Canada’s cities in a changing world 1920-2120: The Halftime Report

A 200-year perspective, or about seven generations as suggested by the Iroquois Nation, is a useful timeframe to look at governance and public policies. Canada’s cities, especially in today’s turbulent world, need the benefit of a long-term view. Over the last 100 years, Canada’s cities (urban areas) drove most of the country’s economic expansion. Residents and businesses in the cities also drove energy and material use more than anyone, anywhere in the world.

Canada’s cities are now being tasked with driving the transition to a low carbon economy, while also supplying basic services in a world of growing discontent and inequality, a changing climate, and less affordability. Long-term global trends shape--and hopefully can be shaped--by Canadian cities. In the next 100 years the global population will peak (probably within 50 years), and a much more sustainable human population should emerge though the transition may feel anything but sustainable. Canada’s cities will greatly influence the likelihood of that outcome.

Canada’s cities have a few unique challenges, and opportunities. For example, of the 51 cities Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour visited, Toronto and Vancouver fared the poorest, financially. Amazingly, Toronto, was likely the only city that lost money because of how tax revenues are allocated, and which levels of government provide various services in Canada.

In Canada, services, and local agencies fracture across more than 5,160 municipalities, while the largest six cities make up 60 percent of Canada’s economy (a share expected to grow to 75% in 2070). Even now, as the country faces a bellicose and contracting US, much of the discussion centres on inter-provincial issues and national policies. The country’s engine – the cities – are again, largely left out of the conversation.

The federal government’s contribution to urban infrastructure has been steadily declining, from providing more than a third in the 1950s to less than 10 percent today. With municipalities now needing to come up with more than half the capital costs as well as the lion’s share of operating costs.

Arguably provincial governments have not served their cities well, especially over the last few decades. Big issues, like transportation (mobility), energy, and housing need a systems approach. Yet municipalities are sliced and diced across myriad borders. Solutions and services often evolve in piecemeal ways that fail to capture potential efficiencies. Provincial premiers focus on issues like bike lanes and speed cameras, while saying no to proposals for tolls from cities like Edmonton and Toronto. Congestion and traffic fatalities grow. In Calgary pedestrian deaths continue an upward trend, more than doubling from 2023 to 2024.

On a positive note, there are few cities in the world more connected and integrated globally than Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and increasingly Calgary, Winnipeg and Halifax.

A super-power of cities is that they scale. Double the size of a city and wealth generation more than doubles (about 115%), while infrastructure cost increases are less than double (about 85%). Countries, businesses and institutions, do not scale. This is why the average life of a publicly traded company is less than 40 years, and Canada’s major cities were here before the country. And will likely be here long after Canada as a nation.

For all their challenges, cities continue to evolve to support the well-being of their citizens. In 1920, for every 1,000 babies born in Toronto, 136 died in their first year of life. Infant mortality in Canada is now less than 4.4 deaths per live births. During the same period, life expectancy increased by more than 20 years for both men and women. With the help of vaccines, sanitation, potable water, and public health, over the last 100 years cities built a much more nurturing home for Canadians.

Cities are central to civilization. By concentrating people, ideas, and wealth generation, cities anchor our societies. Through civics – the ability to get along with people in a crowded place, even if we do not like some of those people – economies flourish. These economies need to be able to peacefully flourish without overwhelming earth systems like climate and biodiversity. In the next 100 years Canada’s communities will be central in determining if we and the world can make the transition.

Daniel Hoornweg PhD, PEng
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science
Ontario Tech University

From Canada’s cities in a changing world 1920-2120: The Halftime report.
Hoornweg (2025), Springer (open access)
https://link.springer.com/book/9789819679324

Filed under: Sustainability 101