Urban growth trends in Canada, 1981-86 : a new geography of change

This is the third in a series of reports on changes in the Canadian settlement system over five-year census intervals (see Bourne and Simmons, 1979; Simmons and Bourne, 1984). The objective to provide a brief and timely overview of the main elements of spatial structure, urban growth, and reorganization, designed primarily for students and urban practitioners. The analysis focuses mainly on the quantitative aspects-the growth of population and employment-of Canada's growth as revealed in the five-year Census.Although Canada's population growth rate in the 1981-86 period did not differ significantly from that of the previous census period, the pattern of growth has shifted in a number of ways and at different spatial scales. The most dramatic change has been a reversal of the counter-urbanization trend of the 1970s, reversing the net flow of population from eastern to western Canada, and greatly reducing the interprovincial (and interurban) variability in growth rates. Regional variations in growth were replaced by variations within the urban hierarchy. For the first time in two decades larger cities grew more rapidly than smaller places, reflecting the shift from resource-led to service-based growth. Within urban areas, the massive decline in the population growth of older urban cities has abated as the baby-boomers leave home and household size stabilizes. Once again, the Census reveals a new geography of urban growth and change