Mississauga Faces The Growing Urban Challenge Of A Shrinking Population

Mississauga was the only major city in Canada to shrink in the last census, a decline blamed on the pandemic but reflecting long-term population declines in dozens of its neighbourhoods. Two-thirds of Mississauga’s inventory has shrunk over the past five years, even as the city has fueled strong growth in its downtown area. While this high-rise district gives the appearance of a thriving city, less visible is the hollowing of neighborhoods that make it harder to operate nearby businesses, fill schools, or justify money for local civic priorities. This is not unique to Mississauga. Many of Canada’s largest cities are dotted with neighborhoods that are steadily losing people. It’s a growing urban challenge vying for attention amid overall population growth and media images of crane-dotted skylines. These are not black neighborhoods. Their populations are shrinking due to deliberate municipal policies. For decades, urban planners have pushed most density into a handful of spots in order to protect established areas from development pressure. This is what happened in Mississauga. For many years, the city embraced sprawl and only recently began allowing serious density. But most of the town remains single-family homes, which have gradually vacated as children moved away and new owners had smaller families. South of E 41st Ave. on Victoria Dr. -5.5% Tuxedos and South Tuxedo -7.3% The Annex/Seaton Village/ Dovercourt -5.6% Note: Maps are not to scale. MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC School board; STATISTICS CANADA South of E 41st Ave. on Victoria Dr. -5.5% Tuxedos and South Tuxedo -7.3% The Annex/Seaton Village/ Dovercourt -5.6% Note: Maps are not to scale. MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC School board; STATISTICS CANADA South of it E 41st Ave. about Victoria Dr. -5.5% The appendix/ Seaton Village/ Dovercourt -5.6% Tuxedos and South Tuxedo -7.3% Note: Maps are not to scale. MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC School board; STATISTICS CANADA Mississauga’s neighborhood loss appears most prominently in two censuses. One, largely made up of an old suburban neighborhood of spacious homes on leafy streets, in the Cooksville area, has declined by 16.2 percent over the past decade. Another, further north, near Eglinton Avenue and the 403 Freeway, is a newer and more compact subdivision dominated by homes with front-car garages. Its population has declined by 14.3 percent in a decade. The low section of Cooksville’s inventory presented itself as eerily empty during a visit. Pedestrians initially seemed to outnumber the garbage crews. The locals were friendly, but there were very few of them. No one was using the neighborhood park, where a prominent sign urges people to report drinking, off-leash dogs or suspicious behavior. Population loss can go unnoticed in a place that was deliberately designed to be quiet. The roads here are either dead ends or designed to stop traffic. Large lots mean that there were always few people per hectare, even in the context of a low-density city. Bill Bailey, who has lived in a house there for 49 years, was surprised to hear about the loss of local population, saying he felt he had seen an increase in new families. “You can’t find properties like this anymore,” he said. But he also said that, in his day, he had seven or eight neighbors cycle by next door. And the self-proclaimed semi-widowed retired banker, with his wife in long-term care, pointed to the properties of a few widows who lived nearby. Another indication of the aging local population is seen in enrollment trends in neighborhood schools. That census is in the catchment for four schools, three of which have fewer students than 10 years ago. The total number of students at the four schools, drawn from more than just this particular census, has fallen by 5.9 per cent over the past decade, according to the Peel District School Board (PDSB). Although the population has declined here at a faster rate than anywhere else in the city, smaller losses across Mississauga have undermined enrollment at many schools. As early as 2017, a PDSB report urging the closure of a secondary school warned that some of the board’s facilities were seeing such a shrinking student body that it was threatening the quality of education. Between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, some neighborhoods in Canada’s major cities shrank while others grew. In Mississauga, the few small pockets that saw huge growth weren’t enough to offset the overall population decline, making it the only major city in the country to shrink in the 2021 census. Population change, by census, 2016 to 2021 Around Eglinton Ave. E and Hwy 403 -9.3% Around Mississauga Hospital in Cooksville -6.5% MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC School board; STATISTICS CANADA Between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, some neighborhoods in Canada’s major cities shrank while others grew. In Mississauga, the few small pockets that saw huge growth weren’t enough to offset the overall population decline, making it the only major city in the country to shrink in the 2021 census. Population change, by census, 2016 to 2021 Around Eglinton Ave. E and Hwy 403 -9.3% Around Mississauga Hospital in Cooksville -6.5% MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC School board; STATISTICS CANADA Between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, some neighborhoods in Canada’s major cities shrank while others grew. In Mississauga, the few small pockets that saw huge growth weren’t enough to offset the overall population decline, making it the only major city in the country to shrink in the 2021 census. Population change, by census, 2016 to 2021 Around Eglinton Ave. E and Hwy 403 -9.3% Around Mississauga Hospital in Cooksville -6.5% MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC School board; STATISTICS CANADA Enrollment at the watershed’s four schools has declined by 5.9 percent over the past decade, an indicator of an aging local population. It’s a sign that Mississauga is a maturing suburb – families are growing up and their children are leaving – with the added pressure of rising property prices pushing many young people out of the city. And the loss of residents is a headache beyond the local school board. “For maintenance [of local infrastructure]you pay more per capita and it starts to become a bit unaffordable,” said Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. “Many of [these neighbourhoods] they were developed 40 to 50 years ago, where they just need to be reinvested in them now. And it starts to make no sense to reinvest and revitalize all the infrastructure if you have a declining population. So that leads to a decline in the quality of life in the area and then somewhat of a downward spiral for the neighborhood.” But in many established neighborhoods across Canada, enough residents are fighting change — under the banner of protecting local character — that adding density that could help the population recover remains politically toxic. However, protecting these areas from density has not stopped their development. Year after year, the number of people on the streets is decreasing. This is despite Canada having the fewest housing units per capita among the G7 countries and the fact that higher levels of government are fighting for more construction. In this year’s federal budget, Ottawa said the country needs to double its annual housing output. And if population loss goes too far, it can create a sense of loneliness, even isolation. “It’s unhealthy at the neighborhood level,” said urban planner and author Charles Montgomery, author of The Happy City. “If you walk into some of these neighborhoods on the west side of Vancouver, you don’t see people anymore. I have spoken to people who have lived in these neighborhoods for generations – they tell me they feel lonely. They used to see children on the streets.” Large homes, lots of new construction, on spacious lots near roads with little pedestrian and car traffic characterize much of the Cooksville neighborhood in Mississauga. Mississauga’s chief planner is defending the policy of continuing to concentrate most of the city’s growth in certain areas, while acknowledging that his predecessors may have done a bit too good a job protecting low-density parts of the city. “In hindsight, could we have allowed for a little more gentle intensification? Yeah, probably,” said Andrew Whittemore, though he also argued that the housing estates “have a lot to offer, and that’s why people like Mississauga.” “These neighborhoods are filling up. It just focuses mostly on the main arteries that run through these communities. That’s how they feel, and believe me, each of these neighborhoods has a lot to say when we’re…