Population and Housing

[plam]

Yes, of course.

I took the article to say two things that argue in favour of further intensification in the downtown cores:

1. As boomers retire and age they'll sell their SFHs in the 'burbs and move to the core. Therefore there will be an ample supply of resale SFHs for those who need them, e.g. those who are raising a family. There's no need to expand further out into the countryside.

2. Demand for housing in the core is coming not only from those boomers also from young professionals in high-tech jobs who don't want SFHs. Construction of the LRT will increase that demand further and provide other synergies from intensification.

The article failed to mention the university student population. That currently numbers about 50,000 between UW and WLU. Presumably that number is growing at least as fast as the population as a whole. That's almost all apartments and mostly near the universities.

Points 1 and 2, yes. I don't know if I would count on increasing university student counts. Trends in student demographics are not increasing. The percentage of people pursuing higher education does increase, but the traditional student-aged population isn't. So WLU had declines in # of applicants for instance.