City Population in Communities and Peaks
Historical Populations: https://data.calgary.ca/Demographics/Historical-Community-Populations/jtpc-xgsh/about_data
Unfortunately Socrata’s UI can’t find the max population and show the date, so a little data science is needed.
https://gist.github.com/Chealion/6205500530b33c97ee2c58d12af8e226 has the max pops and their years and how I did it.
Other data sources:
- Calgary’s 2019 Census: https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/www/ca/city-clerks/documents/election-and-information-services/census2019/2019-censusresultsbook.pdf
- Calgary Community Profiles: https://www.calgary.ca/communities/profiles.html based on the 2021 federal census
For some background/context - this is a good older article (from 2016) showing the results with maps focused on just 2000 vs 2015 populations: https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/one-map-that-shows-calgarys-doughnut-of-decline-neighbourhoods-may-be-facing-trouble-ahead
The article is limited in that it only looks at two dates - not the peak populations of communities, which for some go back to the 60s or 70s.
Another item to be aware of is Calgary’s household size has held firm at 2.6/household across the city for 20 years because of our general growth. That number has been declining continent wide since the 50s. The point being - to maintain a population without adding units, the household size needs to stay the same.
The above context is important when figuring out if the fact we have old numbers is enough to majorly change what was seen pre-COVID. We can thank the massive 2019 budget cuts for killing the census and why I’m so glad we’ll be getting it back after it got added as an amendment to the rezoning for housing work in May.