[Johnny Au]

In Quebec, the reason why it has no distinction between town or city is because the word for both town and city in Canadian French is ville (feminine).

Markham is still mainly low density, despite being a town with 301k people. Montreal is Canada's most populous town, given the aformentioned lack of distinction between town and city in Canadian French.

 

[hawc]

In my dictionary, a "city" at least needs to have 300k residents. Markham with 301k people is still a town.

So by your dictionary Prince Edward Island (pop 141,000) is a town?

 

[hawc]

In Ontario, the population that a municipality must reach before it can rename itself to a city is 10,000.

So then CityPlace (pop 15,000) should call itself The City of CityPlace.

 

[hawc]

Milton grew by 56.5%! Fastest growing city in Canada!

Anecdotally, I had 5 friends last year leave Toronto to 'start families' in Milton. Hope their kids like traffic jams.

 

[Just_Chris]

Old Toronto:

2006: 687,166
2011: 736,775
% Growth: 7.2%

Where do you find these numbers? I find the StatsCan web site very unintuitive and difficult to use.

And do you know where I can find the map with the census tract borders? A while ago I added up all the census tracts for downtown Toronto, and I would like to add the same for the new census to compare the population.

I added up the following areas for the 2006 census. I would like to do the same for the new one, but can't find where to look on the website:

 

[Memph]

Old Toronto:

2006: 687,166
2011: 736,775
% Growth: 7.2%

Not too shaby... especially considering the city as a whole didn't grow quite as much as expected. St James Town's census tract lost some population but it looks like it will still be the densest (at least it's the densest in Old Toronto). I think the population estimates include people who didn't respond to the census, that's partly why they're higher.

Somewhat surprisingly, East York grew too, both from growth in more lowrise neighbourhoods, and in Thorncliffe and Crescent Town.
2006: 112,054
2011: 115,365
% Growth: 3.0%

York barely grew
2006: 137,084
2011: 137,963
% Growth: 0.6%

For North York, the 2006 numbers from wikipedia and adding up census tracts (CT) were different (same with Scarborough). I don't know where the wikipedia numbers are from.
2006 (wiki): 635,370
2006 (CT tally): 622,088
2011: 651,094
% Growth (wiki): 2.5%
% Growth (CT tally): 4.7%

Etobicoke managed to grow too
2006: 334.491
2011: 347,958
% Growth: 4.0%

Scarborough
2006 (wiki): 602,575
2006 (CT tally): 608,083
2011: 625,926
% Growth (wiki): 3.9%
% Growth (CT Tally): 2.9%

 

[Memph]

Where do you find these numbers? I find the StatsCan web site very unintuitive and difficult to use.

And do you know where I can find the map with the census tract borders? A while ago I added up all the census tracts for downtown Toronto, and I would like to add the same for the new census to compare the population.

I added up the following areas for the 2006 census. I would like to do the same for the new one, but can't find where to look on the website:

I got the numbers the same way as you did, by adding up census tracts.

The GeoSearch tool for 2011 just went down though, not sure why. Here's where it's found:
http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/index-eng.cfm

Edit: GeoSearch is working once again!

 

[Just_Chris]

When I click on that link though, where do I click to get the maps with the census tracts? I can't find it.

 

[Palma]

Agree. I don't know why a small town of 85k people claim to be a city.
In my dictionary, a "city" at least needs to have 300k residents. Markham with 301k people is still a town. If you drive around Markham, you know it is NOT a city.

Canada has 15 real cities, the smallest being London, ON.

So how did Vaughan become a city with less people? Or is it they just call themselves a city but technically they are not?

 

[Memph]

When I click on that link though, where do I click to get the maps with the census tracts? I can't find it.

Click on "GeoSearch", zoom into downtown (you can select an area to blow up) and then when you're sufficiently zoomed in, click on the "boundaries" tab and select "census tracts".

 

[Palma]

So all this talk about the the population of Toronto is booming and we need to find places for them to live and hence the condo boom - but hey don't worry they say, the demand is there. The only thing fueling the condo boom are developers spreading the word that millions of people are coming and we need to provide them with places to live. What kind of urban planners does Toronto have anyways that buys into all this?

 

[hawc]

The only thing fueling the condo boom are developers spreading the word that millions of people are coming.

 

[Memph]

So all this talk about the the population of Toronto is booming and we need to find places for them to live and hence the condo boom - but hey don't worry they say, the demand is there. The only thing fueling the condo boom are developers spreading the word that millions of people are coming and we need to provide them with places to live. What kind of urban planners does Toronto have anyways that buys into all this?

I'm not sure why the census suggests that there isn't demand for living in Toronto or for condos... 4.5% growth is not nothing, and more importantly, the number of occupied households increased by 7.0% which amounts to about 13,500 new units per year. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the city would have grown faster if there were fewer zoning restrictions. I wonder if the 2006-2008 period saw a higher rate of suburban SFH construction and the 2008-2010 might have been affected by a slight slow down in condo construction. The fact that 28,000 condo units were sold in 2011 (includes 905) suggests that the demand is still strong. There is some speculation... but the GTA is still growing quite fast at close to 100,000 people per year, and condos are making up an increasingly large portion of new units sold.

 

[Haljackey]

Sooooooooooooooooo close............

I really thought Mississauga was going to surpass Detroit.

Detroit: 713,777 (2010)
Mississauga: 713,443 (2011)


Toronto is also inches away from overtaking Chicago:

Chicago: 2,695,598 (2010)
Toronto: 2,615,060 (2011)

Crazy close yo!

 

[Johnny Au]

Sooooooooooooooooo close............

I really thought Mississauga was going to surpass Detroit.

Detroit: 713,777 (2010)
Mississauga: 713,443 (2011)


Toronto is also inches away from overtaking Chicago:

Chicago: 2,695,598 (2010)
Toronto: 2,615,060 (2011)

Crazy close yo!

This year or next year, Toronto becomes the most populous city in the Great Lakes Metropolis, while Mississauga becomes more populous than Motor Town.