Mylvaganam Kathirgamanathan, a retired general surgeon, lives in the Cooksville neighborhood of Mississauga. He says he hasn’t seen his neighbors since they left for Florida in October and wishes there was more sense of community in his neighborhood. Photo by Galit Rodan / The Globe and Mail
Mississauga was the only major city in Canada to shrink in the last census, a decline attributed to the pandemic, but reflecting population declines for years in dozens of its neighborhoods.
Two-thirds of Mississauga’s census tracts have shrunk over the past five years, although the city has driven intense development in its central area. While this high-rise district gives the appearance of a booming city, less visible is the emptying of neighborhoods, making it difficult to manage nearby businesses, fill schools, or justify money for local civic priorities.
This is not exclusive to Mississauga. Many of Canada’s largest cities are dotted with neighborhoods that are constantly losing people. It is a growing urban challenge struggling to capture attention amid general population growth and images of horizon storage media with crane points.
These are not run-down neighborhoods. Its population is shrinking due to deliberate municipal policies. For decades, urban planners have pushed most of the density to a handful of places in order to protect established areas from development pressure.
This is what happened in Mississauga. For many years, the city embraced expansion and only recently began to allow for significant density. But most of the city is still single-family homes, which have been emptied as children moved in and new owners had smaller families.
South of E 41st Ave. and Victoria Dr.
-5.5%
Tuxedo i
Tuxedo south
-7.3%
The Annex / Seaton Village /
Dovercourt
-5.6%
Note: Maps are not scaled.
MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE BALLOON AND THE MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; CANADIAN STATISTICS
South of E 41st Ave. and Victoria Dr.
-5.5%
Tuxedo i
Tuxedo south
-7.3%
The Annex / Seaton Village /
Dovercourt
-5.6%
Note: Maps are not scaled.
MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE BALLOON AND THE MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; CANADIAN STATISTICS
South of
E 41st Ave.
about Victoria Dr.
-5.5%
The annex /
Seaton Village /
Dovercourt
-5.6%
Tuxedo i
Tuxedo south
-7.3%
Note: Maps are not scaled.
MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE BALLOON AND THE MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; CANADIAN STATISTICS
The loss of the Mississauga neighborhood is most clearly shown in two census tracts.
One, consisting primarily of an old-style suburban neighborhood of spacious homes on tree-lined streets in the Cooksville area, has dropped 16.2% over the past decade.
Another, further north, near Eglinton Avenue and 403 Highway, is a newer, more compact subdivision dominated by houses with garages in front. Its population has fallen by 14.3% in a decade.
The low-lying part of the Cooksville census tract was presented as strangely empty during a visit. Pedestrians initially appeared outnumbered by garbage crews. The locals were friendly, but they were very few. No one used the neighborhood park, where a prominent sign urges people to report alcohol consumption, stray dogs, or suspicious behavior.
Population loss can go unnoticed in a place that was deliberately designed to be quiet. The roads here are dead-end streets or are designed to stop traffic. Large plots mean that there have always been 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 shocked to learn about the loss of local population, saying he felt he had seen an increase in young families. “You can no longer find properties like this,” he said.
But he also said that in his day, seven or eight neighbors passed by the side. And the retired banker, who called himself a half-ass, with his wife in long-term care, pointed to the properties of a few widows who lived nearby.
Another indication of the aging of the local population appears in the enrollment trends in nearby schools. This census tract is located in the catchment area of four schools, three of which have fewer students than 10 years ago. The student body of the four schools, which not only come from this particular census, has dropped 5.9 percent in the last decade, according to the Peel District School Board (PDSB).
While the population has declined here at a higher rate than anywhere else in the city, smaller losses in Mississauga have undermined enrollment in many schools.
As early as 2017, a PDSB report urging the closure of a high school warned that some council facilities were seeing such a small number of students that it threatened 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 experienced great growth were not enough to offset the general decline in population, making it the only large city in the country that was reduced to the 2021 census.
Population change, by census sections, 2016 to 2021
Around Eglinton Ave. E
and the 403 freeway
-9.3%
Around Mississauga
Cooksville Hospital
-6.5%
MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE BALLOON AND THE MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; CANADIAN STATISTICS
Between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, some neighborhoods in Canada’s major cities shrank, while others grew. In Mississauga, the few small pockets that experienced great growth were not enough to offset the general decline in population, making it the only large city in the country that was reduced to the 2021 census.
Population change, by census sections, 2016 to 2021
Around Eglinton Ave. E
and the 403 freeway
-9.3%
Around Mississauga
Cooksville Hospital
-6.5%
MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE BALLOON AND THE MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; CANADIAN STATISTICS
Between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, some neighborhoods in Canada’s major cities shrank, while others grew. In Mississauga, the few small pockets that experienced great growth were not enough to offset the general decline in population, making it the only large city in the country that was reduced to the 2021 census.
Population change, by census sections, 2016 to 2021
Around Eglinton Ave. E
and the 403 freeway
-9.3%
Around Mississauga
Cooksville Hospital
-6.5%
MURAT YÜKSELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE BALLOON AND THE MAIL, SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; CANADIAN STATISTICS
Enrollment in the four schools in the area of influence has fallen by 5.9% in the last decade, which is an indicator of the aging of the local population.
It’s a sign that Mississauga is a maturing suburb: families are growing and their children are leaving the city, with the added pressure of rising real estate prices pushing many young people in the city. And the loss of residents is a headache beyond the local school board.
“For maintenance [of local infrastructure]you’re paying more per capita and it’s starting to get impractical, ”said Karen Chapple, director of the University of Toronto School of Cities.
“Many of [these neighbourhoods] developed between 40 and 50 years ago, where now they only need a reinvestment in them. And it starts to make no sense to reinvest and revitalize the entire infrastructure if there is a declining population. At the same time, this leads to a decrease in the quality of life in the area and then a kind of downward spiral for the neighborhood. “
But in many established neighborhoods across Canada, there are enough residents fighting change, under the banner of protecting local character, that adding the density that could help reclaim the population remains politically toxic.
The protection of these areas from density has not, however, prevented them from evolving. Year after year, the number of people on the street decreases.
This is despite the fact that Canada has the lowest number of dwellings per capita among G7 countries and the fact that higher levels of government require more construction. In this year’s federal budget, Ottawa said the country should double its annual housing production.
And if population loss goes too far, it can create a sense of loneliness, even isolation.
“It’s not healthy at the neighborhood level,” said urban planner and writer Charles Montgomery, author of The Happy City.
“If you walk through some of these neighborhoods on the west side of Vancouver, you don’t see people anymore. I’ve talked to people who have lived in these neighborhoods for generations; they tell me they feel lonely. They used to see kids on the street.”
Large houses, many new constructions, on spacious plots near roads with little pedestrian and car traffic, characterize much of the Cooksville neighborhood in Mississauga.
The Mississauga chief of planning defends the policy of continuing to concentrate most of the city’s growth in certain areas, though he acknowledges that his predecessors may have done too good a job protecting the city’s low-density parts.
“In retrospect, could we have allowed for a slightly smoother intensification? Yes, probably,” Andrew Whittemore said, though he also argued that home neighborhoods “offer a lot, and that’s why people like Mississauga.”
“These neighborhoods are filling up. It only focuses mainly on the main arteries that run through these communities. So they’re going through that too, and believe me, each of these neighborhoods has a lot to …