[Cooool]

I hear a lot of discussion about how Toronto is a rapidly expanding city and growing in population, but it really isn't that unique when compared to other US cities.

According to this survey, Toronto is the 200th fastest growing city behind US cities like Phoenix, Portland, Denver, Houston, Dallas, Riverside, Sacramento, and even Orlando. It's also neck and neck with Miami and Seattle.

All this time I though Toronto was unique in the sense it was growing faster than other North America cities, but it really isn't. Miami is projected to be bigger than Toronto in 10 years.

http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/urban_growth2.html

 

[kettal]

This list is based on percentage growth. Smaller cities have an advantage in this.

For example, Las Vegas is the top US city on that list, with 3.45% growth which works out to about 69,000 new people per year.

Toronto has 1.48% growth, but since the GTA is already a larger population, that works out to 74,000 people per year.

So in fact Toronto is growing faster, in real numbers, than the #1 US city on that list.

I don't feel like going through all of them. Perhaps some have more growth than Toronto, but I think we're still near the top for the continent.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I believe the U.S. tends to include much larger geographic areas in their "Metros", which would skew things a tad.

 

[Archivist]

Certainly, the various ways in which cities measure their populations would skew the results. I wonder if the figures include the population of the city proper, or the metropolitan area, or a messy assortment of both. I assume the latter.

Besides, really, is getting into a shoving war with Beihai dignified in any way? Do we really envy third-place Sana'a, in extremely poor and water-challenged Yemen? I don't. Bigger isn't always better. Better is better.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Those are projections...show me the money in 2020, I say. It's just some guy on the internet putting his guesses into a chart, not the Oracle of Delphi. These projections usually latch onto a short period of rapid growth and assume the conditions will continue for decades...sometimes you'll see Uganda projected to quadruple in size in less than 50 years because of questionable assumptions.

Indianapolis is curiously high on the list...yes, its ring of sububan counties is sprawlling relatively quickly, but faster than Houston and Dallas and Sacramento? We'll see.

 

[Cooool]

It's so interesting that Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix are growing so quickly. I've heard nothing but horror stories about how hot it is down there and how trashy the people are. And WHO would want to live in Atlanta? One of the most dangerous cities in the US. Nothing good ever came out of Atlanta.

I honestly take it with a grain of salt as well because I've heard so many different predictions of how big Toronto will be. There's a page on the Ontario government website that says it'll have a metro area of 7.7 million by 2025.

 

[UserNameToronto]

It's so interesting that Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix are growing so quickly. I've heard nothing but horror stories about how hot it is down there and how trashy the people are. And WHO would want to live in Atlanta? One of the most dangerous cities in the US. Nothing good ever came out of Atlanta.

I honestly take it with a grain of salt as well because I've heard so many different predictions of how big Toronto will be. There's a page on the Ontario government website that says it'll have a metro area of 7.7 million by 2025.

Much of the growth of due to an increase in manufacturing jobs and low land values, and the prime source of immigration is California and the Rust Belt. Not all growth is classy, I guess

 

[nfitz]

As they list a population of Toronto of 5.1 million it's clear they are using the Toronto CMA (5.1 million in the 2006 census) which doesn't include Oshawa, Burlington, Hamilton, Barrie, etc.

For Miami they list 5.48 million (which is bigger than their Toronto number now) which appears to match the 2007 estimate for metropolitan Miami (the Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach Metropolitan Area), but that also includes Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and even Jupiter,

If they are going to include towns 135 km away from downtown Miami, then the Toronto number should be based on the Greater Golden Horseshoe number (Stat Can's Extended Golden Horseshoe, not the Toronto CMA) which had a population of 8.1 million in 2006.

This would move Toronto's population from 48th to 27th between Lima and Bogota (hmm, now where have I heard those 3 cities mentioned together recently ...)

 

[Whoaccio]

It's so interesting that Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix are growing so quickly. I've heard nothing but horror stories about how hot it is down there and how trashy the people are. And WHO would want to live in Atlanta? One of the most dangerous cities in the US. Nothing good ever came out of Atlanta.

That's a bit of a stereotype. Houston is a major beacon for professionals. It has the most Fortune 500 HQs of any US city outside NYC, the Texas Medical Center is arguably the largest medical research center on Earth, NASA's Space Center & the United Space Launch Alliance make it arguably the most important City for aerospace development and its pretty much the king of energy and petrochemicals. There are over 60 universities or colleges with 350+ thousand students enrolled.

And median home prices are only like 170k. So it's really not that surprising it has such high growth. The same for Atlanta, which has the 3rd most Fortune 500 HQs after NYC & Houston with median home prices of only 150k. Would I want to live in these cities? Not necessarily, but I get the feeling the type of people who live in Portland or Boston simply discredit them without looking at why they attract so many people, including the people in fields who are supposed to like Portland (i.e. professionals & college grads).

 

[CookieMonster]

And WHO would want to live in Atlanta?

Evander Holyfield!

 

[doady]

Toronto is a very fast growing city compared to the US rustbelt/snowbelt cities that it is surrounded by. Toronto is an anomaly in the rustbelt/snowbelt area because its rate of growth is much more like that of a sunbelt city. And if you look at the actual form of that growth, you can also find many similarities between Toronto and the sunbelt cities. Lets face it, in all cases most of the growth has taken place in the suburbs, and the suburbs in Toronto are much more similar to the suburbs of cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix than they are to the suburbs of Chicago or New York.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Chicago's suburbs are growing extremely quickly...the Joliet/Aurora areas are growing as fast as any sunbelt area. They're ridiculously horrible sprawlholes, though, with outright gross housing stock going up, whereas Toronto's suburbs are far, far less horrible.

More interesting are the cities that are "growing" by moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic. Syracuse is a great example.

 

[Whoaccio]

Comparing Toronto to various rustbelt cities is a waste of time. Despite the climatic similarities, we are different enough that a direct comparison is pointless.

Most prominently, Toronto has never really had the racial problems those cities had. You can't explain the decline of US cities without reference to their long history of racial violence. The National Guard was deployed to Detroit to deal with rioting. The only time we ever had the military deploy was to shovel snow. The economic and social impacts of these riots on American cities really can't be overstated. It's worth pointing out that the cities most often thought of as "succesful" in America, like Portland, Seattle or San Francisco are notable in their lack of African Americans relative to failed cities like Detroit, Baltimore or Newark. It's also the case that Anglo/French tensions had the clear effect of stunting Montreal's growth, and by comparison to some American cities the October Crisis seems like a tea party.

I'm sure Toronto seems like an attractive place next to Beirut.

 

[doady]

Chicago's suburbs are growing extremely quickly...the Joliet/Aurora areas are growing as fast as any sunbelt area. They're ridiculously horrible sprawlholes, though, with outright gross housing stock going up, whereas Toronto's suburbs are far, far less horrible.

More interesting are the cities that are "growing" by moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic. Syracuse is a great example.

I would say Chicago is good example of a "Titanic" situation as well.

Comparing Toronto to various rustbelt cities is a waste of time. Despite the climatic similarities, we are different enough that a direct comparison is pointless.

Most prominently, Toronto has never really had the racial problems those cities had. You can't explain the decline of US cities without reference to their long history of racial violence.

The decline of the rustbelt cities is due to the decline of industry in the rustbelt and the decline of industry in the US and developed countries altogether. Industry tends to be located at the fringe anyways, so it has nothing to do with inner city racial conflict.

Do you really think the decline of Hamilton and the Niagara Penisula is due to racial conflict as well? Come on...

EDIT: I should also point out that of the top 10 US cities with the highest proportion of African-Americans, at least half are Sunbelt cities. Also, the top 10 metropolitan areas with the highest proportion of African-Americans are ALL Sunbelt cities.

 

[TrickyRicky]

Growth rate is one thing but how many cities in North America are adequately accommodating this new growth? Likely none, ergo our cities are largely not getting better as they get bigger. The greatest improvement in standard of living and amenities is occuring largely in neighbourhoods that are not fast growing. Growth in the city regions we are talking about is largely concentrated in autocentric neighbourhoods offering the lowest levels of services and amenities in the regions (example: Brampton)