, which has recently overtaken Saint John as the runner-up metro area in the Maritimes, and tends to grow at a good clip. New Brunswick would have to get a lot better at attracting immigrants, however, and even then,, there are two other nearby cities to cannibalize Moncton's growth, to say nothing of Halifax. Probably a longshot, but it will almost certainly become more prominent nationally as it heads into mid-sized range.

[kel]

I voted for Kelowna. It seems to be far enough away from othe major cities and will defiantly see an influx of baby boomers and and their children in the next 50 years from all over western Canada.

[Proof Sheet]

The most obvious city, Milton, has somehow been overlooked

[LeftCoaster]

Kelowna seemed to me to be the obvious choice.

I didn't include satellite cities such as Abbotsford, Barrie or Guelph though which seem to me to be more exurban sprawl than independent growth stories.

[saffronleaf]

Guelph will grow quickly.

[lio45]

In all honesty, the least unlikely of all of those to become a metro area of a few million is probably Red Deer -- all it'd take would be a loosening of the rules for what can constitute a metro area.

Some of the Ontario cities that are on the list can easily be swallowed by the GTA (if not already considered part of it), but they have zero chance of giving their name to the new metro, given that the center will obviously continue to be Toronto.

[giallo]

I voted Kelowna as well, but there are some factors that could keep it from growing too big - available land and access to enough water being the two that pop out in my mind. Outside of that, the city is already growing at a decent clip, offers a very decent lifestyle, and is nicely situated between Calgary and Vancouver.

[logan5]

Further to Pinion's post, instead of bridges to the coast, a fast passenger ferry would be even better in my opinion. A 25 minute ride from Gibsons to DT Vancouver would make Gibsons take off like a rocket. That's the equivalent of a Skytrain trip from New West to Downtown.

[MonctonRad]

I tend to agree with most of the choices people have made.

If I could choose more than one city to be growth candidates for the middle rung (between 75-250,000), I would choose Kelowna, Lethbridge, Red Deer, maybe Grand Prairie, Sudbury, Guelph, Kingston, Drummondville, Rimouski and Moncton. Let's call these "the next 10".

1) - Kelowna seems to have established itself as the inland capital of BC. Given it's ideal climate, it seems like a no brainer. Limited land availability due to geography could be an issue.
2) - Lethbridge is already the regional centre for southern AB and has a decent university, giving the community additional vigour.
3) - Red Deer - location, location, location (right between Calgary & Edmonton).
4) - Grande Prairie - Canada needs a few more northern population centres. Grand Prairie has the benefit of being located in productive farmland and is ideally located near the Alaska Highway.
5) - Sudbury - northern Ontario needs a regional capital. Sudbury fills the bill pretty well and has Laurentian University.
6) - Guelph - high tech, university and close to Toronto's orbit - success seems pretty much guaranteed.
7) - Kingston - ideally located between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and has Queens University. It's surprising that it isn't already larger than it is.
8) - Drummondville is ideally located between Montreal and QC on the A20. Future prosperity is pretty much guaranteed.
9) - Rimouski - Probably a bit of wishful thinking here, but the Gaspe needs a regional capital and Rimouski is the obvious choice. If Rimouski were to grow, this would also be beneficial to northern NB

10) - Moncton - OK, I'm going to play the home card here, but as Drybrain said, Moncton is now the #2 city in the Maritimes after Halifax, and I don't think it's going to look back. Acadians view Moncton as "Le Capitale de l'Acadie". English Maritimers call Moncton the "Hub City". In truth, it is both of these.

Moncton (like other cities I have chosen) is blessed with "location, location, location". Haligonians will grumble that "Halifax is closer to the population epicentre of the Maritimes", and while this may marginally be correct, there is no doubt that Moncton is at the geographic centre of the region. All traffic to NS, PE and NL has to pass through Moncton. This makes Moncton a logistical powerhouse. Moncton has also become a financial services centre (insurance and banking) and has a disproportionate number of federal and provincial civil servants (Atlantic Lotto, ACOA, Gulf Fisheries Centre, Corrections Canada, Transport Canada). Moncton is like Kingston in that regard (a non capital city with oodles of civil servants). Moncton also has two universities (three if you include Mount A in nearby Sackville). Demographically, Moncton is a young city (in contradistinction to the region in general which is aging). The young Maritime cities are Halifax, Moncton and Fredericton, and, not coincidentally, these are the three Maritime cities that are growing well.

Moncton will not challenge Halifax for Maritime supremacy, but it will increasingly become the business centre of NB and I think it will ultimately end up with a population of 225-250,000 by the end of the century (it's at 150,000 now).......

[GreaterMontréal]

There is no more place in Canada for another big city, we already have too many for our population. Medium size cities is our future. We need more cities in the 100k-300k range to balance the metropolitan areas.

We have a bunch of cities in the 50k-250k in Southern Quebec between Montréal and Quebec City, our population is pretty well balanced.

metro pop. (2016) from 2011

Sherbrooke : 212k , +4.4%
Trois-Rivières : 156k , +2.8%
Drummondville : 96k , +5%
Granby : 90k , +4.4%
Saint-Hyacinthe : 60k , +5%
Joliette : 50k , +4.7%
Victoriaville : 50k , +7.25% , +15% from 2006.

The A-55 corridor, with Drummondville and Victoriaville in the middle . population 700k

Trois-Rivières to Sherbrooke : 150km
Trois-Rivières to Victoriaville : 70km
Trois-Rivières to Drummondville : 70km
Drummondville to Victoriaville : 50km
Drummondville to Sherbrooke : 80km

We have 3 big regions in Southern Quebec, the Montréal extended region (5M), the A-55 corridor (700k), and the Capitale Nationale extended region (Beauce) (1.2M)

[LeftCoaster]

I would argue the exact opposite, that aside from the pressures caused by inflated housing markets, the western world seems to be congregating more and more into larger cities, as the de-industrialization of the west continues to separate the winning regions from the losing regions.

[SignalHillHiker]

I imagine it will be Red Deer.

But...

If the worst possible sea level rise ever happened (it won't), St. John's could grow. It's easily defended and even without protection most of the city would be fine. It'd be one of the only cities left standing on the entire east coast of North America.







So buy those Hummers. Let's make this a boomtown.

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I would argue the exact opposite, that aside from the pressures caused by inflated housing markets, the western world seems to be congregating more and more into larger cities, as the de-industrialization of the west continues to separate the winning regions from the losing regions.

Montréal represents 50% of the province's population. Montréal could be at 55% in 2040. but just because of satellite cities.

[LeftCoaster]

That's exactly my point. I think the winning cities will get larger while the smaller cities continue to experience low to negative growth rates.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

There is no more place in Canada for another big city, we already have too many for our population. Medium size cities is our future. We need more cities in the 100k-300k range to balance the metropolitan areas.)

Yes, I agree with this..Our country's table is basically set at this point, but it's nice to hypothesize about small cities becoming little beasts in the future..

[Blader]

I'm no seer over the long term.
That said:
International immigration
In those communities with sizable and stable immigration the economy of the city doesn't matter a lot. Entrepreneurship governs. Servicing in large measure their communities. Merchant class, if you will. Count this in your deliberations.

[vid]

Thunder Bay, obviously.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I would argue the exact opposite, that aside from the pressures caused by inflated housing markets, the western world seems to be congregating more and more into larger cities, as the de-industrialization of the west continues to separate the winning regions from the losing regions.

Is that what data shows, though? The fastest urban growth rates in the US are in places like Provo, Utah and Jacksonville, FlorIda and Raleigh, NC. New York and LA and Chicago are barely growing. In Europe, cities like Manchester and Brussels are the big gainers over your Londons and Berlins (not in raw numbers but by growth rate). Canada is really an outlier in that our big cities are also big growers, though even here, we see some smaller places outperforming.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by esquire

Even though the demand to do so may be immense, I would think that any steps toward building land connections to those areas would trigger the mother of all NIMBY conflicts.

Yep, some older people on the north shore still think the area should be a separated slow paced village. Those people shouldn't dictate policy though.

[ssiguy]

Abbotsford is probably the ugliest non-commodity based city in the country. It is an incredible dump and a wasteland of urban planning and has a downtown core of a town of 2,000.............it's Longueuil but with uglier architecture. To make matters worse it is also one of Canada's poorest a most crime ridden city. It has a huge Indo-Canadian population but unfortunately the slums of Calcutta are more attractive than Abbotsford.

Unfortunately I would place my bet on Abbotsford because it will benefit from more people fleeing Metro Vancouver as even Langley & Surrey are ghastly expensive compared to almost any other city in the country save Vancouver. Growth in Vancouver can also only head further east into the Valley unlike every other major Canadian metro.