Population and Housing

[neonjoe]

I noticed today that the Population sign for Kitchener on Huron Road was recently updated from 255,000 to 270,000

[ac3r]

CTV had a short story about population growth and sprawl today: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/mobile/vide...qFc3CjWS1E

[Acitta]

CTV had a short story about population growth and sprawl today: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/mobile/vide...qFc3CjWS1E

Non-mobile link https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?cid=s...Id=2156319

[nms]

Some of the City of Waterloo population signs have been updated to 146,000.

[Rainrider22]

Victoria street coming into Kitchener has been updated to 270, 000..

[ijmorlan]

So how long until we get our Ikea?

[ac3r]

Good article in Bloomberg about how the Canadian housing market bubble isn't going to simply burst: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...rt-sellers

[plam]

Good article in Bloomberg about how the Canadian housing market bubble isn't going to simply burst: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...rt-sellers

Unsustainable trends continue until they don't. I sometimes try to understand them and just don't. (NZ is having the same problem).

To-wit, I got super confused by this Facebook ad. "This contemporary 2 story family home in sought after Leamington offers open plan living with warm and inviting spaces"... I was thinking that people aren't really that keen to join the 27,595 people in Leamington ON. I googled the address in the ad and found that Leamington is a suburb of Cambridge. ??!?!?! No, it's a suburb of Cambridge NZ, which is between Hamilton NZ and Rotorua NZ.

[EdM]

I was thinking that people aren't really that keen to join the 27,595 people in Leamington ON. I googled the address in the ad and found that Leamington is a suburb of Cambridge. ??!?!?! No, it's a suburb of Cambridge NZ, which is between Hamilton NZ and Rotorua NZ.

Then again Leamington, NZ has a population of about 7500.

[plam]

I was thinking that people aren't really that keen to join the 27,595 people in Leamington ON. I googled the address in the ad and found that Leamington is a suburb of Cambridge. ??!?!?! No, it's a suburb of Cambridge NZ, which is between Hamilton NZ and Rotorua NZ.

Then again Leamington, NZ has a population of about 7500.

Town sizes in NZ are weird. Greater Wellington is 542k but feels way bigger than KW.

[taylortbb]

Then again Leamington, NZ has a population of about 7500.

Town sizes in NZ are weird. Greater Wellington is 542k but feels way bigger than KW.

KW suffers from being near Toronto. Halifax and Victoria are both smaller metros than Kitchener, but feel larger. They're the centers of their respective areas, so there's a lot more cultural focus on them.

[tomh009]

Then again Leamington, NZ has a population of about 7500.

Town sizes in NZ are weird. Greater Wellington is 542k but feels way bigger than KW.

It's the suburban nature of most North American cities. My parents live in a city of 240,000 in Europe, but the urban area is much larger than that of Kitchener and Waterloo added together. It's easily three-plus square kilometres of city (mostly mid-rise buildings with retail components, plus substantial parks), excluding fully residential areas and the commercial zones outside of that.

[plam]

Town sizes in NZ are weird. Greater Wellington is 542k but feels way bigger than KW.

It's the suburban nature of most North American cities. My parents live in a city of 240,000 in Europe, but the urban area is much larger than that of Kitchener and Waterloo added together. It's easily three-plus square kilometres of city (mostly mid-rise buildings with retail components, plus substantial parks), excluding fully residential areas and the commercial zones outside of that.

NZ has all the same problems as in Canada though to different degrees. Including sprawl. So that accounts for things a bit but not that much.

Overall, probably a combination of factors: being close to Toronto is also a thing, but I think that Hamilton NZ is similarly close to Auckland but feels large for its size.

[Bytor]

I've been learning about the Missing Middle problem lately, and while I have been able to get the zoning data from Toronto very easily (77% of residential land is single-family houses or 2 storeys max), but getting it from Cambridge, Kitchener, or Waterloo is,. well, less than easy. When I asked for a few stats, like percentage of zone types, all Waterloo did was send me a link to the web map. That tells you about a specific parcel when you click on it, but but all residential, from detached houses to high-rises are mapped with the same colour (and thus indistinguishable), and you can't get any stats, like total area of all R1, or C1, etc… zones.

Kitchener and Cambridge haven't even responded yet.

[GarthDanlor]

Town sizes in NZ are weird. Greater Wellington is 542k but feels way bigger than KW.

KW suffers from being near Toronto. Halifax and Victoria are both smaller metros than Kitchener, but feel larger. They're the centers of their respective areas, so there's a lot more cultural focus on them.

It's also the distributed nature of the metropolitan area with 2 main city centre areas in KW and 3 within Cambridge itself.  Maybe by the time we reach a million in 2050, we will feel like a city of 600 000.