The Metropolitanisation of Canada. Why Populations Continue to Concentrate in and Around Large Urban Centres and what it Means for Other Regions

Polèse, Mario et Shearmur, Richard (2003). The Metropolitanisation of Canada. Why Populations Continue to Concentrate in and Around Large Urban Centres and what it Means for Other Regions Working Paper. Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Montréal.

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Résumé

Canada’s geography and historically resource-based economy has given rise to a more dispersed settlement pattern than in most other nations (certainly, compared to most Western European nations) with a broad spectrum of urban areas of various sizes, often located at great distances from each other. The resource-based economy often produced urban settlements whose sole reason for existence was the exploitation (or primary transformation) of a particular resource, be it fish, wood, wheat, hydro-electrical power, minerals, natural gas or petrol.However, as elsewhere, Canada’s urban system has come to be dominated by a few large metropolitan areas, home to the chief financial, corporate, and cultural institutions. Some 37% of Canada’s population lived in the four largest metropolitan areas (CMAs) in 2001: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa-Hull, each with a population of over one million. It is not impossible that one day close to 60% of Canada’s population will reside in a few large metropolitan areas (with populations over 500,000). This gradual population shift towards large metropolitan areas is a reflection of Canada’s changing economy. As Canada’s economy becomes less and less dependent on resource exploitation, its structure is coming to resemble that of other industrialized nations, increasingly dominated by tradable services and high value-added manufacturing.Canada’s economic geography is undergoing a slow but steady transformation as its economy is progressively organized around a few large urban centres. This is what we mean by the metropolitanisation of Canada. The transformation is not limited to the concentration of economic activity in metropolitan areas (CMAs) as such, but also in communities (of various sized) near the largest metropolitan areas.

Type de document:	Monographie (Working Paper)
Mots-clés libres:	industry; urbanisation; resource-based economy; tradable services; high value-added manufacturing; Canada
Centre:	Centre Urbanisation Culture Société
Date de dépôt:	12 nov. 2020 20:46
Dernière modification:	12 nov. 2020 20:46
URI:	https://espace.inrs.ca/id/eprint/9402

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