Population Change in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area

Analysis Toronto CMA has experienced a rapid growth in population during the past decades. The question is: will current ministry policies on planning cities suffice to keep the current standards of living if the growth in population continues with the same rate? Detailed analysis of the past profile of population growth is needed to answer this question. However, because of the rapid rate of population growth, ministry needs to change policies and set new plans to address housing, transportation and environmental problems.
Toronto CMA consists of 27 municipalities divided into four types: central city, inner suburb, outer suburb and rural fringe. Based on the census results available at Statcan from 1961 to 2006, data are not complete for some municipalities on 1961, 1971 and 1981. These data are either unavailable or they were not included in the table since those municipalities were not part of Toronto CMA during those years.
Based on the available data, different types of municipalities can be each analyzed for their population change separately or can be compared to other type’s data.
Municipality TYPE 1961 to 1971 1971 to 1981 1981 to 1991 1991 to 2001 1961 to 2001
TORONTO Central City -0.28% -14.23% 3.07% 3.62% -8.66 %
EAST YORK Inner Suburb 33.07% -4.88% 108.69% 6.83% 182.20%
ETOBICOKE Inner Suburb -0.25% -8.08% 101.42% 2.86% 89.96%
NORTH YORK Inner Suburb 70.39% 14.00% 36.03% 3.16% 172.58%
SCARBOROUGH Inner Suburb 101.88% 19.62% -26.99% 6.14% 87.14%
YORK Inner Suburb -16.91% -9.07% 62.54% 2.54% 25.92%
Table1. Rate of Change in Population for Central City and Inner Suburbs
Please note that 2006 data has not been used in the above table since the boundaries between central city and inner Suburbs had changed from 2001 to 2006; therefore, using data from 2006 will introduce bias to the analysis of central city or inner suburbs. As you can observe, central city of Toronto has a negative rate of population change from 1961 to 1971 and