Milvaganam 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 of a 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 count, a decline that has been blamed on the pandemic but reflects years of population decline in dozens of neighborhoods.
Two-thirds of Mississauga’s census tracts have shrunk over the past five years, even as the city pushed for intensive development in its downtown area. While this upscale neighborhood creates the appearance of a thriving city, less visible is the hollowing out of neighborhoods that make it difficult to run 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 general population growth and stock media images of skylines dotted with cranes.
These are not seedy neighborhoods. Their population is decreasing due to targeted municipal policy. For decades, urban planning agencies have funneled most of the density into a handful of places to protect established areas from development pressures.
It happened in Mississauga. For many years the city grew and only recently began to allow serious density. But most of the town remains single-family homes, which gradually emptied as children moved out and new owners had smaller families.
South of E 41st Ave. on Victoria Dr.
-5.5%
Tuxedo and
Southern tuxedo
-7.3%
The Annex/Seaton Village/
Dovercourt
-5.6%
Note: Maps are not to scale.
MURAT YUXELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; STATISTICS CANADA
South of E 41st Ave. on Victoria Dr.
-5.5%
Tuxedo and
Southern tuxedo
-7.3%
The Annex/Seaton Village/
Dovercourt
-5.6%
Note: Maps are not to scale.
MURAT YUXELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; STATISTICS CANADA
South of
E 41st Ave.
of Victoria Dr.
-5.5%
The application/
Seaton Village/
Dovercourt
-5.6%
Tuxedo and
Southern tuxedo
-7.3%
Note: Maps are not to scale.
MURAT YUXELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; STATISTICS CANADA
Mississauga’s neighborhood loss is most evident in two census tracts.
One, made up mostly of an old-style suburban neighborhood with spacious houses on leafy streets, in the Cooksville area, has declined 16.2 percent over the past decade.
Another, farther north, near Eglinton Avenue and the 403 Freeway, is a newer and more compact subdivision dominated by homes with front garages. Its population has declined by 14.3% in a decade.
The low-lying portion of the Cooksville census tract presented as eerily empty during a visit. At first it appeared that the pedestrians were outnumbered by 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 alcohol consumption, off-leash dogs or suspicious behavior.
Population loss can go unnoticed in a place that is deliberately designed to be quiet. The roads here are either dead ends or designed to stop through 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 surprised to hear of the loss of local population, saying he felt he had seen an increase in young 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 past the house next door. And the retired banker, who called himself a semi-widower and whose wife was in long-term care, pointed out the properties of several widows living nearby.
Another indication of the aging local population appears in enrollment trends in nearby schools. This census tract is covered by four schools, three of which have fewer students than 10 years ago. The total number of students in the four schools that draw from more than that particular census has declined by 5.9 percent over the past decade, according to the Peel District School Board (PDSB).
Although the population here has declined at a faster rate than anywhere else in the city, smaller losses in Mississauga have eroded enrollment at many schools.
Back in 2017, a PDSB report calling for the closure of a secondary school warned that some schools were witnessing such declining student numbers that it was jeopardizing the quality of education.
Between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, some neighborhoods in Canada’s major cities shrank, while others saw growth. In Mississauga, the few small pockets that saw huge growth weren’t enough to counteract the overall population decline, making it the only major city in the country to shrink in the 2021 census.
Change in population, by census, 2016 to 2021
Around Eglinton Ave. E
and Hwy 403
-9.3%
Around Mississauga
Cooksville Hospital
-6.5%
MURAT YUXELIR 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 saw growth. In Mississauga, the few small pockets that saw huge growth weren’t enough to counteract the overall population decline, making it the only major city in the country to shrink in the 2021 census.
Change in population, by census, 2016 to 2021
Around Eglinton Ave. E
and Hwy 403
-9.3%
Around Mississauga
Cooksville Hospital
-6.5%
MURAT YUXELIR 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 saw growth. In Mississauga, the few small pockets that saw huge growth weren’t enough to counteract the overall population decline, making it the only major city in the country to shrink in the 2021 census.
Change in population, by census, 2016 to 2021
Around Eglinton Ave. E
and Hwy 403
-9.3%
Around Mississauga
Cooksville Hospital
-6.5%
MURAT YUXELIR AND MAHIMA SINGH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCE: PEEL PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD; STATISTICS CANADA
Enrollment at the study area’s four schools has declined by 5.9 percent over the past decade, an indication of the local population’s aging population.
It’s one of the signs that Mississauga is a mature suburb — families are growing up and their children are moving out — with the added pressure of rising real estate 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 kind of impractical,” said Karen Chappell, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto.
“Many of [these neighbourhoods] developed 40 to 50 years ago but now just need reinvestment in them. And it starts to make no sense to reinvest and revitalize all the infrastructure if you have a declining population. This then leads to a decline in the quality of life in the area and then a downward spiral of sorts for the neighborhood.
But in many established neighborhoods across Canada, enough residents are fighting the change — under the banner of protecting local character — that adding density that could help rebuild the population remains politically toxic.
However, protecting these areas from density has not stopped them from developing. From year to year, the number of people on the street is decreasing.
This is despite Canada having the fewest housing units per capita among the G-7 countries and the fact that higher levels of government are agitating for more construction. In this year’s federal budget, Ottawa said the country needs to double its annual production of housing units.
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 writer Charles Montgomery, author of The happy city.
“If you walk around some of these neighborhoods in west 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 saw children in the streets.
Large homes, many new developments, located on spacious lots near roads with infrequent foot and vehicle traffic characterize much of Mississauga’s Cooksville neighborhood.
Mississauga’s planning chief 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 too good a job protecting low-density parts of the city.
“In hindsight, could we have allowed for a slightly gentler boost? Yes, probably,” said Andrew Whittemore, though he also argued that residential neighborhoods “have a lot to offer and that’s why people like Mississauga.”
“These neighborhoods are really filling up. It’s just that it’s mainly focused on the main arteries that run through those communities. So they experience it too, and believe me, each of these neighborhoods has a lot to…
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