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How old is your (Metro) Vancouver neighbourhood?

May 31st, 2012 · 24 Comments

Are you knocked over by strollers every time you step out your door? Or do you find it hard to find a clothing outlet that caters to an under-60 set? Does the place empty out as everyone heads to work in the morning? Or does it come to life during the day, with everyone out puttering and toddler-minding?

As the census numbers roll out showing where the seniors, babies and worker bees are, I couldn’t help but think of my own neighbourhood and how young it feels these days. There is a stroller parade in this east Mount Pleasant neighbourhood every day. Plus lots of 20-somethings.

While the mournful news stories say the young are being driven out of the city, that’s not true here. Whether they’re doing it by living six to a house, getting money from the Bank of M&D, or they all secretly work as hedge-fund investors (while disguised in flannel shirts and toques), I don’t know, but there are loads of young adults in the ‘hood, thrilling oldsters like me with their enthusiasm for block parties and community projects of all descriptions.

It feels quite different from even a few years ago and hugely different from my previous, further-east neighbourhood. There, I had a feeling of complete security because the block was guarded 24/7 by the Italian, Serbian, and other retirees who spent the day in their gardens or the alley keeping an eye on everything. My neighbours would invite to get in on the seniors’ special at Swiss Chalet with them. but not exactly Yummy Mummy territory and teens seemed weirdly absent.

The Mount Pleasant vibe is also quite different from west-side neighbourhoods in Vancouver, where the numbers of children are steadily going down and the average age is going up. Young friends who live there say they feel isolated, marooned in a sea of businesses that cater to a more sedate set. (More detailed census-tract data should be proving that out in detail, when it arrives.)

That plays out across the region, with places like Abbotsford, Surrey and Mission booming with kids, while North Van, which was a teen heaven when I grew up there, slowly morphs into a retirement home.

I know city planners consciously look for ways to create balance in the city, so that it’s not so lopsided like this. But it seems as though they’re making slow headway. Which is too bad. I’d love to have more of those guard-dog seniors in my area again and I’m sure a few more kids, teens and young families on the west side would be welcomed.

Curious to know how others are experienced the population pyramid in their pocket of the region? Who’s your dominant age group?

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Seb

    My neighborhood of Citadel Heights (southern tip of Port Coquitlam) remarkably has a median age of 43 compared to 39 for the rest of Poco!

    I was born at the tail-end of a baby boom period in the area. When I entered the 1st grade, a new elementary school had just opened to stop the overcrowding at mine (which wasn’t by any means an old building). Right now, as I’m finishing up the 12th grade, there is constant chatter of shutting down my elementary school due to declining enrollment…

  • Bill Lee

    Readers might go to the Geography > Geosearch section
    http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/index-eng.cfm

    And then select CT (Census tracts) for a closer view. But the map colour selections available are only 0-14 and 65+ though quintile data is available.
    Use the Select Area choice arrow at top of map, click on your CT area and two options will show up.
    For CT 9330032 (SW of Kingsway and 16th) you get a link to a statistical table by 5 year age groupings compared to the Greater Vancouver, the CMA. And a basic information on number of households, density, change in population.

    Census Canada also provides pre-drawn maps under Thematic Maps at the link Frances Bula indicates above.

    You can centre your place of interest by drawing a square, entering an intersection or street address (East, West, Av or Street). Nicely Statcan provides single letter suggestions, S shows up ST etc. No “th” in 4th wanted.

    Census Tract is the closest view that gives the age themes.

    Kits, as around 4 and Arbutus, is both childless and (in older more valid pre-Tony Clement meddling Census views of 2001 etc.) very white.

    Too bad we can’t display cross tabs yet. But you can if you want to pay for that data work.

    If you get down to displaying CT number labels like 9330032 and so on, you can see other data in other Census years when you go to earlier Censuses.
    Things don’t change that much between one census, and the boundaries rarely change. So knowing the number you can suck up loads of data tables and extract just the Census tract you want.

    —
    Speaking of “old”, over-priced Heritage Houses, self-guided tour this weekend. Sunday 03 June 10-5 $40 to get the guide book.
    See web page below for previous years guides as PDFs.
    vancouverheritagefoundation.org/projects/openvan.html

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    While the new census numbers are very interesting, this data should be used to support regional growth strategies, rather than shape them. These census figures are a report card on policy of the past 20 years. Not the tea leaves showing the shape of the next two decades.

    The opening of the Port Mann Gateway Bridge will shape development for some time to come. Rising prices for cottage lots will likely keep demand high for typically poorly realized apartment and town house projects.

    Leadership and innovation from the core (i.e. Vancouver) appears to be on hold, if not outright flat-lining as Vancouver keeps focused on building hi-rise. Port Moody’s appearance in the census is owed torecent tower-buildng in a small municipality. Big numbers are not always good news, or signs of a balanced planning & urbanism.

    The promise of transit and transit-oriented, walkable neighbourhoods holds a leading edge in many U.S. and European centres. However, it is obviously lagging here.

    What the census figures really show is how far we have fallen behind.

  • Richard

    Seriously @Lewis N. Villegas? I get that you don’t like towers, but really, there are lots of people walking around downtown neighbourhoods especially compared to some of the auto-oriented urbanism on streets like west 4th, Dunbar, Victoria or Cambie south of 16th.

    Take a look at aerial photos of streets like 4th. Between the streets, the street parking, the alleys and the parking off the alleys, a huge amount of the land is devoted to the automobile.

  • Michael Kluckner

    Your Mount Pleasant experience replicates my Grandview one. We were delighted when we moved here 2 years ago to find that we’re among the older people in the neighbourhood. Houses have been bought up by youngish 30s-40s couples, ex-condonauts moving into a new phase of their lives and providing rentals to other young people in secondary suites. We’re the ‘guard-dog seniors,’ as you put it. This is a wonderful variant on Vancouver urbanism — a neighbourhood reinvented within essentially the same building form. Isn’t this the essence of a green city?

  • Raingurl

    My Westwood (as in Plateau *yawn) is NOT very old. A lot of the houses seem empty and lonely. The most concentration is down the hill where the new condos and townhouses are going up. Translink can’t keep up with the amount of people boarding the shuttle busses every night. There is a 1 hour wait at night for a shuttle bus if you are passed by. Have you ever walked through Towncentre Park in the pitch black? Not a pretty site.

  • Dale Cooper

    I live in Mount Pleasant and have since the early 90’s so I have seen a lot of significant change. Main is a baby mecca with what seem like hundreds of strollers and young 30 something new parents walking the strip coffee in hand. Definitely a change from even 5 years ago.

    My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that these young people who now live in Mount Pleasant are opting to live here rather than Kits or the West End, where the majority of young hip people used to like to live and rent. Instead of buying a condo or renting in other parts of the city, Mount Pleasant has become the new hot spot.

    I haven’t fully decided if this is a good or bad thing, Main street has definitely lost its edge and feels more happy family suburban than anything else. Oh well, times change…

    My main comment is that there have always been young people in Mount Pleasant, but not the community art project flannel wearing hipster set but more of the hip-hop graffiti low rider car tattooed type set. I was one of those kids in the early 90’s and we all chose to live in Mount Pleasant cause it was cheap more than anything else.

    These types of young people are not here anymore as rent has gone up as the cool hip kids want to live here (and they want to live here because of those other kids ironically enough not realizing they have pushed them out).

    Things go in cycles, that’s how it works. In a few years Mount Pleasant will be a lame place to live, as I’m sure it is to those who choose to live in Strathcona or Commerical drive already.

    I guess is my point is that seeing all these young people doesnt really mean much other than the marketing project to make Main street and Mount Pleasant a more desirable place to live was successful. To young 20 somethings, where you live is just as important as what you are wearing so flannel shirt and toque plus Mount Pleasant make a complete package. I don’t think its anything more than that. Back in the day, saying you lived in East Van meant something, now it’s just a t-shirt.

  • Silly Season

    I rent, in the Kingdom of Kerrisdale 9tongue in cheek, peeps!). There is an interesting mix of crazyily priced single family houses, condos, some new townhouses and (shhhh!) many, older well maintained rental apartment buildings, that run from 3-8 stories. Surely, a model for other neighbourhoods!

    After checking with our building caretaker, something that I thought was “anecdotal” was confirmed: while there are still many seniors in this building, there are many more young people/ couples renting here. They only move when they get pregnant, and need another bedroom or two. I put this down to the (relatively0 more reasonable rents they get in these older purpose-built rental buildings than the “market rents’ they pay to rent owner-run condos.

    Lots of street action here, @Richard, even though West 41st is a major throughfare. There’s plenty of street parking and a major bus transit site intersection. Good cycling, too, down West 37th and West 39th out to UBC.

    I put the vitality on the street down to the wonderful and odd collection of second-hand shops, chi-chi services, butcher/cheeese/ fruit stores, some restaurants, coffee places (of course), “anchor store” Hill’s—and two high schools, which frequent the ubiquitous ‘bubble tea” and fnky sushi and mac Shack joints. A bonus: Our shops run both east/west on 41st and north/south along West Blvd.

    We have some great public park land at Balsalm and West 41st as well as all the beautiful tree-lined street and gardens with which we are generously endowed. Our Kerrisdale Community Centre is “down at the heels” but still, incredibly well attended. We are also sitting smack dab in the centre of some great walks—to West Broadway, Southlands, Dunbar. So, I often feel that Kerrisdale is often a “city within a city”.

    Still, even with all the high school kids around, I’m not sure they are all from the ‘hood (some kids coming from other neighbourhoods to attend West Side schools, I believe, which is sad, in too many ways to mention here). Certainly, this is a well-off neighbourhood. It’s not funky, it’s not 24/7, but it has its good points. it feels like a “family” area. After living in Kits for years, I wondered how I’d like this area. I do. I most certainly do.

    And put me down as someone who likes the peace and quiet after 9pm (OK, 11pm at the Starbucks at Yew), when the sidewalks roll up and we all come home and gather around the warm glow of our computer screens. 😉

  • Mark Allerton

    I moved to the North Van retirement home 18 months ago, prompted by the arrival of my daughter and the prospect of a second child (a prospect that is now a 6-week old reality.) We ended up about 1km from Edgemont, close to Capilano Road, which we picked for the combination of commutability by bike & transit, relative walkability and schools.

    The majority of our neighbours are past retirement, but we are not the only newcomers with young kids – and the local playground is frequently busy and the place was completely nuts at Halloween.

    In a way our little pocket feels like it’s on the cusp of change – there are three new houses in various stages of construction just down the street, and a few big renos in progress. We find ourselves talking to a lot of other parents whose story is similar to ours.

    However, the census stats certainly don’t show any signs of that – both “Under 14s” and “Under 5s” have declined even as the population has increased slightly. So we will see…

  • Raingurl

    @MARK ALLERTON………CONGRATS ON THE NEW BAB(IES)! So glad people are still able to afford to have children! Mine is almost in her twenties………phew!

    I’ve been so worried that there will be no money for my CPP once I retire! By the time I retire your kids should be just out of college and ready to take on my pension plan. LOL! Congrats again!

  • A Dave

    The census should track dog population densities, as that is a good indication of the changing demographics in Vancouver hoods.

    For example, Gastown’s dog population has exploded in the past five years as the predominantly male, low-income community is usurped by DINKs and hipsters.

  • IanS

    Yaletown (where I live) seems to be a real mix these days. I wouldn’t have expected it to be a place with lots of young families, but you see lots of strollers and young children in the area. The existence of Elsie Roy school in the area has made a real difference.

    @Mark Allerton #9,

    I found your post about Edgemont quite interesting. I grew up in Lynn Valley and went to high school at Carson Graham in the 70’s. At the time, Edgemont (and Lynn Valley, for that matter) was full of young families and I had lots of friends who lived there. I expect that many of the older people living there now are their parents or (increasingly) my contemporaries. Nice to hear that the neighborhood is getting younger again.

  • Tiktaalik

    I agree with Frances that Mount Pleasant has a lot more baby strollers now. Stop by Marche St. George, a coffee shop/market on 28th and St. George, on a sunny day and its baby/toddler central.

    That said, these young people are in their 30s and I think the oft repeated story of “young people being driven from the city” is still something to be extremely concerned about. If a 20 something leaves town because they don’t see an opportunity to live their life here then something is very wrong, and even if they are replaced by another young person from out of province it’s still a problem that needs to be addressed.

    Vancouver is in competition with Montreal, Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco and many other cities for talented young people and it needs to make itself as appealing as possible or Vancouver will absolutely lose them. There are brighter lights out there than Vancouver and there are few boundaries to movement for young people.

    There’s a good chance that the 20 year old in flannel will eventually eventually create a business in Vancouver and help grow the city, but they have to decide to establish themselves here first when they’re young. If they can have the same career in Montreal but pay $600 a month in rent instead of $1200, and enjoy a better nightlife, they’ll leave.

  • Mark Allerton

    @Ian

    I’m going to reserve judgement on whether the place is getting younger until the 2016 census, if we still have one by then. It does seem like there are lots of young kids here now, but prior stats show a decline – and quite importantly, I wasn’t living here 18 months ago, so I have no real basis to judge whether things are on the upswing or the opposite.

    Still, it would certainly be nice…

  • IanS

    @Mark Allerton #14:

    “… it would certainly be nice…”

    Yes. It would be nice to imagine that these things go in cycles, with waves of new families with young children coming in to replace us older folk.

  • Julia

    nothing really new – as you have all pointed out – cycles. That is true in residential areas as well as commercial areas. Business areas flourish and become to expensive and so there is a domino effect through various areas across town as shop owners try to find a way to make a living.

    I left the family nest in the mid 70’s. All my friends were lamenting the fact that they could not afford to live in Vancouver. A old house was $98,000. Outrage. So we all moved to North Delta or North Vancouver, or Richmond where you could by a 2 level house for around $40,000.

    In those days the Richmond neighbourhood was full of young families sharing the plight of being strapped to the eyeballs in mortgage debt. Most of us needed help from the bank of M&D to get a down payment together.

    So… what’s new. Just the numbers are bigger.

  • Chris Keam

    In all seriousness Julia, my understanding of ‘what’s new’ is the declining purchasing power we are all experiencing, where quite literally, a paycheque no longer goes as far as it did a few decades ago.

  • Kirk

    I live in Mt Pleasant with young kids. I had a sad chuckle to myself about Dale Cooper’s comment about the neighbourhood losing its edge — Now that I have kids, I feel like I myself have lost my edginess. Pretty soon, I’ll gain weight, lose hair, reminisce about my youth, and grumble about kids these days and their awful music and manners. 🙁

    Anyway, I dont look too deep into it. Mt Pleasant was Vancouver’s first suburb. So, maybe look at it as though the area is going back to what it originally was. I kind of think that way about the DTES sometimes. Ill hear Wendy Pedersen voice her concerns that the middle class shoppers are changing the neighbourhood. Then I think about growing up and going to Woodwards all the time as a kid with my mom. It’s like, wait a sec, this originally was the main shopping strip in Vancouver…. and now VANDU is claiming to be there first? Ill never forget being at a Vancouver heritage talk about preserving buildings when someone piped up and said, you know, history didnt start just 100 years ago with white people — if you want to keep the area like it was, then plant a tree. 🙂

    The baby boom isn’t limited to Mt Pleasant. The stats showed that the kids of the big boomer population are having babies now. Once this bubble passes, there’s a much smaller number of child rearing aged people in the next generation.

    Perception changes too. Historically, almost every single couple had multiple kids once they reached their 20s. Now, if I see three out of ten couples with just one kid, I think there must be a playground nearby. One of my friends said having a baby is becoming trendy. I almost agreed until I thought of my uncool parents and long dead grandparents as being hipsters. Uh, humans reproducing at the lowest rate in history is not trendy. Not having kids has become trendy.

    Frances, go out to the burbs like Coquitlam and Surrey and try to find a young couple without kids. It will recallibrate your baby spotting abilities.

  • Andrew Browne

    The lack of babies has nothing to do with any of the following:
    – “those self-centred yung’uns”
    – trendiness
    – not wanting kids
    – not wanting committed relationships
    – iPhones
    – assorted other inter-generational grumbling re: the young being awful, etc.

    What the lack of babies IS connected to:
    – negative wage growth in real dollars (now, and over the past 20 years)
    – insane housing affordability issues
    – high (~ 25%) unemployment for those under age 30 (includes underemployment and those who have given up looking)
    – high job insecurity (fixed term contracts, no benefits, etc)

    People in their 20s know that they can barely pay for their bedroom in a shared house and their slice of utilities with their friends. The thought of kids is hilarious to them. It’s roughly equivalent to the idea that one day they might walk on Mars.

  • Andrew Browne

    As an addendum, I would suggest that if we are actually concerned about the birth rate we could do the following:

    Stop spending more money on those in the last 20 years of their life than we do on those in the first 20 years of their life.

  • Michael Geller

    I live in Southlands (Vancouver) as distinct from Southlands Delta, where no one lives…yet!

    While many of the surrounding properties are large and expensive, it is a very mixed neighbourhood with a reasonable number of kids. However, I am increasingly disappointed each Halloween by the small number of kids who come by our house, which I often think is a barometer of a neighbourhood’s appeal to families with children.

    On a different topic, I must add that I am often saddened by young couples who tell me that they are putting off having children until they can afford suitable accommodation. I find this quite upsetting…in fact my advice to those people is to consider a move elsewhere…not necessarily to a new neighbourhood where you have to commute, but perhaps to a small community elsewhere in BC.

    In two weeks I am off to Trail BC to explore what it would be like as a place to live. Here I am told is a community with wonderful access to amenities and very cheap housing. Now some will say, yes, but are there jobs. I have a feeling you can increase employment opportunities in places like this if more and more people decide to relocate.

    I’ll report more in weeks to come. In the meanwhile, I urge everyone who doesn’t know some of their new neighbours in their current neighbourhood to go next door and introduce yourselves. Tell them you’re a regular reader on Fabula’s Blog and someone suggested it’s important that everyone know their neighbours…before they have to!

  • Silly Season

    @Michael Geller,

    We look forward to seeing pictures of you in cowboy hat and chaps!

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    I attended a VSB consultation session in Grandview-Woodlands a couple of weeks ago at the suggestion of my first grader’s school principal.

    Their outlook is: declining enrolment into the future.

    For all who wish to resist it, the ones that are in the rulers, glue and scissors business are not seeing it the same way. The School Board is looking to convert school sites to other uses—four or five of them—and has a program in China where education there brings dollars here.

    I don’t see this statistic as one that can be measured through personal or anecdotal experience. This change seems far too subtle. The change in temperature is almost imperceptible until you wake out one day and—whoosh—the neighbourhood has passed the tipping point.

    I agree that the cycle can be reversed. But, I don’t see it as a self-correcting sort of event. The trend of a decreasing population of families with school-age children should be seen as a dead canary in the coal mine by the rest of us.

    It has less to do with ‘not liking towers’ than with seeing up close a municipal culture that is painting itself into a corner, more and more caught up with just one brand of urbanism, with fewer and fewer options to reverse out.

  • F.H.Leghorn

    “Of the variables shaping the urban structure, social rank, gender and ethnicity recur as the three crictical vectors of social and spatial difference.”
    Blake, Emma
    2004 Space, spaciality and archaeology. In A Companion to Social Archaeology, Meskell, Lynn and Robert W. Preucel,(eds.). Blackwell, Boston.