The Future of Ontario — Part 3: Small Town Ontario
This is part 3 of a series of short articles exploring the future of demographic trends in Ontario. Part 1 (Toronto) can be found here, and Part 2 (Mid-Sized Cities) can be found here.
Small towns in Ontario are going to experience unprecedented growth in the next decade and beyond. With white collar work becoming decoupled from office location, many Ontarians (and by extension, many Canadians) have more freedom in their place of residence.
Toronto will morph into a playground for the wealthy and those who choose to live there for the culture. Living in Toronto strictly for work is no longer a requirement for many Ontarians. Many young people in Toronto have fled the city for greener pastures in mid-sized cities (MSCs), which provide all of the basic and intermediate services that the GTA offered, but with a more attractive price tag.
As I explored in Part 2 of this series, this mass migration to MSCs will also produce a reaction from long-term residents of MSCs. Longtime residents may sell their home to cash out and move to a small town with a slower pace of life. Young people who were saving for a home but find themselves priced out of the market and chasing a moving target may also decide to move to a smaller town. Finally, renters from MSCs may flee for a smaller town to enjoy lower rents, albeit with fewer opportunities for employment.
These 3 variables present an interesting opportunity for small towns, albeit with their own sort of challenges.
Longtime residents cashing out will likely be in the minority, as these individuals may not be as willing to start anew and move to a smaller town. Plus they have more established networks of friends and family in the region.
I’m going to focus on the younger demographics (young prospective homebuyers and renters) and explore the impacts of their movement.
The first impact is that service industries in these small towns will be burdened with a labour shortage. Similar to oil boom towns in Northern Alberta (like Fort McMurray, Slave Lake, or Grand Prairie), small towns in Ontario may experience a similar wave of high-earners moving in with no one in the service industry to staff the demand. Employers and municipalities will need to incentivize renters to take the plunge.
Second, small towns need to build a variety of housing. They cannot risk becoming more sprawl zones. A variety of zoning types need to be present so there can be mixed use housing. If you only have 1 type of housing, you’ll only attract one group of people. Great communities can be built with flexible housing types and medium density builds.
Third, the downtown cores of these towns will start to transform. Small towns operate at a slower pace, but with the wave of people settling in smaller towns, the core commercial makeup is going to change with the tastes of the new people arriving.
Townships need to think about how to incentivize developers to build new commercial properties and renovate existing ones with grant programs. Additionally, there should be some advocacy as far as business development to bring entrepreneurs and small business owners to smaller towns to help create a vibrant community in the core.
While I haven’t given much focus to older residents yet, they need to be considered in the small town discussion. Rural Ontario at present is much older than Urban Ontario. Townships and developers need to think about how to house senior citizens and provide adequate services for them as they progress beyond home ownership and require more care.
Solutions could include: construction/renovation of larger homes designed to house multiple seniors (with communal spaces to ensure socialization opportunities). Another would be incentives to build/renovate homes to include a granny suite. This would also help with the rental supply dilemma outlined above.
What impacts will this have politically? Stay tuned for Part 4.