How do you think a Canada of 50 million people by 2050 will be?

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by LakeLocker

I think the biggest thing being overlooked is the potential hyper importance of Guelph Cambridge Waterlook Kitchener.

With the green belt being a thing, I can see this area hitting 1 million people far faster than most want to admit.

I think "hyper importance" overstates things a bit, but yes if you're going to lump Guelph in with K-C-W, the population will hit 1 million well before 2050, I suspect.

[LakeLocker]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I think "hyper importance" overstates things a bit, but yes if you're going to lump Guelph in with K-C-W, the population will hit 1 million well before 2050, I suspect.

I suspect they'll surpass Hamilton/Winnipeg within a decade Edmonton within 20 years and surpass Ottawa by 2050.

[north 42]

I would put Windsor right up there with the 600,000 metros, probably ahead of Saskatoon.

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

I think the metropolitan area populations will be:

1. Toronto / Inner Green Belt (this includes Toronto, Oshawa, and Hamilton CMAs that will increasingly function as a more cohesive urban area) - 9.5m

2. Montreal - 6.3m

3. Vancouver / Lower Mainland BC (this includes Vancouver and Abbotsford CMAs) - 4.1m

4. Calgary - 2.5m

5. Edmonton - 2.25m

6. Ottawa - 2.25m

7. Winnipeg - 1.2m

8. Quebec - 1.1m

9. Waterloo / Grand River Valley (this includes the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo and Guelph CMAs, which I think will be more of a polycentric urban area) - 1m

10. London - 700k

11. Halifax - 700k

12. Niagara Region - 600k

13. Victoria - 600k

14. Saskatoon - 600k

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by LakeLocker

I suspect they'll surpass Hamilton/Winnipeg within a decade Edmonton within 20 years and surpass Ottawa by 2050.

I think the current projections would have K-C-W+G at around 1 million in 2040.

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by LakeLocker

I suspect they'll surpass Hamilton/Winnipeg within a decade Edmonton within 20 years and surpass Ottawa by 2050.

That would sure make a strange creature. Four cities with distinct cores, far enough to not be considered a mere suburb of Toronto, but close enough to gravitate within its orbit and be heavily influenced by it. Not really your conventional stand-alone city.

[OTSkyline]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I would love to see the Maritimes soak up some more of the future population growth, given that it's our most underutilized region of arable/habitable land. Unfortunately there is little economic incentive for immigrants to land out East, and it's likely that Southern Ontario, the Lower Mainlaind, Montreal, etc. will absorb the vast majority of new immigrants.

I echo the same sentiments. Immigration has been very good to Canada but some of the benefits are not utilized as much if the vast majority of these immigrants land and settle in Toronto. We need to help better spread immigrants (and population as whole). Thankfully it seems like some efforts are being done on this, with the government allocating specific immigration #s by province and now trying a new program which lets cities are regions pick depending on labor needs.

For example, I truly Believe we need another solid metro out east and I think Halifax has the potential to fill that void. If Halifax can diversify its economy and grow to a almost a million in population (just like Hamilton, QC City and Winnipeg), then all of sudden people wishing to relocate to a more urban center aren't all forced to move out to Ontario.. and it could potentially keep jobs and people out East.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I think Canada will plateau in population sometime in the next decade and a half. It took us 40 years to add 14 million people, so I don’t think we’ll add 14 million more in the timeframe I anticipate.

...

I don’t see how Toronto will support 10 million+ people given that its hobbling along on a base level of infrastructure designed in the 1970s; Vancouver with 5 million? Forget it. Since you can kind of predict infrastructure 20 years out, I don’t see anything in the pipeline that will really change the game in any city.

We're at 38 million and it's 2020. Granted, the death rate will increase as Boomers start dying off, and we can't count on our currently elevated growth rate to persist indefinitely - but still I don't think 12 million more people in the next 30 years is inconceivable.

I do think that Toronto's population growth will level off sooner rather than later though. We've been growing like gangbusters lately, but if that keeps up we're inevitably going to hit a wall where the cost of living becomes so extreme and the infrastructure so underbuilt that quality of life here just becomes bad enough to force more people out than there will be coming in.

There are plenty of second and third-tier cities that could absorb a whole lot of that growth though. I wouldn't be surprised to see cities like Halifax, Kelowna, Saskatoon, and London be significantly larger by 2050. The future of Canada will be a bit more equitable.

[ssiguy]

Immigrants from India and Asia will not find Toronto very big or hectic and hence will continue to flock there. In these countries Torontoès current size would classify it as a glorified truck stop.

I think you will see a big overflow from our big cities to smaller ones which we are already seeing in places like Kelowna, London, and Windsor.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Immigrants from India and Asia will not find Toronto very big or hectic and hence will continue to flock there. In these countries Torontoès current size would classify it as a glorified truck stop.

"Big and hectic" is besides the point when the average apartment rent is 107% of the median annual after-tax income, and only getting higher.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I don’t see how Toronto will support 10 million+ people given that its hobbling along on a base level of infrastructure designed in the 1970s; Vancouver with 5 million? Forget it. Since you can kind of predict infrastructure 20 years out, I don’t see anything in the pipeline that will really change the game in any city.

So you're suggesting that cities will stop doing what they've done throughout our history: build infrastructure to the meet the needs of the population. I suppose that's possible but what would cause that to happen? New generations are usually as competent as the one that came before them. Is that not the case with Millennials/Generation Z?

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

Based on some projections I've read, Canada will probably reach around 50 million people by 2050, give or take 5 million.

How do you think Canada will be at that point? You can talk about anything. For example:
- How many people our major metropolitan areas will have
- How the population will be distributed among provinces
- Emerging metropolitan areas
- Infrastructure projects, transit projects, skylines
- How many professional sports teams we'll have
- Ethnic, linguistic, and religious demographics
- Culture
- Our position in the world in a geopolitical sense

etc.

As some have roughly mirrored what I predict our biggest CMAs will look like I'll touch on some of the other points.

Ontario: 20.7 million
Quebec: 10.6 million
BC: 6.4 million
Alberta: 6.2 million
Manitoba: 1.7 million
Saskatchewan: 1.4 million
Nova Scotia: 1.4 million
New Brunswick: 900,000
Newfoundlandland: 390,000
PEI: 260,000

Halifax, KW, Saskatoon, Lethbridge, Kelowna, Victoria, and Nanaimo will hold more sway in Canada than they do today. 'Greater Toronto-Hamilton' becomes more of a thing rather than just 'Toronto'. Greater Toronto-Hamilton breaches 11 million in population. Tech continues to boom across that region pushing wages closer to what one sees in metros like Boston and New York.

Yukon will be in the process of becoming Canada's 11th province while Labrador and Northern Ontario move in that direction as well. A federal highway is being constructed connecting Yellowknife and Whitehorse. Other major infrastructure projects: major rail upgrade between Winnipeg and Churchill. A massive expansion, half finished, at the Port of Churchill. Hamilton Munro airport has morphed into the de facto 2nd airport in the Toronto Area. The Union Pearson Express continues on to Munro and downtown Hamilton to connect it all together. Rail Deck park is finished in Toronto while Rail Deck park East is almost finished.

Halifax is building an underground LRT system that loops (Halifax - Dartmouth - Bedford - Halifax). The Windsor - London - KW - Toronto HSR line has opened. YYZ hits 100 million, YVR hits 65 million, YUL hits 50 million, YYC hits 45 million. Montreal builds a downtown ballpark.

The number of pro sports teams in Canada increases from 21 to 34. New CFL teams: Halifax, Quebec City, Kelowna. New NBA teams: Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton. New MLB teams: Montreal, Vancouver. New NHL teams: Quebec City, Hamilton. New MLS teams: Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa. Canada becomes perennial top 5 medal winner at the Summer Olympics. Canada has now won Olympic gold in men's basketball 3 times. Vanier Cup goes back to its original name: College Bowl.

Canada's clout in the world stays relatively the same although we have pulled even with former colonial powers France and the UK in terms of GDP, military, cultural output, and political influence. Religion continues its slow steady decline. Canada is now 70% atheist/no religion. Separation of Church and State is one step closer to reality in Toronto as the catholic school board is abolished. Parents wanting to indoctrinate their children are now advised to seek out private schools instead. Hockey is now the nation's #3 sport behind basketball and soccer. Football and baseball take the next 2 spots.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by le calmar

That would sure make a strange creature. Four cities with distinct cores, far enough to not be considered a mere suburb of Toronto, but close enough to gravitate within its orbit and be heavily influenced by it. Not really your conventional stand-alone city.

K-W (and C's parts) are used to being not your conventional city, so they take it in stride (mostly). I think it can seem a bit weird for outsiders, however.

[Kitchissippi]

While improving living standards in developing countries might lessen the appeal of emigration, I wonder if there will be the emergence of climate change refugees due to rising sea levels, desertification, etc. Of course that depends on how Canada’s climate will change but we do have a lot of high ground

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

"Big and hectic" is besides the point when the average apartment rent is 107% of the median annual after-tax income, and only getting higher.

That's just... nuts. And yes, I agree it's going to place a pretty hard ceiling on growth. As hipster duck pointed out, Los Angeles is a good example - population gains slowed down drastically as the region became too unaffordable (compared to alternatives). I expect the same phenomenon in Toronto.

If housing is much cheaper in Montreal for example, which is also a world city of several million, while wages are not that dissimilar, I can't see how a typical immigrant with no previous roots who cross-shops Toronto vs Montreal as the place to settle wouldn't find the latter a no brainer.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

For example, I truly Believe we need another solid metro out east and I think Halifax has the potential to fill that void. If Halifax can diversify its economy and grow to a almost a million in population (just like Hamilton, QC City and Winnipeg), then all of sudden people wishing to relocate to a more urban center aren't all forced to move out to Ontario.. and it could potentially keep jobs and people out East.

That's basically what's been happening over the last couple decades. Partly due to Halifax becoming a better place to live and partly due to economic changes in the ROC, a lot more people are moving (and staying) here. Of course we'll never compete with Toronto or Montreal in terms of big-city experience or career opportunities but we're sort of the Winnipeg of this part of Canada despite being smaller. I'm not sure on the stats but I wouldn't be surprised if we draw more residents from the ROC (outside of province) than Hamilton, QC or Winnipeg.

Economically, we could use more manufacturing here (non-shipbuilding) and more software development type jobs, and more productive use of the nearby Annapolis Valley agricultural lands. The economy here is fairly diverse already but is dominated by government/military, big institutions like the universities, hospitals, Port of Halifax, the Big 5 banks, and big corporations like Irving and Lockheed Martin. It feels like we're still in the microbrew and artisanal burrito phase in terms of contemporary homegrown businesses. There's Emera, but that's just a privatized crown corporation that went public.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

The jury is still out on AI/automation, but the term “demographics is destiny” still rings true, and there have been some astonishing developments in recent years . For example, Bangladesh now has a total fertility rate of 2.1 (replacement level). India is at 2.4 and Pakistan is at 2.55, both falling rapidly.

Also, the burden on immigration to pay existing entitlements might also fall as the boomer generation with their large numbers and defined-benefit pensions die out. Admittedly, this last theory is a little harder to quantify and stand behind, but I don’t think it would shift in favour of more immigration.



In the developing world, there are certainly examples of places that absorb millions of people with no commensurate investment in infrastructure, and just get shittier and shittier every year: Lagos, Jakarta, etc.

In the democratic developed world, where people have certain expectations, I think there are more examples of cities that just maxed out. For example, everybody thought that LA would overtake NYC as the largest metropolitan region in the US. In the 1960s, LA was growing much faster than Toronto is growing now and growing from a larger population base, to boot. But then sometime in the 90s, the wheels came off the bus and now LA is just a very large, very expensive city that added about 500,000 people in the last 10 years (it used to add this every 2 years in the 1950s).

This is self correcting though. If enough people move to a city that the poor infrastructure cannot justify the benefits the city has, fewer people will move there. It seems though that if cities are popular, people will move there regardless and the city will figure out a way to deal with it.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I think that’s a crazy high number. You can’t add that many people in a short timespan and not deal with unexpected consequences. They say that just the addition of 100,000 draft dodgers in the 1970s shifted Canada’s politics permanently to the left. I can’t imagine what 1M immigrants every year would result in (and I don’t think anyone really can).

Perhaps it is too high, I can't say I have researched the number and it really is just off the top of my head. That said though, we are increasing by 500,000 a year currently, and our % growth rate is historically low to middle of the road, there have been times where it was quite a bit higher. So I don't think it should be impossible to increase at a rate of a million a year, if we can find people to come. It absolutely would have to come with the federal government borrowing money to invest in infrastructure and somehow fixing whatever problems are stopping us from building as much as we need. That would also help provide employment.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by lio45

That's just... nuts. And yes, I agree it's going to place a pretty hard ceiling on growth. As hipster duck pointed out, Los Angeles is a good example - population gains slowed down drastically as the region became too unaffordable (compared to alternatives). I expect the same phenomenon in Toronto.

If housing is much cheaper in Montreal for example, which is also a world city of several million, while wages are not that dissimilar, I can't see how a typical immigrant with no previous roots who cross-shops Toronto vs Montreal as the place to settle wouldn't find the latter a no brainer.

And this is the beauty of markets - once one place reaches peak success, then the people will decide that other places have more to offer, and they get to share in that success. The tricky thing is, the draw of a place has strong inertia, so Toronto may continue to soak up all the growth even while other compelling options go unloved. A bit of government prodding is probably neccesary to get people to go to other places.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by lio45

That's just... nuts. And yes, I agree it's going to place a pretty hard ceiling on growth. As hipster duck pointed out, Los Angeles is a good example - population gains slowed down drastically as the region became too unaffordable (compared to alternatives). I expect the same phenomenon in Toronto.

If housing is much cheaper in Montreal for example, which is also a world city of several million, while wages are not that dissimilar, I can't see how a typical immigrant with no previous roots who cross-shops Toronto vs Montreal as the place to settle wouldn't find the latter a no brainer.

The wages may be similar but income taxes in Quebec are significantly higher than in Ontario, which means lower net income. Between Ottawa and Gatineau, at least, the different in cost of housing is roughly cancelled out by the income tax difference (as would make sense, being a single metropolitan area).

[isaidso]

It bears mentioning that adding millions more people to our big cities doesn't necessarily equate to higher real estate prices. Land use policies, supply of housing, etc. factor in heavily. Look at Tokyo. They hav 35 million+ in one metro yet their real estate prices are much lower then one sees even in Montreal.

[wave46]

How do I think Canada will be in 2050, whatever its population? Worse, to be honest. Much worse, if we don't play our cards right.

Which is really depressing and where I hope I'm wrong.

But, there's a 'unhealthy' vibe to the economic growth last decade in several senses. It's not unlike the difference between eating a bag of potato chips for dinner and a well rounded meal for dinner. Yeah, both leave you full, but you feel much better after the latter instead of the former.

My concerns (in no particular order)

1. A continued trend towards deindustrialization and an over-reliance on housing price growth to make us feel wealthy. We don't make things here anymore competitively, we buy them using our exported unprocessed raw materials. Which is finite. The housing price growth isn't sustainable either - I don't see how prices can go up 5%+ per year forever. We're just bleeding the younger generation in a most insidious fashion by saddling them with huge debts.

2. Governments that can't stop deficit spending while the biggest liabilities (i.e. our aging population) swell. Healthcare and low taxes are great, but it's just an endless maw of cash. Which is great for the 90-year old who gets all the best care, but not exactly sustainable in the long-term. I don't know how we culturally have a conversation about death, but I fear that the Boomers' fear of death and disdain for being taxed will bleed the country dry.

3. A shift in power to nations that don't even really have the pretense of wanting to be about human rights. If you think China is pushy now, wait until its economy doubles in size again. The current leader of the world faces many of the same problems we do here and seems to be even more disinclined to address them. The little spats we have with China now are more likely to hurt much more as they grow stronger and the US becomes more inwardly focused.

4. A lack of leadership. The leadership of 2020 hasn't exactly inspired me, especially in the English-speaking world. Leadership sometimes means making the hard choices - short-term pain for long-term gain. But we get Trump, BoJo and Mr. Blackface. It's hard to evoke Churchill, Kennedy, Pearson or Eisenhower in the current crop of 'leaders'. More like a squad of buffoons.

5. The other billions. In 2050, the world's population is projected to be 9.7 billion. We're having problems now and we're going to add a couple more billion people to this planet? It's trying to bring a family of 7 out of poverty and they're thinking of having another 3 kids.

I'm not at the point of losing faith yet, but my faith in the future of Canada (and the West) is being sorely tested these last few years. I feel we are making the politically expedient choices as opposed to the right ones. Which makes me start thinking about how mostly to protect myself while the world burns. I might just live long enough to end up being stuck with the bill for our poor decisions.

Which is really shitty. I've watched a few of JFK's speeches and almost am nostalgic (I'm not sure if it's nostalgia if I wasn't alive at the time) for the optimism of that era.

God, I hope I'm wrong.