Vancouver losing people for first time in 40 years



According to the latest population estimates released by Statistics Canada, Vancouver’s population dropped by more than 6,780 people from 2020 to 2021.
It is rare for any major city to lose population, and the first time Vancouver has seen a net annual loss of residents in 40 years.
“That’s definitely an outlier for the City of Vancouver, which has almost seen perpetual growth since the mid-1980s,” Simon Fraser University City Program director Andy Yan told CityNews.
Suspicion is that the high cost of housing in Vancouver—where the composite price is now in excess of $1.2 million—plus rising crime rates may be cooling appeal for big city life.
However, other large suburban centres which have seen similar price hikes in the past year, such as North Vancouver and Richmond, have not seen an outflow of population.
In Vancouver, downtown residents have complained consistently over the past two years about an increase in property crime and, recently, a rise in physical assaults.
Mark Marissen, a consultant with Burrard Strategy and a mayoralty candidate in the October 2022 Vancouver municipal election, noted downtown storefronts are smashed and robbed almost daily. “Police reports show that assaults, arson and weapon-related offences are also on the rise,” he added. The latest Statistics Canada data—for 2020—shows downtown Vancouver’s total crime rate was 43 per cent above the national average, with property crime and violent crime reports 54 per cent and 7 per cent higher, respectively.