Here's an interesting figure from the Missing Middle Initiative showing the change in population of 0-4 year olds in Southern Ontario between 2016 and 2021:
What this shows is that the population of young children declined in the Greater Toronto Area and in Ottawa, but increased dramatically in areas further out, such as in Lanark County (outside of Ottawa) and Oxford County (between London and Hamilton). If you know what home prices are like in Southern Ontario, then this probably makes intuitive sense to you. Families are, as the old saying goes, "driving until they qualify."
But let's look at the data more closely. What the Missing Middle uncovered was that the metric most highly correlated with the population growth of children under the age of 5 was the increase in the supply of housing with three or more bedrooms. More specifically, though, it was highly correlated with an increase in the number of larger owner-occupied homes. Rental housing did not have the same correlation.
They go on to remind us that correlation is not causation, which is true. But regardless, there's a clear recipe here: If cities want to become more family-friendly, house more young children, and not lose them to exurban areas, then they need to figure out a way to unlock more 3-bedroom homes at price points that more families can afford.
Note: As is typical on this blog, I am using the term home to include all housing types, not just single-family housing. A home is not a housing type. It is simply a place where people, families, and households live permanently. Associating the term home with only single-family housing creates a cultural bias that I believe is suboptimal for cities.
My recent post titled "Canada must become a global superpower" has quickly become one of my most-read posts in the almost 12 years that I have been writing this daily blog. Within a few days, it quickly got to 11x the number of daily views that I typically get.
One of the points that I made was about Canada's population, and specifically the target set by the Century Initiative of 100 million Canadians by 2100. Today I'd like to expand on this point, because I'm seeing more people talk about it on the socials.
At the time of writing this post, Canada's official population clock from Statistics Canada was sitting at 41,591,151 people. So to reach 100 million in the next 75 years, it would mean we would need to grow our population by 58,408,861 people. At first glance, this seems like a big number. And to some, it has proven to be an unsettling proposition. But 75 years is a long time for compounding to work its magic.
For us to reach 100 million Canadians by 2100 it would mean that we would need to grow our population by a compounded annual growth rate of just 1.18% per year. On our current population base, that would mean about 490,000 new people next year. To put this into perspective, since Confederation in 1867, Canada's population growth rate has averaged around 1.2% per year.
So by arguing that we want to reach 100 million Canadians by 2100, we are, in a way, just saying "we should continue what we've been doing since 1867 and not change a whole lot." The status quo should inevitably lead us to 100 million people during this time period.
Of course, history isn't exactly the same. Canada's fertility rate was much higher in previous years. At the beginning of the 20th century it was nearly five children per woman. And in 1960, it was 3.81 births per woman, which placed us ahead of the US.
Today, we are 1.26 births per woman (2023), compared to 1.66 in the US (2022). We are now among the countries classified as having "lowest-low fertility." Meaning, we're sub 1.3. What this means is that we are now more dependent on immigration to maintain the same growth rate as before.
At the same time, it's not like we're unaccustomed to high immigration. Between 1901 and 1921, Canada's population increased by almost 3% a year on average. This was in large part because of immigrants from Europe, specifically the British Isles. And between 1901 and 1911, alone, Canada welcomed 1.2 million people. This is at a time when we had just over 5 million people in the entire country.
So in the end, 100 million Canadians by 2100 is probably not all that ambitious. A compound annual growth rate of 1.5% would, for example, have us grow to over 127 million people. That would be more of a stretch. There's also the important question of how quickly are we growing relative to other countries.
Whatever the exact target, I stand by what I said before. We should be aiming to lower the cost of living for Canadians, and in particular housing costs. We should make it easier for families to have more babies, should they choose to. And we should continue to attract the smartest and most ambitious people from around the world.
Yesterday, the federal government announced that Canada has just awarded a high-speed rail contract to a consortium led by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. The plan, at least as it stands right now, is for the service to run between Toronto and Québec City, have a total 7 stations, and operate at 300 km/hour. And since this is the most densely populated part of Canada, this 1,000-km corridor is expected to connect and unify roughly half of the people in this country (~20 million people).
However, many people are rightly reacting to this news with extreme cynicism. Some of the comments: It will never actually happen. It will never happen in my lifetime. The next administration will cancel it as soon as they get into office (and then we'll have to pay hefty cancellation fees). It'll be too expensive. This corridor is already adequately serviced by air travel. 300km/h isn't fast enough and the technology will be outdated by the time it's ever complete. And the list goes on.
These are all valid and expected feelings. It's almost as if we're accustomed to politicians making lofty promises right around election time! And of course, deep down in side, I too share this same cynicism. History has taught us. I mean, look at John Tory's SmartTrack proposal from 2014. This thing was supposed to be done by now. But instead, we are now in 2025 and not one station has been built and we're down to only three on the books. Maybe this year will be the year for construction to start.
This shouldn't be the case. We shouldn't have zero confidence in our country to be bold, get things done, and make transformational investments for future generations. So I'm putting cynicism and politics aside to say: let's build! This is the right direction and attitude for our country to be taking. It's positive for our economy, the environment, our international prestige, and our political integration, among many other things. Expect to hear more high-speed rail talk on this blog going forward.
Image via Bloomberg