Toronto may not be selling that many new condominiums these days, but population growth remains high across the region. For the 12-month period ending July 2024, the Toronto census metropolitan area added approximately 269k people. And for the 12-month period ending July 2023, it added about 255k people. In the context of Canadian and American cities, this makes it the fastest growing metropolitan area for two years running (see above chart). Lower immigration targets are expected to bring this number down going forward, and so it'll be interesting to see what these numbers look like for the period ending this summer, but this is still over half a million people in two years. I think it's also noteworthy that our housing market turned and pre-construction sales slowed around the middle of 2022, and yet our population growth and immigration levels remained the highest in Canada and the US for at least another two years. Maybe this lag helps us recover sooner than some might expect.
Chart from the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at TMU; cover photo by Mikayla Martorano on Unsplash
I don't dispute that Toronto is the fastest growing city, but can 269,000 people in one year be right? Sounds very high. At that rate it would grow by 2.7 million people in 10 years.
Keep in mind that this is for the census metropolitan area, not just the city of toronto. It's a larger area.
"This article offers great insight into urban growth trends across North America. It's fascinating to see how economic opportunities, lifestyle, and migration patterns are reshaping cities. It would be interesting to explore how this rapid growth is impacting infrastructure and quality of life in these areas."