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Will be interesting to see population movement patterns in Ontario post-Covid, especially if new initiatives like a greater focus on work from home are maintained:

COVID-19 has been the push some Canadians needed to move out of the city

Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press
Published Saturday, June 13, 2020

www.cp24.com

Toronto, Canada & Global Breaking News – CP24

Most recent News News business news stories and video from CP24
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Jasmine18 said:
Well I'll be honest I'm glad I live in a big Suburban House then in a 400 square-foot shoebox condo right now
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Me too. Well, not a suburban house, but I’ve got my backyard, front yard and porch plus enough space that my spouse and the kids can go most of the day without tripping over each other. I can’t imagine being in a condo with a partner and two or three kids during these Covid restrictions.
 
If job markets and industries can sustain them, we'll see continued steady growth in cities and regions like like Windsor, St. Catharines-Niagara, London, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, Barrie-Orillia, Kingston, and Peterborough.

Thunder Bay were running some recruitment campaigns earlier through the GTA and had ads on the TTC and such, and I know they have a demand for healthcare related professionals. Although, their overall population have held stagnant and even showed slight decreases in the recent decade.
 
Maybe I’m wrong but I see little evidence work from home will lead to an urban exodus. It’s like 15 years ago when “everyone was moving to Hamilton”. Truth is that was largely cultural noise.

I think the main trend is that Suburban and exurban migration which has never stopped happening is just becoming culturally acceptable to a growing cohort of younger (Mostly white) people spoonfed a paradigm of urban living being superior.

There’s a tinge of elitism embedded in this cultural phenomenon because the desire to make it a thing is the desire to retain cultural supremacy. Like it’s not a thing if brown people move to the suburbs or exurbs in the 2000’s but it’s a thing if aging white hipsters do it in the 2020’s.

Technologically speaking some rural areas are reaching a threshold where internet speeds are serviceable for work from home but I’m not buying this idea as particularly meaningful either. Dense urban cores will be moving to 5G and beyond first so if anything technological service divides of this nature will accelerate between Cities and outer regions not move to greater parity.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I can’t imagine moving to Japan, for instance and then seeking out British-born, English white folks. I’d avoid them like the plague so I could learn Japanese, and if single, date the locals.... the best way to learn the lingo.
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I think temporary Western business "immigrants" do look for other westerners to live among, TBH.
 
Maybe this comment is better placed in a “future of work” thread but I was just thinking is an urban exodus work from home movement ultimately a bait-and-switch?

What I mean is will ultimately those who choose this route be first, marginalized within their careers and second, will companies think if I can remote white collar jobs on a digital platform why can’t I just eliminate them entirely?

For example I have a friend who moved out of the city. His wife does HR at a major downtown based company. She hasn’t even told her employer they moved out of the City (like 4 hrs away). Will the company really keep her over a hungry ever-present young downtown based worker? If HR can be done remotely over a digital platform won’t the company eventually look to software solutions to replace it’s remote HR community as the next step?

A fundamental part of human nature is “out of sight out of mind”. This should really read “out of senses out of mind, out of mind out of circle of concern”.
 
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TrickyRicky said:
Maybe this comment is better placed in a “future of work” thread but I was just thinking is an urban exodus work from home movement ultimately a bait-and-switch?

What I mean is will ultimately those who choose this route be first, marginalized within their careers and second, will companies think if I can remote white collar jobs on a digital platform why can’t I just eliminate them entirely?

For example I have a friend who moved out of the city. His wife does HR at a major downtown based company. She hasn’t even told her employer they moved out of the City (like 4 hrs away). Will the company really keep her over a hungry ever-present young downtown based worker? If HR can be done remotely over a digital platform won’t the company eventually look to software solutions to replace it’s remote HR community as the next step?

A fundamental part of human nature is “out of sight out of mind”. This should really read “out of senses out of mind, out of mind out of circle of concern”.
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Nothing is that black and white. I have a friend who does work with a company on back-end systems for Financial Services providers. He's a high-level manager/troubleshooter who deals w/clients.

He has a pretty decent pay, but 2 kids to support and didn't like his bang for the buck in Toronto housing market.

He ended up working out a deal where he now lives in K-W, but commutes in twice per week when his personal oversight is needed, or a handshake or group meeting.

The rest of the time, he works from home.

His job has been quite secure that way for years.

If your replaceable by technology, your replaceable when your in the office every day.

Now, 4 hours away is a bit different.

I think the main difference there is really incidental networking and close friendships.

Its something that can make a difference when it comes to promotion; or whom, among equals, gets cut first in a downturn.

But I don't think increased remote work is a career-ender or dead-ender unto itself.
 
In terms of connectivity needs as they are generally known today, I'm not sure the presence or absence of 5G is much of a factor. There seems to be sufficient bandwidth for work/live at home from the current networks - if you can access it. The wireless network has expanded, but when I was pricing to get off DSL it had higher cost and data caps compared to coax. At least where we are now we had the option; our last place was DSL. When we looked into wireless (old turbohub cel-based network), in spite of Sales and Marketing and the maps on websites saying we were covered, the laws of physics said otherwise, and we were not alone in that situation.

People are obviously willing to eat the necessary connectivity costs for the sake of employment (I doubt there are many employers picking up the tab). Of course, the trade-off is cheaper housing costs, but once you leave the GTA, I doubt many could afford to go back.

Much depends on what one does for a living. Not all jobs are remote-friendly or lend themselves to being outside of a large urban centre. If you are a lawyer/doctor/researcher, etc. and want to play in the big leagues, you need to be near them.

In terms of folks moving to/working from smaller but still urban centres away from the GTA, the options now are fairly accommodating. Where things fall off fairly quickly is outside of the municipal limits. Most tend to lack a surrounding suburb and the density falls off quite quickly, and so do the services. I still maintain this will be one of the eye-openers - one of several - for those folks who are professing they will buy or move to their cottage full-time.
 
The 338 federal electoral districts were defined in 2015, based on the numbers in the 2011 census. The Ontario provincial districts are based on those federal districts, and in turn Toronto's wards are based on the provincial districts (by order of Doug Ford).

Therefore, we can assume there will be increases in the electrical districts across the board, in 2025. IF they go with the 2021 census numbers.
 
I’m interested to see the impact of mass remote work. Mass remote work is different than the accommodation of sporadic remote workers. I think the point of my mass remote work movement question is would that catalyze white collar job automation?
 
Average detached and semi-detached home prices in the City of Toronto are up 20% in August year-over-year.

This would suggest to me that there is pent up demand for condo and apartment dwellers to purchase single family dwelling. The cost of single family is driving people out of the city who can’t afford to purchase closer to the centre. Urban hipsters and former hipsters are trying to create a larger cultural-movement rational (see 2000’s all the cool kids are moving to Hamilton) but it’s really a socio-economic migration.
 
Northern Light said:
As a purely practical matter, I think the focus needs to be on the Avenues/major roads, where single-detaches homes need to be removed wholesale, along w/those properties they back onto in order to allow good midrise and some hirise housing to exist along the main road.

The other measure I think is important is to break up the super blocks where major roads are 2km apart.

Simply creating a new E-W street 1/2 way between Eglinton and St. Clair from VP to Brimley, and in so doing, create space for new development on both sides of the new road; mixing midrise and stacked townhomes; and you can 10,000 people on that one street alone (probably more).

Similar super blocks need break ups between Eglinton and Lawrence and between Lawrence and Ellesmere; both easily managing VP to Markham Rd. Those combined w/my first example would house 45,000 w/o missing a beat.

They would also create new useful bus route opportunities.

There are other similar opportunities in the City, North York tends to have 2km gaps between N-S roads; and one could be sensibly punched in between Bayview and Leslie; but that would pricier given real estate values and fewer existing ROWs that neatly fit such a plan.

Punching Senlac north from Finch to Steeles would be a good one.
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Initially I scoffed at your idea of breaking up the blocks. But then it occurred to me that this plan sounds kind of like what Haussmann did in Paris in the mid 19th century. That said, he was clearing through slums with low property values. Mind you, as long as the value of the property is higher after work is done than it was before, and even if the initial property value was sky high, your idea is not so far-fetched.
 
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