Calgary growth slows as net migration shifts
Posted Jul 20, 2016 2:30 pm.
Last Updated Jul 20, 2016 4:07 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Some of the most important data civic leaders use to make decisions was released Wednesday and it shows Calgary’s growth slowing down.
“As expected in this economic downturn, growth has slowed,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi said. “What we’re seeing here is roughly what we saw in 2010.”
Overall, Calgary’s population grew by 4,256 people to 1,235,171 in 2016, an increase of 0.36 per cent.
It’s in large part due to the number of births compared to deaths, also known as the natural increase, which was 10,783.
That offset Calgary’s net migration shift of -6,527 people, compared to a 2015 net migration of 24,909.
“The quantum is a little bit bigger than I thought in terms of going from such a high number,” Nenshi said. “I was anticipating a small net out-migration number, it’s tough to live here and not see that happening, but like I say, the swing is probably the part that surprises people the most.”
City council heavily relies on census data to make critical planning and budget decisions and Calgary’s current action plan for 2015-2018 is based on a population growth of 100,000 over that time frame.
Nenshi points that this year’s numbers actually puts them on pace.
“In the first two years, we had between 35,000 and 40,000 people and this year we have about 5,000 people which means we’re exactly on track with where we thought we would be in the first three years,” he said. “It certainly wasn’t a straight line, which is what we budgeted for, but it gives us a chance to take a breather and gives us a chance to catch up with ourselves,” he said.
The bigger concern for Nenshi is what kind of numbers we’ll see past the current action plan time frame.
“If this stable growth I should say persists into the next budget cycle, then that obviously means we’ll have a very different set of assumptions,” he said.
Mahogany was the community with the highest population growth of 2,040, followed by Nolan Hill with 2,033.
The slowing growth also means an increase in Calgary’s vacancy rate, now 4.3 per cent, up from 2.64 per cent from the previous April.
For more on the census, click here. – http://newsroom.calgary.ca/city-releases-2016-census-results/
Watch the news conference with Naheed Nenshi here:
