Unoccupied Canada

The census 'unoccupied by usual residents' metric is often in the news and one of the most frequentliy misrepresnted parts of census data. A quick primer on what does does and does not say.

Jens von Bergmann Nathan Lauster

13 minute read

(Joint with Nathan Lauster and cross-posted at HomeFreeSociology) TLDR Canadian Census data on “Dwellings Unoccupied by Usual Residents” are frequently misunderstood. Now that data from 2021 are out, we provide a timely explainer and draw upon a variety of resources, including comparisons with US data, Empty Homes Tax data, and zooming in on census geographies, to help people interpret what we can see. Canada Unoccupied Given that ongoing occupations are so much in the news, let’s turn the channel to talk about those parts of Canada that are unoccupied!

Deadbeat zoning

With the new 2021 census data out it's time for some analysis on how Vancouver has grown. For this time we will examine the role of low-density zoning.

Jens von Bergmann

8 minute read

With the first batch of data from the 2021 census we can start to answer some questions about how Vancouver has grown. One of these is how population growth relates to zoning as Gil Meslin reminded me today. It would be very useful to have a custom tabulation available for that, but it will still take a lot of time before 2021 custom tabulations will become available. In the meantime, we can get a pretty good idea how low-density zoning has or has not contributed to Vancouver’s population growth by following a line of analysis like we did back when the 2016 data came out.

Canada's 2021 census, part 1

The first tranche of the 2021 census data has arrived. Here is a quick rundown.

Jens von Bergmann

7 minute read

Today we are getting the first release of the 2021 census data. For now, it’s just population, household, and dwelling counts. As well as Census Metropolitan Area and Census Tract boundaries. Census data is a snapshot in time, the reference day for the 2021 census is May 11, 2021. The rest of the data will follow over the coming year. CensusMapper The data is now available on CensusMapper for anyone to view, download, and map themselves.

No shortage in Housing BS

There is a special brain worm making the rounds that Vancouver supply has been outstripping demand. Which is obvious nonsense, but maybe still deserves a detailed takedown.

Jens von Bergmann Nathan Lauster

13 minute read

(Joint with Nathan Lauster and cross-posted at HomeFreeSociology) Say you built a bunch of housing in a cornfield in the middle of rural Iowa. Would people come to live in it? Maybe. But probably not. Let’s imagine the same scenario scooted over to Vancouver. The conditions for our little field of dreams have changed. Here we’re pretty comfortable predicting: if you build it, they will come. Housing limits population growth here in a way it does not in rural Iowa.

First Peek at Population and Household Data During COVID & Caveats

A deeper look at population and hosehold estimates, how thes estimates are made and what early data can tell us about shifts during COVID times.

Jens von Bergmann Nathan Lauster

17 minute read

(Joint with Nathan Lauster and cross-posted at HomeFreeSociology) In this post we look at the most recent population (and household) estimates to see if we can detect any signals concerning how the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted how (and where) we live. This is inherently tricky; lots of things changed during COVID times, including how well our normal methods of estimation work. That makes time series less reliable, even as we’re especially concerned with how conditions have changed.