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Canada's Densest Neighbourhoods (2011 data)

Silence&Motion

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Was doing some data analysis today, and thought I'd post this list of the 10 densest neighbourhoods in Canada from the 2011 Census data. They're only actually approximations of neighbourhoods based on FSAs (the first three letters of a postal code). Most of them are neighbourhoods you'd expect. Parc Ex caught my eye as a neighbourhood with little or no highrises and yet still manages significant density. I'm surprised to see M5B up there given how many empty parking lots are in the area. Also keep in mind that this is residents per km2, which is why the financial district doesn't make the list.

M4Y (Bay-Bloor-Sherbourne-Carlton Block) 26207 p/km2
V6E (West End Vancouver) 21154 p/km2
M4X (St Jamestown/Cabbagetown) 20387 p/km2
M5B (Yonge-Carlton-Jarvis-Queen Block) 18920 p/km2
V6B (Downtown Vancouver/Yaletown/Gastown) 17724 p/km2
H3N (Parc Ex, Montreal) 17226 p/km2
M5C (Yonge-Queen-Jarvis-King Block) 14870 p/km2
V6Z (Granville Street corridor + North bank of False Creek, Vancouver) 14526 p/km2
H3S (Côte-des-Neiges, Montreal) 12798 p/km2
M4P (Yonge and Eglinton - NE corner) 12790 p/km2
 
I find this suspect. M5C has more residents than something like Thorncliffe Park or Flemingdon Park? Queen - King, Yonge - Jarvis does not really have many residential buildings. Could probably count them all on my fingers and toes.
 
Surprised Mtl only has two of the ten. It goes against what I had expected to see.

To me it seems more consistently dense (the 3 story houses everywhere with a different family on each floor), whereas Toronto has more extreme density mixed with lower density, and therefore Toronto would have more in the top 10, even though many areas of Montreal are probably denser than many parts of Toronto.

NE corner of Yonge-Eg, the apartment buildings are spaced a bit apart but it is one tall apartment building after another the whole block, so it's not too surprising.
 
I find this suspect. M5C has more residents than something like Thorncliffe Park or Flemingdon Park? Queen - King, Yonge - Jarvis does not really have many residential buildings. Could probably count them all on my fingers and toes.

It all depends on how Canada Post draws the FSAs. Thorncliffe Park (in M4H) and Flemingdon Park (in M3C) are right next to huge suburban plazas and parks that would increase their land area several times over without adding any population. Does using FSAs skew the numbers? It's a matter of perspective, I think. A measure of density probably should take into account the fact that Flemingdon Park is surrounded by valleys and parking lots, whereas M5C is surrounded by more density.

Here's a map of Toronto's FSAs: http://www.canadapost.ca/cpc2/addrm/hh/maps/FSA/on20.pdf
 
Density based on population is not meaningful, gives mixed-use neighbourhoods a disadavantage. Is St/ Jamestown really denser than the Financial District. Density should be measured by population + jobs per sq km.
 
Density based on population is not meaningful, gives mixed-use neighbourhoods a disadavantage. Is St/ Jamestown really denser than the Financial District. Density should be measured by population + jobs per sq km.

You can measure density however you like. Density based on population is meaningful for a lot of things. People's residences are also easier to place geographically. Jobs introduce several complications (e.g. do you count firms or employees? What about firms with PO box addresses, or employees with multiple or no fixed work locations, etc).
 
Parc Ex caught my eye as a neighbourhood with little or no highrises and yet still manages significant density.

M4Y (Bay-Bloor-Sherbourne-Carlton Block) 26207 p/km2
V6E (West End Vancouver) 21154 p/km2
M4X (St Jamestown/Cabbagetown) 20387 p/km2
M5B (Yonge-Carlton-Jarvis-Queen Block) 18920 p/km2
V6B (Downtown Vancouver/Yaletown/Gastown) 17724 p/km2
H3N (Parc Ex, Montreal) 17226 p/km2
M5C (Yonge-Queen-Jarvis-King Block) 14870 p/km2
V6Z (Granville Street corridor + North bank of False Creek, Vancouver) 14526 p/km2
H3S (Côte-des-Neiges, Montreal) 12798 p/km2
M4P (Yonge and Eglinton - NE corner) 12790 p/km2

Parc Ex is a working class South Asian immigrant neighbourhood, so it's possible that there's a lot more extended families and multiple-people-to-a-room situations that make the area denser than it may appear from the outside.

A similar area, demographically, would be the stretch of Jamieson in Parkdale.

Sort of OT to Toronto, but the V6B/Yaletown forward sortation area in Vancouver is surprising, since it has only been developed in the past 20 years, and is mostly middle and upper-middle class singles and couples with a few families with very young children. Also, the northern third is very commercial and isn't known to be a residential area, so it makes the density of that area even more impressive. It's dense in a visual sense, but, based on its demographics and the surprising amount of open space in the area, I was surprised it ranked up there.
 
Interesting stuff. Can you please post the source? I'd like to check a few other FSAs.

I'm the source (well, the research team I belong to at U of T). But the data comes originally from the 2011 Census. If you're interested in specific FSA's, just let me know. Or you can search for specific locations using the Statistics Canada website. They don't have the data at the FSA level, but they do have Census Tracts, Electoral districts, and other units of analysis.
 
"Density based on population is not meaningful, gives mixed-use neighbourhoods a disadavantage"

This is a really interesting comment by Doady. It kind of implies that density is naturally good or some kind of competition which might seem intuitively obvious to a planning student in Canada but perplexing to one in say Shanghai or Mumbai.

Hey Silence&Motion, since you do research on these subjects one thing I am interested in is the other side of the public ledger. I have seen countless mappings illustrating the demand side of the equation (services needed and provided) but almost nothing on the supply side. I have never seen mappings of taxation or asset density. In a way I would find the supply side just as or even more politically interesting.
 
"Density based on population is not meaningful, gives mixed-use neighbourhoods a disadavantage"

This is a really interesting comment by Doady. It kind of implies that density is naturally good or some kind of competition which might seem intuitively obvious to a planning student in Canada but perplexing to one in say Shanghai or Mumbai.

Hey Silence&Motion, since you do research on these subjects one thing I am interested in is the other side of the public ledger. I have seen countless mappings illustrating the demand side of the equation (services needed and provided) but almost nothing on the supply side. I have never seen mappings of taxation or asset density. In a way I would find the supply side just as or even more politically interesting.

I'm hesitant to post more data because they have been paid for (not by me), and I'm not sure I'm allowed to just be posting things on the internet. However, we do have data on the number of firms/businesses/organizations within each FSA. The density (# of firms per km2) is what you'd expect. The financial districts of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are way up there (in that order). They're trailed distantly by downtown Calgary, downtown Ottawa, and some of the neighbourhoods surrounding the financial districts in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. But keep in mind that this is the number of firms whose address is listed in each FSA. It doesn't include the number of people each firm employs or how many of their employees actually work at their primary address.
 
Parc Ex is a working class South Asian immigrant neighbourhood, so it's possible that there's a lot more extended families and multiple-people-to-a-room situations that make the area denser than it may appear from the outside.

A similar area, demographically, would be the stretch of Jamieson in Parkdale.

Sort of OT to Toronto, but the V6B/Yaletown forward sortation area in Vancouver is surprising, since it has only been developed in the past 20 years, and is mostly middle and upper-middle class singles and couples with a few families with very young children. Also, the northern third is very commercial and isn't known to be a residential area, so it makes the density of that area even more impressive. It's dense in a visual sense, but, based on its demographics and the surprising amount of open space in the area, I was surprised it ranked up there.
Parc Extension is not that surprising to me. It has a lot of 3-4 storey apartment buildings with no side setbacks and small yards. I think the densest city blocks have densities around 30-40,000 p/km2, which is brought down by 2 storey plexes, schools, parks, and a few bungalow city blocks. Similar built forms are pretty rare outside Montreal. Mostly you either have row houses, sometimes subdivided into apartments, but often just 2 storey and with more yard space, or you have low rise (and taller) apartment complexes with more residual greenspace ("in the park"). The closest I can think of might be some of the stacked/back to back townhouse complexes, and these can be quite dense.

There one on Everson Drive in North York that supposedly has 64,000p/km2. I initially thought Statscan made a mistake when they reported just how many people were living in that block. According to Statscan, this stacked back to back townhouse complex has a little over 700 units. They have 4 floors of living space, and based on satellite images, it looks like there's around 45% ground coverage, so you'd need about 300sf per person. That's tight, so I'm not sure I'm willing to believe it, but even with 450sf per person, you'd have high densities around 42,000 p/km2.

The Westernmost blocks of Parc-Ex between de l'Epee and Wiseman have a density of 33,000/km2. It has 2-4 storey apartments largely attached side by side. Parc-Ex had about 10% of households with more people than rooms, so it is more crowded than the average Canadian neighbourhood, but still not nearly as bad as parts of Thorncliffe Park. The census tract that contains the five towers SE of Thorncliffe Park Drive had about 30% of households with more people than rooms in 2006, and has gained 13.7% in population from 2006 to 2011 with no new construction. Meanwhile, Parc-Ex lost population from 2006 to 2011.

The densest wards of Montreal in 1931 were around Parc Lafontaine, and had densities of 30,000-40,000 p/km2 in what were mostly 2-3 storey plexes.

I'd say that 25-30,000/km2 per residential FSI would be typical (for 500sf/person including space like hallways, stairwells and walls). So you'd have to include space for schools, commercial, parks and streets, possibly industry too for neighbourhood level calculations. About 30-35% of land for streets is typical. Retail/office is not too much. Schools/parks can be maybe 10-30% of land area. Other institutional land uses and industry can vary quite a lot. The "walled city of Lower Sherbourne" proposal had an FSI of around 12.5 across a whole city block. That drops to about 8.85 going up the midpoint of surrounding streets. Adding parks, schools, etc, the density might end up around 150,000 p/km2 for a neighbourhood built up in that manner.
 
"Density based on population is not meaningful, gives mixed-use neighbourhoods a disadavantage"

This is a really interesting comment by Doady. It kind of implies that density is naturally good or some kind of competition which might seem intuitively obvious to a planning student in Canada but perplexing to one in say Shanghai or Mumbai.

I simply meant that it is not meaningful in terms of measuring density. Sheesh.
 
Here are the densest neighbourhoods by Census Tract, which is smaller than an FSA. I personally think that an FSA is a better representation of what we conventionally think of as a "neighbourhood". Census tracts are more like single blocks. However, it still provides an interesting picture. NYCC dominates the list even though it didn't crack the top 10 FSAs.

1. St. Jamestown, Toronto 60,915 p/km2 (5350065.00)
2. Northtown block, NYCC 52,763 p/km2 (5350307.06)
3. Shaughnessy Village, Montreal 49,647 p/km2 (4620065.01)
4. Bay-Bloor-Yonge-St. Joseph Block, Toronto 46,638 p/km2 (5350062.01)
5. Yonge and Empress, east side, NYCC 45,372 p/km2 (5350307.03)
6. Yonge and Sheppard NE Corner, NYCC 41,019 p/km2 (5350307.04)
7. Crowley Drive, Vancouver, 39,951 p/km2 (9330016.06)
8. Av. MacDonald, Montreal 38,250 p/km2 (4620385.00)
9. High Park Village, Toronto 37,205 p/km2 (5350102.02)
10. Yonge-Carlton-Jarvis-Gerrard Block, Toronto 36,176 p/km2 (5350034.01)

I've put the geocodes in brackets so that you can check the actual boundaries of each tract for yourself, here: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/prof/index.cfm?Lang=E
 

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