How Cities Grow: A Study of Time Series Data for Canadian Cities

The report explores annual data for Canada's metropolitan areas from Statistics Canada, focusing on the growth of population, employment and income for the 15 largest urban centres over the last 20 years. Growth processes - both demographic and economic- differ widely from one city to the next, varying in magnitude, timing, and importance. The growth of employment and income are more volatlle over time than changes in population and are largely absorbed locally as changes In the labour force participation, wage level, and level of savings. As immigration has overtaken natural increase as the leading contributor to Canada's population growth, spatial and temporal variations in population growth have increased. Finally, as public and private services now account for most of the change in employment, the latter has become more sensitive to local and regional population change, replacing the sectoral economic variations driven by export markets