A few days ago I tweeted this chart out (from Statistics Canada):

It is a list of the densest downtowns in Canada (people per square kilometer). But to be more precise, it is a list of the densest primary downtowns for each census metropolitan area.

In the case of Toronto, for instance, it considers downtown Toronto, but it does not consider downtown Mississauga, downtown Brampton, or any other "downtowns" across the CMA. And in the case of Vancouver, it ignores important centers such as Burnaby.

Many were quick to point this out on Twitter and it is a fair comment. Our cities are often more polycentric than a chart like this might make it seem.

The other thing to consider is that these density numbers are dependent on what you assume as the boundary for each downtown. For downtown Vancouver it's a fair bit easier because it is a peninsula surrounded by water.

But for downtown Toronto, it's more nebulous. Where do you draw the line? In this case, Statistics Canada is using the same downtown boundary as what's in our Official Plan, but that happens to include the lower-density University of Toronto lands. So are we comparing apples to apples?

I don't know. But go Hamilton!

The Globe and Mail published an interesting article this weekend talking about how Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, is the only major city in Canada to have lost people in the last census. Here are the population changes for the top 10 largest municipalities in the country:

There is a simple explanation for this and it is one we have talked about a number of times before on the blog. Many/most of our low-rise single-family neighborhoods are actually losing people. Empty nesters are becoming over-housed and young people aren't backfilling in quite the same way.

Mississauga has a lot of these neighborhoods and is heavily geared towards this kind of built form. But they are certainly not alone. The same phenomenon is happening in places like Toronto; there is just enough other growth to offset these negatives so that the headline number still remains positive.

However, this is slowly changing. Toronto is working to "expand housing options" in its low-rise neighborhoods; it is considering how to better intensify its major streets; and it is re-introducing small-scale retail uses so that people living in a house can easily walk to a corner store for milk.

It is a shift in mindset. But I believe that this trend will only continue, and eventually it will make its way to the suburbs.

Images: The Globe and Mail

This is a chart from a recent blog post by Ryerson University's Centre for Urban Research and Land Development. It shows net intraprovincial migration across the regions of the Greater Toronto Area. And what you are seeing here is people moving from expensive and built-up areas like the City of Toronto and the Region of Peel to lower cost areas further outside of the city.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. One, it's very much a natural market outcome. Many people tend to "vote with their feet" and look for greater housing affordability. And two, this is a trend that existed prior to COVID-19. It is not the death of cities. In the words of Ryerson's CUR, it's about people looking for more affordable lower-density housing.

But to what extent is "lower density" the key deciding factor? In other words, how much of this is consumer preference and how much of this is people being forced out by a lack of infill housing supply?