For all the talk about urban density, it seems what’s really growing across Canada is the Suburbs.
The Vancouver Sun has an article about the growth of the suburbs that includes an interactive map showing population growth. Seems we’re moving away from the centre.
Indeed, a new national study suggests that despite the boom in construction of condo towers in Vancouver and Toronto, five times as many Canadians are opting for single-family homes, townhouses or apartments on “the suburban edges” of those cities rather than downtown condo living.
This has resulted, the study suggests, in even more auto-dependent suburbs and “exurbs,” areas of large rural properties with single-family homes, across the country. And if the trend continues, it warns, Canada will become even more suburban in the future.
“We have vastly overestimated the number of people who live in the downtown or inner city versus the number of people in the overall suburbs,” said David Gordon, a professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s University who co-published the new paper, Urban Nation?: Estimating the size of Canada’s suburban population.
“Two-thirds of Canada’s total population live in the suburbs,” Gordon said. “We’re not an urban nation at all, not even close.”
Read the full article here.
In unrelated news, the local real estate focused Sauder School of Business at UBC does NOT encourage chants about assaulting underage girls.
