Why Isn't Vancouver (CN) a Megacity?

[SnowFire]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Kind of on topic:

What's the largest economy/country without a true megacity?

What's the smallest country/economy with one?

guessing the tax haven singapore for the second one.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Kind of on topic:

What's the largest economy/country without a true megacity?

Probably Germany.

[homebucket]

Italy and Singapore come to mind.

[iheartthed]

I think the Democratic Republic of Congo will likely be the smallest national economy with a megacity (Kinshasa).

[Crawford]

Germany would probably be the biggest/most important country without a true megacity.

Probably also the biggest/most important country where if you asked "What is the biggest/most important city" you might get four or five answers.

[Wigs]

Vancouver will never reach megacity status... Because at just under 700k in the city limits, and just over 2.65M people in the CMA/Metro it's been prohibitively expensive for decades.

It doesn't have a robust economy like the Bay Area or something. It's become a place for foreign nationals (particularly Hong Kong and now mainland Chinese) to park their money in real estate drastically causing the price of real estate to rise for everyone else.

Home Price Index composite benchmark price
$1,210,700 or $895,000 USD
This is almost double the Canadian benchmark home price.

Single detached home benchmark price
$2,012,900 or $1,500,000 USD

Attached home (semi, townhouse) benchmark price
$1,104,600 or ~$820,000 USD

Apartment/condo benchmark price
$771,600 or ~$570,000 USD

CREA stats from the Real Estate board of Greater Vancouver
https://creastats.crea.ca/board/vanc

[Crawford]

Those home prices are stupid high, given Vancouver salaries. Insanity.

Probably barely half the household income of Seattle, with higher housing prices. And Seattle is now considered one of the least affordable U.S. metros.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Those home prices are stupid high, given Vancouver salaries. Insanity.

Probably barely half the household income of Seattle, with higher housing prices. And Seattle is now considered one of the least affordable U.S. metros.

If I'm not mistaken Vancouver has been the most expensive Metro in Canada for at least 4 decades.

Crawford, I think it's banned now but the shady process of shadow house flipping used to be allowed. It sounds so bonkers that The Globe and Mail had to create an infographic about it to inform the reader.

[Wigs]

The price of rentals is wild. Apparently Vancouver just hit an all time high with a median of $2,800 or ~$2,070 USD/month for a 1 bedroom apartment.

Canadian rent report August 2023
https://www.zumper.com/blog/rental-price-data-canada/

You'd literally spend an extra 5 grand CAD/yr on rent in Vancouver compared to Canada's largest city and Ontario's provincial capital, Toronto. In Montréal it costs a mere $1600/month CAD (under $1200 USD) to rent an apartment

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Kind of on topic:

What's the largest economy/country without a true megacity?

Largest country is Ethiopia, largest economy probably Germany.

What's the smallest country/economy with one?

Peru

Singapore is not a megacity. It is not that big. Its just a prominent free-trade city.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Because it's the third-largest city in Canada, and there are no megacities in Canada to begin with.

It's not competing for people with Los Angeles or San Francisco, it's competing with other Canadian cities. It's also quite a bit more land-constrained than any other west coast city, so even if there were a larger pool to draw from it'd eventually run into barriers for easy, low-cost growth (which it already has at 3 million people).

Toronto doesn't count?
Ah the 10 million mark...well some places should get a waiver!

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Toronto doesn't count?

No, it is small.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Singapore is not a megacity. It is not that big. Its just a prominent free-trade city.

Yeah, Singapore doesn't even have as many people as NYC proper.

And Singapore is a city-state, like Monaco.

Interestingly, Monaco is much smaller than Singapore, but has a higher GDP, right?

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by Gantz

No, it is small.

I checked Wikipedia and the Golden Horseshoe Region has 9.7 million, which is still under 10 million, but close enough for a waiver I'd think.
Is that good enough or does the GHR not count for a Megacity?

[Steely Dan]

^ the greater golden horseshoe is a region, not a city.

North America only has 3 megacities:

Mexico City
NYC
LA

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ the golden horseshoe is a region, not a city.

North America only has 3 megacities:

Mexico City
NYC
LA

And even with LA, it only gets a pass due to North American standards. How other people count urban city, it probably wouldn't qualify (or barely).

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Yeah, Singapore doesn't even have as many people as NYC proper.

And Singapore is a city-state, like Monaco.

Interestingly, Monaco is much smaller than Singapore, but has a higher GDP, right?

Not even close. Singapore's economy is about 50 times bigger than Monaco. Monaco is tiny, a size of a Singapore neighborhood.
Singapore is a capitalist powerhouse. Its economy is bigger than the neighboring Malaysia or Philippines. Its one of the few places in the world with GDP per capita higher than the US.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Gantz

And even with LA, it only gets a pass due to North American standards. How other people count urban city, it probably wouldn't qualify (or barely).

Even if you lop off the inland empire, the LA urban area still consists of 12.2M people on ~1,600 square miles.

Sprawly by global standards, yes, but I think LA safely qualifies.


By comparison, the greater golden horseshoe has 9.7M people, but spread over 12,000 square miles.

12,000 square miles is not a "city" in any kind of singular sense.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Not even close. Singapore's economy is about 50 times bigger than Monaco. Monaco is tiny, a size of a Singapore neighborhood.
Singapore is a capitalist powerhouse. Its economy is bigger than the neighboring Malaysia or Philippines. Its one of the few places in the world with GDP per capita higher than the US.

I stand corrected. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, Monaco is tiny.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

How that would be accomplished I have no idea. Beyond the existing growth and land constraints, Vancouver's infrastructure is woefully inadequate for a city of its current size, let alone something 5x bigger. Vancouver is famously the only major North American city that doesn't have a highway running into its downtown (it has one that skirts its city limits for about a mile or so), but that anti-freeway mentality also means it's a metro that doesn't have highways practically anywhere, and the ones that exist are small and poorly-designed.

Culturally Vancouver is pretty mixed. It is not a place that predominantly attracts competitive business-oriented people. It attracts immigrants and people who move here for quality of life reasons and often don't end up staying because of the high costs. The City of Vancouver is heavily NIMBY. BC provincial politics have a quasi-colonial feel and are slanted toward a 60+ moneyed crowd (almost any non-poor older BCian is rich from real estate now and their need for labour income is minimal; I'd guess most ultra wealthy people in BC did well off of real estate). The capital is Victoria, not Vancouver.

California is similar and struggling more these days but its ossification really only set in Los Angeles was already a large city. San Francisco doesn't operate like people there want it to be a megacity.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by SnowFire

guessing the tax haven singapore for the second one.

An interesting example is Turkey which inherited an ancient imperial city with a unique geographical advantage.

Buenos Aires is arguably oversized.

Germany is a fairly big country without any really big city.