Housing costs part of dynamics shaping Metro moving trends, demographer says
DERRICK PENNER
The Vancouver Sun
In the leafy confines of Vancouver’s upscale Shaughnessy neighbourhood, the population decreased by 140 residents between the 2011 Canadian census and the 2016 census.
It is a small number in Vancouver’s overall population, but represents a seven per cent decline for the neighbourhood and speaks to a “re-sorting” of Metro Vancouver’s population, according to Andy Yan, a demographer and director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University.
“What’s interesting is we’re talking about a city that grew by five per cent,” Yan said. He was referring to the Statistics Canada census report, released Wednesday, that showed an overall rise of the city of Vancouver’s population by 27,984 residents since 2011, bringing the city’s total population to 631,486 in 2016.
However, those new people are crowding into places such as the Olympic Village on False Creek, parts of downtown or even into the rapidly growing outer edges of the city.
Shaughnessy isn’t alone in losing residents since the last census.
Yan analyzed shifts of population among the smaller census units within the Lower Mainland’s municipalities, referred to as census tracts, which showed a pool of areas, mainly on Vancouver’s west side, that also had their populations drop.
Dunbar, Arbutus Ridge and Kerrisdale neighbourhoods declined by an average of three per cent.
These shifts don’t correlate closely with data about empty or periodically occupied homes that Yan had already compiled.
The census found that 25,502 homes in Vancouver classified as unoccupied or occupied by foreign or temporary residents on census day. However, Yan said the highest concentrations of those are in Coal Harbour, Marine Gateway and Joyce-Collingwood.
Yan said shifts such as this aren’t unexpected in neighbourhoods like those on the west side and there are a number of possible factors.
“Aging in place,” is one factor, Yan said. As households age, they shrink as children leave home and settle elsewhere.
However, Shaughnessy, the neighbourhood that lost the biggest proportion of its population, is also among the most expensive. The median assessed value of a home is $4.91 million, according to B.C. Assessment, compared with a city-wide median of just under $2 million.
Yan said housing costs are part of the dynamics pushing population shifts. Outside of Vancouver, he found that the other census tracts losing population are in West Vancouver, on the west side of Richmond and around Deer Lake and Burnaby Lake in Burnaby, all upscale areas.
The hottest growth tends to be in suburbs further out, such as Surrey and the Township of Langley.
“That really covers, I think, how people are dealing in terms of not only high housing costs, but ensuring that housing is adequate for their families,” Yan said.
In Vancouver’s shrinking neighbourhoods, however, there are implications for maintaining schools and local services if the population is leaving.
“Then there’s the discussion that maybe these are areas that you should be looking at (for) a certain level of densification,” Yan said. “That’s part of the discussion about where the census can take us.”
© 2017 Postmedia Network Inc.