When did it become apparent that Toronto would surpass Montreal...

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1...pid=1710013501

Calgary 1,608,342
London 574,238
Halifax 480,582

If we're going to be that liberal with the 2/3 rule, no wonder it almost always works!

[lio45]

BTW I think MolsonExport made a typo (giving him the benefit of the doubt), he likely meant that London/KW are 2/3rds of the Wpg/QC/Ham level, not (as he wrote) of the Cal/Edm/Ott one.

i.e.

Wpg/QC/Ham tier: ~900k
London/KW tier: ~600k
Halifax tier: ~400k

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

BTW I think MolsonExport made a typo (giving him the benefit of the doubt), he likely meant that London/KW are 2/3rds of the Wpg/QC/Ham level, not (as he wrote) of the Cal/Edm/Ott one.

K-W is interesting as it is in the process of "moving up a tier" from a population perspective. Going back to urbanism, I don't think the population numbers mean much of anything at that level of difference (the cities could become more urban or not and might or might not be urban to begin with). K-W was 622,497 and Hamilton 821,839 in the last estimate.

These are 2016 boundaries so some cities have shifted around. Halifax "should have been" around 505k. You could probably cause 2023 Halifax and London to shift rankings in CMA population by moderately gerrymandering the census districts (not sure what the London 2021 boundary adjustment was, but if it was in for 2021 and not in for 2016 it probably could have been in for 2016 by tweaking the borders). You wouldn't be able to do this in the same way for, say, Montreal and Saskatoon.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

K-W was 622,497 and Hamilton 821,839 in the last estimate.

Yeah, this example shows how adaptable/fudgeable the 2/3 rule actually is. KW is in fact bigger than three-quarters of Hamilton (as your numbers show), but if you round KW down to 600k, while Hamilton which is in the 800s gets rounded up to 900k (not that crazy at first sight), there you have your ratio of 2/3.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

Yeah, this example shows how adaptable/fudgeable the 2/3 rule actually is. KW is in fact bigger than three-quarters of Hamilton (as your numbers show), but if you round KW down to 600k, while Hamilton which is in the 800s gets rounded up to 900k (not that crazy at first sight), there you have your ratio of 2/3.

And K-W has Guelph by it (not in CMA) while Hamilton has Burlington (in CMA). The actual difference in settlement patterns is pretty minimal, and both are on the edge of the GTA.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by lio45

BTW I think MolsonExport made a typo (giving him the benefit of the doubt), he likely meant that London/KW are 2/3rds of the Wpg/QC/Ham level, not (as he wrote) of the Cal/Edm/Ott one.

i.e.

Wpg/QC/Ham tier: ~900k
London/KW tier: ~600k
Halifax tier: ~400k

yes that is what I meant.

How did Halifax get so large all of a sudden? I think the CMA is something like half the province?

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

yes that is what I meant.

How did Halifax get so large all of a sudden? I think the CMA is something like half the province?

Both geographically and proportionally in population, yes.

Halifax is the Toronto of the East Coast, and for the last five years has been destination numero uno for those looking to escape Upper Canada.

[someone123]

Halifax Regional Municipality is unusually large for a municipality but the CMA is not unusually large for a CMA (although it got bigger in 2021). That 480k number is for a land area similar in size to Saskatoon or Fredericton metros and you could cut the land area by half without really impacting the population.

The area around Halifax is the "Golden Horseshoe of NS". There's a ring of towns and farmland around the metro and if you put all of it together you get maybe 2/3 or more of the population of the province or 1/3 or so of the Maritimes. Really just follows the normal pattern of development in most provinces (Lower Mainland, etc.) while lagging behind a bit in urbanization.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

Vancouver is surprisingly suburban, it finally dawned on me driving from Upper Lonsdale to Killarney every day for three weeks how much Vancouver is like North Toronto plopped on the island of Montreal. Main/Fraser/Kerrisdale/Kits/the Drive could be St Clair, Eglinton, Avenue Road or Yonge and Lawrence but never Bloor/Queen/King.

That's not a bad way of putting it. Another way of looking at it though is that Vancouver is a surprisingly urban city given its young age and smallish size; but aside from Gastown/DTES (which is legitimately some of the best traditional urbanism in Canada) its peak urbanism is more on par with the second ring of Toronto or Montreal's early-1900s urban neighbourhoods. Which makes sense, given that most of central Vancouver would have been built up in the same era - it simply never had any of the finer-grained 19th century built form. 

Still, given what it's had to work with, the city has done very well filling itself out with development and urbanizing through transit & thoughtful interventions in the post-war to modern era. If Vancouver hadn't grown the way it did it would probably look something more like Winnipeg today - it's pre-war bones are of a similar era, scale, and form; it's just missing all the new stuff. 

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

yes that is what I meant.

How did Halifax get so large all of a sudden?

2021-2022 Southern Ontario real estate prices.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by lio45

2021-2022 Southern Ontario real estate prices.

Not quite. Although Halfax CMA's YoY growth rate of 4.4% in 21-22 is eye-catching it also had ~2.0% growth every year dating back to 2016. So yes, inflation elsewhere in the last year has helped, but it was growing anyway without that.

Aside from that, international immigration played a larger role in 21-22 growth than interprovincial migration. Roughly 60/40.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/...020003-eng.htm

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Still, given what it's had to work with, the city has done very well filling itself out with development and urbanizing through transit & thoughtful interventions in the post-war to modern era. If Vancouver hadn't grown the way it did it would probably look something more like Winnipeg today - it's pre-war bones are of a similar era, scale, and form; it's just missing all the new stuff. 

Vancouver has a bunch of suburban nodes that are maybe a 6/10 for urbanism, but the equivalent areas in most other North American metros is about a 0/10. You can complain about the flaws of Brentwood or Coquitlam Centre but their alternative is a suburban big box pod or mall, not Greenwich Village.

I do think there is enormous unrealized potential around the DTES and inner East Van though, and in general Vancouver's urban core has underdeveloped transit (Broadway corridor fix in progress).

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Acajack

As such, sure Vancouver is the number 2 city in Anglo-Canada. No one would argue the contrary. Montreal is somewhere else on the list - maybe 3rd, maybe not.

This caught me off guard (and even more so that a bunch of people agreed); I've never thought of Vancouver or any city other than Montreal as the #2 city of (even Anglo-)Canada. Maybe there are more English-language jobs in Vancouver than in Montreal (honestly I have no idea), but in terms of national "clout"/"presence" Vancouver seems solidly below Montreal (2/3 sounds reasonable). Although the feel, the starting points, and the orientation of those two cities is so different that I'm not really sure what "Vancouver surpassing Montreal as the clear #2 city for Anglo-Canada" would look like.

A framework that makes more sense to me: Toronto is the #1 Canadian city overall, Vancouver is the #1 Western-Canadian city, Montreal is the #1 Franco-Canadian city and the #1 Eastern-Canadian city aside from Toronto, even for Anglophones.

[big T]

Originally Posted by Hali87

This caught me off guard (and even more so that a bunch of people agreed); I've never thought of Vancouver or any city other than Montreal as the #2 city of (even Anglo-)Canada. Maybe there are more English-language jobs in Vancouver than in Montreal (honestly I have no idea), but in terms of national "clout"/"presence" Vancouver seems solidly below Montreal (2/3 sounds reasonable). Although the feel, the starting points, and the orientation of those two cities is so different that I'm not really sure what "Vancouver surpassing Montreal as the clear #2 city for Anglo-Canada" would look like.

A framework that makes more sense to me: Toronto is the #1 Canadian city overall, Vancouver is the #1 Western-Canadian city, Montreal is the #1 Franco-Canadian city and the #1 Eastern-Canadian city aside from Toronto, even for Anglophones.

Your last statement on Montreal being the #1 Eastern-Canada city kind of sums it up -- from a NS perspective I guess Montreal might loom larger, but I guarantee you anywhere west of Quebec it doesn't register nearly as high as Vancouver or Calgary, and probably Edmonton. (ok, maybe this is not as true in Ottawa. And even then, it depends who you talk to I think).

Anecdotal but illustrative: when I lived I Vancouver, lots of folks assumed Montreal was about Halifax-sized. Many were mixing up Quebec City and Montreal, too. These are educated people, some now lifelong friends, but I totally understand that a 2nd or 3rd-gen immigrant to Western Canada would have no clear concept of Montreal or Quebec.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Hali87

A framework that makes more sense to me: Toronto is the #1 Canadian city overall, Vancouver is the #1 Western-Canadian city, Montreal is the #1 Franco-Canadian city and the #1 Eastern-Canadian city aside from Toronto, even for Anglophones.

Participation ribbons for all!

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by big T

Your last statement on Montreal being the #1 Eastern-Canada city kind of sums it up -- from a NS perspective I guess Montreal might loom larger, but I guarantee you anywhere west of Quebec it doesn't register nearly as high as Vancouver or Calgary, and probably Edmonton. (ok, maybe this is not as true in Ottawa. And even then, it depends who you talk to I think).

Anecdotal but illustrative: when I lived I Vancouver, lots of folks assumed Montreal was about Halifax-sized. Many were mixing up Quebec City and Montreal, too. These are educated people, some now lifelong friends, but I totally understand that a 2nd or 3rd-gen immigrant to Western Canada would have no clear concept of Montreal or Quebec.

I’m sorry but if they thought that Montréal was Halifax-sized, they are not that educated. Seriously. This is getting ridiculous.

[Martin Mtl]

It’s funny because we often hear or read about Quebec being parochial and insular, yet I don’t know anyone here who is not aware of the importance and relative size of Vancouver or Calgary.

[harls]

Immigrants moving to English Canada don't even have Montreal or Quebec on their radar. Just look at this guy that moved to Winnipeg - he mentions Toronto and Vancouver multiple times.. never Montreal.

Just watch the first 2 minutes.

• Video Link

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Martin Mtl

I’m sorry but if they thought that Montréal was Halifax-sized, they are not that educated. Seriously. This is getting ridiculous.

I once had someone estimate that Sudbury was a million people. They were only about an order of magnitude off. So, YMMV with the general public.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Martin Mtl

It’s funny because we often hear or read about Quebec being parochial and insular, yet I don’t know anyone here who is not aware of the importance and relative size of Vancouver or Calgary.

It goes both ways. I know several Quebecers who don't know which province Halifax is in - 'Ile-Prince-Arthur' is a frequent guess. Geographic ignorance is a pan-Canadian thing.