Today marks the release of the first tranche of Canada’s 2016 Census data: Population and dwelling counts. The next data release is scheduled for May 3, 2017, and will include age and sex, and type of dwelling. For the full release schedule, click here.
For policy makers, city builders, data nerds, and many others, today is an important day. And that’s because 2016 marked the return of the “mandatory long-form questionnaire”, which had been eliminated in the 2006 edition. The short-form questionnaire was used. That means it’s been over 10 years, since we’ve had access to long-form data about this country.
Given that the 2016 Census had one of the highest response rates on record (98.4%), I think it’s safe to say that most Canadians understand the value of good data. In fact, when the Census was released it started trending on Twitter, with many people complaining if they hadn’t receive the long-form version. People wanted more survey. They wanted the ability to share more information.
All of this is important because it helps decision making. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Toronto Star article:
“The mandatory long-form census questionnaire provided regions and cities and communities with really valuable and reliable long-term information about the changing nature of the city and its neighbourhood that’s not available from any other source,” said David Gordon, an urban planning professor from Queen’s University.
So stay tuned to the Census Program website. Regardless, I’m sure we will be seeing a surge of infographics and other activity following each data dump.
Whenever I read studies that cite census data, I’m often left feeling like the data is out-of-date.
Five years – which is how often Canada conducts its national census – is a long time. Somebody could move to this country for school, complete a 4-year degree, and then leave, and we wouldn’t even pick it up in our data.
Thankfully, we’ve at least reinstated the long-form census for next year. Here are the questions, if you’re curious.
But all of this is a digression.
This morning I read through a housing report that the City of Toronto published in October of this year. It’s about housing trends. And I wanted to share the below chart that covers housing completions for the period of 1996 to 2014. Keep in mind that this is for the City of Toronto, and not the Greater Toronto Area.
What it shows is that over this 18 year period, 78% of all housing completions in this city have been either low-rise or high-rise condominiums/apartments. The remaining 22% is a mix of detached and semi-detached houses and townhouses.
However, this 22% is an average.
Detached and semi-detached housing completions declined from 22% in the 1996-2001 period to 10% a decade later. And row and townhouses declined from 16% to 6% during this same period.
At the same time, “many” of the housing units in this 22% were actually replacing existing and older housing stock. That is, according to the report, many were “knock-downs” and rebuilds. In these cases, it means that the completions actually do not represent net new housing units. So in reality, the supply of new single-family housing is even lower than it appears in the chart above.
When you look at all of this, it should come as no surprise to you that our current combination of low interest rates and low supply has been leading to huge price increases on the single-family side of the market.
And it’s for this reason that I believe Toronto will eventually start to look towards allowing more low-rise intensification. Laneway housing, as one example, would represent virtually 100% new ground-related housing in already built up areas. Where else are we going to find that kind of housing opportunity?
So in my view, it is a question of when, not if, this will happen.
Today marks the release of the first tranche of Canada’s 2016 Census data: Population and dwelling counts. The next data release is scheduled for May 3, 2017, and will include age and sex, and type of dwelling. For the full release schedule, click here.
For policy makers, city builders, data nerds, and many others, today is an important day. And that’s because 2016 marked the return of the “mandatory long-form questionnaire”, which had been eliminated in the 2006 edition. The short-form questionnaire was used. That means it’s been over 10 years, since we’ve had access to long-form data about this country.
Given that the 2016 Census had one of the highest response rates on record (98.4%), I think it’s safe to say that most Canadians understand the value of good data. In fact, when the Census was released it started trending on Twitter, with many people complaining if they hadn’t receive the long-form version. People wanted more survey. They wanted the ability to share more information.
All of this is important because it helps decision making. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Toronto Star article:
“The mandatory long-form census questionnaire provided regions and cities and communities with really valuable and reliable long-term information about the changing nature of the city and its neighbourhood that’s not available from any other source,” said David Gordon, an urban planning professor from Queen’s University.
So stay tuned to the Census Program website. Regardless, I’m sure we will be seeing a surge of infographics and other activity following each data dump.
Whenever I read studies that cite census data, I’m often left feeling like the data is out-of-date.
Five years – which is how often Canada conducts its national census – is a long time. Somebody could move to this country for school, complete a 4-year degree, and then leave, and we wouldn’t even pick it up in our data.
Thankfully, we’ve at least reinstated the long-form census for next year. Here are the questions, if you’re curious.
But all of this is a digression.
This morning I read through a housing report that the City of Toronto published in October of this year. It’s about housing trends. And I wanted to share the below chart that covers housing completions for the period of 1996 to 2014. Keep in mind that this is for the City of Toronto, and not the Greater Toronto Area.
What it shows is that over this 18 year period, 78% of all housing completions in this city have been either low-rise or high-rise condominiums/apartments. The remaining 22% is a mix of detached and semi-detached houses and townhouses.
However, this 22% is an average.
Detached and semi-detached housing completions declined from 22% in the 1996-2001 period to 10% a decade later. And row and townhouses declined from 16% to 6% during this same period.
At the same time, “many” of the housing units in this 22% were actually replacing existing and older housing stock. That is, according to the report, many were “knock-downs” and rebuilds. In these cases, it means that the completions actually do not represent net new housing units. So in reality, the supply of new single-family housing is even lower than it appears in the chart above.
When you look at all of this, it should come as no surprise to you that our current combination of low interest rates and low supply has been leading to huge price increases on the single-family side of the market.
And it’s for this reason that I believe Toronto will eventually start to look towards allowing more low-rise intensification. Laneway housing, as one example, would represent virtually 100% new ground-related housing in already built up areas. Where else are we going to find that kind of housing opportunity?
So in my view, it is a question of when, not if, this will happen.
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