1 Million More Residents!

[rdaner]

How close are we to achieving Bedford's goal of adding 1 million new residents to the City of Toronto? Is this still city policy?

 

[androiduk]

To the City of Toronto or the GTA? I believe the GTA has been seeing a net gain of 100,000 people a year for the past while.

 

[Northern Light]

About 700,000 to go

About 700,000 to go.

It all depends of course, on where you start the clock, and the accuracy of estimates between census (es).

But the official population of Toronto when Bedford left as Chief Planner was roughly 2.4 million.

Currently, the City is estimated to be home to 2.7 million residents.

So growth of roughly 300,000 over the last five years.

That puts us about 700,000 and about about another 10 years away from the target number.

It should be said that target was for around 2030 as I recall. We are definitely on pace to beat the projection by quite a few years.

 

[BobBob]

Who is estimating the City to currently have 2.7m inhabitants? The 2006 census puts it at barely over 2.5m, and we have probably not moved very far from then.

 

[isaidso]

That may have been true prior to 2001, but since then, the City population has grown substantially. After decades of little growth, people are now clamouring to live in Toronto. The situation in 1991 to 2001 saw almost all growth occur in areas like Markham, Mississauga, etc.

The downtown population is actually skyrocketing. People are no longer only seeing the outer suburbs as an option.

 

[Hipster Duck]

It might be close to 2.7 million if you count illegal immigrants.

 

[BobBob]

That may have been true prior to 2001, but since then, the City population has grown substantially

Again, take a look at the 2006 census data. The city barely grew at all between 2001 and 2006. It is true that the downtown population has grown significantly, but this has been largely offset by a decline in inner suburbs as households shrink.

 

[MisterF]

City of Toronto population

2006: 2,503,281
2001: 2,481,494
1996: 2,385,421

You're right BobBob, downtown has seen substantial growth despite sluggish growth in the city as a whole.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Here's a map showing which areas are growing and which are not: http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/analysis/popdwell/maps/pdfs/CMA_CT_maps/Toronto-2.pdf

Areas like Parkdale and along the Danforth negate the downtown condo boom, North York Centre negates Jane & Finch, etc...it's hard to keep up with declining household size.

 

[rdaner]

Two questions 1) When does the pattern of declining household size in the outer suburbs change? They cannot decline forever. 2) At what point in the housing boom was the 2006 census taken? The huge increase in construction activity is only now beginning to produce new residents. My understanding is that the last census was just before many projects opened such as College Park and the newest CityPlace Towers which combined represent over 2 500 residents.

Maybe a more answerable question is where are we in unit counts to house 1 million more residents?