In the second quarter of this year, Canada saw its population grow by about 0.1% compared to the first quarter. This is not zero, but it's close to it — the slowest second-quarter growth since 1946 (excluding the pandemic in 2020).
Since World War II, Canada has generally been pro-immigration. It started as being explicitly Eurocentric, but later we adopted a point system which granted admission based on skills, education, and language ability rather than race or nationality. In other words, it became a meritocracy, and multiculturalism became policy.
This approach served the country well, fueling economic prosperity and creating Canada's only truly global city: Toronto. Immigrants are good for the economy, and Toronto is majority foreign born. They are more likely to start a business, more likely to obtain a patent, and their children tend to outperform native-born children academically.
It is also not lost on me that I wouldn't have been born in Toronto, and I wouldn't have the life that I have today if it weren't for these immigration policies.
Of course, in recent years, public opinion on immigration shifted dramatically. There was, and is, a real sense that it was too much of a good thing. Canada wasn't keeping up when it came to housing, healthcare, and overall public infrastructure. So the federal government responded, and now the expectation is that population growth in Canada should stay at or near zero until around 2028.
Because remember, Canada has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. In 2024, it dropped to 1.25 children per woman, placing us firmly in the "ultra-low fertility" category, alongside Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, and others. Without immigration, we shrink. And we all know what that has meant for countries like Japan, which has had periods of prolonged economic stagnation.
So sooner or later, Canada will need to get back into the business of competing for talent and welcoming the smartest and most ambitious people from around the world to our cities. This is where we want the world to be starting their new businesses. In the meantime, it also wouldn't hurt if we started having more sex and making more babies.
Looking ahead, if 2028 does end up being the year when immigration ramps back up, it will actually align with what I am predicting to be the start of a severe housing shortage — at least in cities like Toronto and Vancouver. That means we need to act now to start delivering more affordable urban housing at scale.
All through history, the success of global cities has hinged on their ability to take in a large number of immigrants and make them economically productive. It's what made cities like Toronto and New York what they are today. But in order for this to happen, people need a place to live.
Cover photo by Ankush Nath Sehgal on Unsplash
The largest urban region in the US, New York, is famously urban. Recently, we talked about how it has the highest share of zero-vehicle households and really stands on its own when it comes to US cities. But what about the country’s second-largest urban region — Los Angeles?
It probably won’t surprise you that around 88% of households in this city own a car. Transit and other forms of non-car mobility remain deeply entrenched secondary options for most. But what you may not be aware of are all the initiatives that LA is undertaking to transform itself into more of a transit-first region.
The city opened its first metro line in 1993. Today, it has a system that spans over 109 miles (~175 kilometers) across six lines with 107 stations. It also has wildly successful bus rapid transit (BRT) lines, with ridership levels that are 3x initial projections. The 18-mile Orange Line is viewed as one of, if not the, most successful bus lines in the US.
In parallel, the city is doing what it needs to do on the land-use side by easing density restrictions and working to intensify around its transit stations. It also has a little extra motivation: Los Angeles has vowed to make the 2028 Summer Olympic Games a “transit-first” event. And with 15+ million visitors expected, there's going to be no other way to do it.
Los Angeles has long been known as a car-first city, but don’t be surprised if that changes this century.
For more on this topic, here’s a recent article by Joseph Shortell, a Senior Analyst at Philadelphia-based Econsult Solutions.
The number of pedestrians killed in the US each year has increased 78% since 2009:
This comes after decades of steady decline, causing many to wonder: What the hell is going on?
Brian Potter of Construction Physics recently tried to answer this question, here. Perhaps the two most common theories are that (1) bigger cars have become more popular (and bigger cars are more deadly to pedestrians), and (2) people are increasingly distracted by smartphones.
In his view, the SUV theory is maybe supportable, but the evidence is mixed. Pedestrian deaths involving smaller cars like Honda Civics are also up substantially. So it doesn’t seem to be just that.
As for the smartphone theory, Potter cites data showing that traffic accidents rarely report “distracted” driving. I call bullshit. I suspect it's because drivers don’t want to admit they were scrolling through TikTok; but even then, it doesn’t appear to be the clear cause. Smartphones are global, and yet this surge in pedestrian deaths is a uniquely American problem (based on other data from Potter).
So what is it?
My view — and this isn’t mentioned in the article — is that built form must be a factor. Much of it comes down to how we design our cities. Intuitively, this makes sense to me. But there’s also data to support it. First, if we look at pedestrian deaths per capita, there’s a clear bias toward the South and West, both of which tend to have more car-oriented urban patterns compared to the older cities in the North.
Second, if you drill down into specific urban environments — including those adopting strong Vision Zero policies — you’ll see that local trends don’t always match what we’re seeing nationally or even at the state level. For example, in recent years, cities like New York have become much safer for pedestrians:
New York City continues to defy national trends around pedestrian deaths, which are currently at a four-decade high nationwide. Traffic fatalities were down in four of the five major travel modes the DOT tracks. Compared to 2013—the last year before implementation of Vision Zero—New York City traffic deaths have dropped by 14.7%, from 299 that year. Pedestrian deaths have decreased by 35.9% compared to 2013 figures. Cyclist fatalities were also down for the third straight year (17 in 2022, down from a 20-year high of 28 in 2019), declining even as bicycle ridership has soared in recent years.
So my simple theory is this: Human-scaled spaces that are designed around pedestrians, rather than cars, are less likely to kill pedestrians.
At the same time, I do think we’ll see pedestrian deaths naturally come down in the US as autonomous vehicles become more widespread. AVs are already better — or at least safer — drivers than humans, and that will help. None of us should be driving cars anymore if you're just looking at the safety data. But I don’t see that as a good reason not to create more human-scaled spaces. They offer us much more than just safety.
Diagrams: Construction Physics
In the second quarter of this year, Canada saw its population grow by about 0.1% compared to the first quarter. This is not zero, but it's close to it — the slowest second-quarter growth since 1946 (excluding the pandemic in 2020).
Since World War II, Canada has generally been pro-immigration. It started as being explicitly Eurocentric, but later we adopted a point system which granted admission based on skills, education, and language ability rather than race or nationality. In other words, it became a meritocracy, and multiculturalism became policy.
This approach served the country well, fueling economic prosperity and creating Canada's only truly global city: Toronto. Immigrants are good for the economy, and Toronto is majority foreign born. They are more likely to start a business, more likely to obtain a patent, and their children tend to outperform native-born children academically.
It is also not lost on me that I wouldn't have been born in Toronto, and I wouldn't have the life that I have today if it weren't for these immigration policies.
Of course, in recent years, public opinion on immigration shifted dramatically. There was, and is, a real sense that it was too much of a good thing. Canada wasn't keeping up when it came to housing, healthcare, and overall public infrastructure. So the federal government responded, and now the expectation is that population growth in Canada should stay at or near zero until around 2028.
Because remember, Canada has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. In 2024, it dropped to 1.25 children per woman, placing us firmly in the "ultra-low fertility" category, alongside Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, and others. Without immigration, we shrink. And we all know what that has meant for countries like Japan, which has had periods of prolonged economic stagnation.
So sooner or later, Canada will need to get back into the business of competing for talent and welcoming the smartest and most ambitious people from around the world to our cities. This is where we want the world to be starting their new businesses. In the meantime, it also wouldn't hurt if we started having more sex and making more babies.
Looking ahead, if 2028 does end up being the year when immigration ramps back up, it will actually align with what I am predicting to be the start of a severe housing shortage — at least in cities like Toronto and Vancouver. That means we need to act now to start delivering more affordable urban housing at scale.
All through history, the success of global cities has hinged on their ability to take in a large number of immigrants and make them economically productive. It's what made cities like Toronto and New York what they are today. But in order for this to happen, people need a place to live.
Cover photo by Ankush Nath Sehgal on Unsplash
The largest urban region in the US, New York, is famously urban. Recently, we talked about how it has the highest share of zero-vehicle households and really stands on its own when it comes to US cities. But what about the country’s second-largest urban region — Los Angeles?
It probably won’t surprise you that around 88% of households in this city own a car. Transit and other forms of non-car mobility remain deeply entrenched secondary options for most. But what you may not be aware of are all the initiatives that LA is undertaking to transform itself into more of a transit-first region.
The city opened its first metro line in 1993. Today, it has a system that spans over 109 miles (~175 kilometers) across six lines with 107 stations. It also has wildly successful bus rapid transit (BRT) lines, with ridership levels that are 3x initial projections. The 18-mile Orange Line is viewed as one of, if not the, most successful bus lines in the US.
In parallel, the city is doing what it needs to do on the land-use side by easing density restrictions and working to intensify around its transit stations. It also has a little extra motivation: Los Angeles has vowed to make the 2028 Summer Olympic Games a “transit-first” event. And with 15+ million visitors expected, there's going to be no other way to do it.
Los Angeles has long been known as a car-first city, but don’t be surprised if that changes this century.
For more on this topic, here’s a recent article by Joseph Shortell, a Senior Analyst at Philadelphia-based Econsult Solutions.
The number of pedestrians killed in the US each year has increased 78% since 2009:
This comes after decades of steady decline, causing many to wonder: What the hell is going on?
Brian Potter of Construction Physics recently tried to answer this question, here. Perhaps the two most common theories are that (1) bigger cars have become more popular (and bigger cars are more deadly to pedestrians), and (2) people are increasingly distracted by smartphones.
In his view, the SUV theory is maybe supportable, but the evidence is mixed. Pedestrian deaths involving smaller cars like Honda Civics are also up substantially. So it doesn’t seem to be just that.
As for the smartphone theory, Potter cites data showing that traffic accidents rarely report “distracted” driving. I call bullshit. I suspect it's because drivers don’t want to admit they were scrolling through TikTok; but even then, it doesn’t appear to be the clear cause. Smartphones are global, and yet this surge in pedestrian deaths is a uniquely American problem (based on other data from Potter).
So what is it?
My view — and this isn’t mentioned in the article — is that built form must be a factor. Much of it comes down to how we design our cities. Intuitively, this makes sense to me. But there’s also data to support it. First, if we look at pedestrian deaths per capita, there’s a clear bias toward the South and West, both of which tend to have more car-oriented urban patterns compared to the older cities in the North.
Second, if you drill down into specific urban environments — including those adopting strong Vision Zero policies — you’ll see that local trends don’t always match what we’re seeing nationally or even at the state level. For example, in recent years, cities like New York have become much safer for pedestrians:
New York City continues to defy national trends around pedestrian deaths, which are currently at a four-decade high nationwide. Traffic fatalities were down in four of the five major travel modes the DOT tracks. Compared to 2013—the last year before implementation of Vision Zero—New York City traffic deaths have dropped by 14.7%, from 299 that year. Pedestrian deaths have decreased by 35.9% compared to 2013 figures. Cyclist fatalities were also down for the third straight year (17 in 2022, down from a 20-year high of 28 in 2019), declining even as bicycle ridership has soared in recent years.
So my simple theory is this: Human-scaled spaces that are designed around pedestrians, rather than cars, are less likely to kill pedestrians.
At the same time, I do think we’ll see pedestrian deaths naturally come down in the US as autonomous vehicles become more widespread. AVs are already better — or at least safer — drivers than humans, and that will help. None of us should be driving cars anymore if you're just looking at the safety data. But I don’t see that as a good reason not to create more human-scaled spaces. They offer us much more than just safety.
Diagrams: Construction Physics
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