News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 8.8K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
EarthCam Time-Lapse Documents Rafael Viñoly-Designed New Stanford Hospital Construction
 40K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
Resort Town
 5K     0 

C

Cooool

Active Member
Member Bio
Joined
May 11, 2009
Messages
208
Reaction score
1
Every 5 years Canada releases a population count.

Toronto is currently at a population of 2.5 million and the greater Toronto area is at 5.5 million (from the 2006 census)

What do you predict the population will be now when it gets releaed?

I think I read that by 2025 they predict the greater Toronto area will have 7.7 million people. That would be awesome.
 
To go from 5.5 million to 11 million is rather unheard of. Keep in mind that is almost the size of Los Angeles, Chicago, Paris, Moscow and London.

That won't happen.

My guess is in 10 years it will be 7 million.
 
At some point Census Canada will have to start including the populations of Hamilton and Oshawa with the GTA in order to meaningfully compare it to other global urban regions. Otherwise, the GTA will be permanently stuck at 6-7 million. Just call it Toronto-Niagara or the Greater Golden Horseshoe and be done with it. The GGH is currently around 8 million and could approach 10 million in 2025 (assuming we survive through 2012).
 
^^ I've always wondered when Hamilton will be included into the greater Toronto area. I know Oshawa has already been considered a part of the metro area of Toronto.

But I doubt the population of Toronto is anything over 5.7 million right now.
 
^Oshawa has its own CMA that includes Whitby.....and, ok, I don't really know all that it includes but it is its own CMA as far as Statistics Canada is concerned.
 
Irishmonk said:
At some point Census Canada will have to start including the populations of Hamilton and Oshawa with the GTA in order to meaningfully compare it to other global urban regions. Otherwise, the GTA will be permanently stuck at 6-7 million. Just call it Toronto-Niagara or the Greater Golden Horseshoe and be done with it. The GGH is currently around 8 million and could approach 10 million in 2025 (assuming we survive through 2012).
Click to expand...
Actually, when you compare Toronto to the Metro areas of Chicago, LA or the San Fran Bay Area, they're even bigger than the limited Golden Horseshoe.

And I think that even if the GTA stayed as it is, the population would still continue to increase in leaps and bounds. Toronto is most certainly building up instead of out, and I think the region seems pretty intent on keeping it's current growth patterns without the suburban sprawl. I think it's totally possible that the region's population will double in 25-30 years, and that's saying nothing about the rest of the Golden Horseshoe, notably Barrie and Simcoe County, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton and Niagara, which all seem to be growing and establishing themselves as well.
 
Though if you think in extended terms of Tor-Buff-Chester, it blunts the galloping population growth factor by a notch...
 
The Greater Toronto Area is a political construct, not a statistical one. Statscan has nothing to do with defining what constitutes the GTA.

If you're thinking about the Toronto CMA, for Hamilton to be included the Statscan rules would have to be changed quite dramatically (and would have an effect not just on Toronto).
 
Sometimes it feels like people want to expand what is considered "Toronto" simply to get the largest population count possible. In less than a century "Toronto" has gone from being a small, 100km2 city, to a 630km2 mega city, to a 7000 km2 "Greater Toronto Area" and, more recently, a 20,000km2 "Golden Horseshoe." Next is "Tor-Buff-Chester"? I know the region has expanded and grown more interconnected, which is natural, but some of this expansion seems ersatz. Most people on the Niagara Peninsula, to my knowledge, have little to do with Oshawanians (?) or Richmond Hillers. There isn't even that much integration between Toronto and Hamilton, though I would expect that to change. There has to be more to a city or metropolitan area than a contiguous urban area.
 
CMAs don't absorb other CMAs. So Oshawa (which includes Whitby) and Hamilton will never become part of the Toronto CMA. The most that could happen is for Statscan to create consolidated CMAs or urban regions where multiple CMAs could be grouped together. Those populations would be more comparable to combined metro areas in the U.S., where even their base metro areas are far more expansive than CMAs.
 
This comment will no doubt get lost in the debate about geographic boundaries etc. But my comment is why does it matter what the population of the region is? What I mean is that certainly it does matter but why does it matter to a) us personally b) the society as a whole?

The answer to a) is perhaps because place is interwoven with our sense of identity and everyone wants to be a winner and hence part of a winning team. Population growth seems to be some tangible metric to quantify the winning-ness of place.

Where we might run into problems is b). Large populations create diversity and high calibre levels of specialization and achievement. However, the real question is how are people contributing and benefiting from this arrangement. What is the point of a megalopolis where the majority of people live in substandard conditions at the expense of an elite class who operate at the highest level of human achievement? Why would the GTA at 9 million people be better than the GTA at 5.5million?
 
I prefer going by this list of Largest Urban Areas on Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population

here our urban area is defined as everything between Oshawa and Hamilton. In this list Osh-Tor-Ham ranks as # 45 in the world, #5 in North America, edging out the San Fran Bay area, Miami and Philadelphia.

the bigger we are, the more power we have, so... be fruitful and multiply! On the other hand, the bigger we are, the harder we fall, so get out while you can!
 
MisterF said:
The most that could happen is for Statscan to create consolidated CMAs or urban regions where multiple CMAs could be grouped together.
Click to expand...

That's a great idea; hope Statscan adopts it soon. Any information is good information.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top