The findings of the 2011 Census are finally trickling through, and the city has released its assessment of the
demographic changes that may have a profound influence on Toronto's future development.
Despite the numbers having been collected in the full flush of the condo boom, the city of Toronto's demographic primacy within the GTA is actually slipping. In 2011, it accounted for 48.2 per cent of GTA households, down from 49.8 per cent at the time of the 2006 census.
Among those households, the number non-family households—households made up of roommates or singles—increased by 13.5 per cent, while the number of single-family households increased by only 3.9 per cent. The number of one-person households increased by 12.1 per cent to 331,180. The average number of people per Toronto household was also the lowest in the GTA, at 2.5.
There has also been a six per cent increase in the number of seniors living alone, up to 95,205.
"Those types of numbers affect the ways we look at the types of services we provide," says Harvey Low, manager of the social research and analysis unit of the city's social development finance and administration division, "from housing services and infrastructure to the delivery of social services, smaller household services means a different type of client."
In addition to, for example, deciding where to spend the city's childcare money (increasingly in the outer boroughs), the dwindling Toronto numbers within the context of the GTA imply either an overly optimistic condo development industry, a continuing and perhaps overshadowing development boom in the suburbs, or a possible evacuation of the suburbs for the core once an oversupply of housing forces a drop in Toronto prices.
More detailed census data, including how long people live in households and low long it takes to build them, have yet to be released.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Harvey Low
Do you know of a new building going up, a business expanding or being renovated, a park in the works or even a new house being built in the neighbourhood? Please send your development news tips to [email protected].