THE City of North Vancouver has grown three times as fast as its neighbours in the past five years, according to figures released this week by Statistics Canada.
Between 2006 and 2011, 3,031 people moved to the 12-square-kilometre municipality, swelling its total population by 6.7 per cent to 48,196, according to the agency, which based the numbers on last year's short form census.
The District of North Vancouver, meanwhile, grew a much more modest 2.2 per cent and West Vancouver a measly 1.3 per cent.
The city's relatively rapid expansion is likely due in large part to a higher rate of development. Where it added more than 1,500 new dwellings in the five-year census interval, the district, which is close to double the size, added fewer than 800. West Vancouver added only 613. The end result is that more than a quarter of the North Shore's 175,000 residents are now crammed into less than five per cent of the community's land area.
It also appears the city's growth has accelerated in recent years.
Between 2001 and 2006, the previous census interval, the municipality gained just 1,073 residents, an increase of only 2.4 per cent. The current, higher rate isn't unprecedented, however. Between 1996 and 2001, the city grew 6.8 per cent.
In all, 5,400 people moved to the North Shore over the past five years, expanding the community as a whole by 3.2 per cent. In comparison, the provincial average was about seven per cent.
Tuesday's release, the first of four that the agency will be putting out this year based on the 2011 data, gave little detail about individual municipalities, but it did offer some insight into the drivers of growth at the national level.
Canada's population increased by 5.9 per cent between 2006 and 2011, driving up our national head count to 33.5 million. That rate, the highest in the G-8, was slightly faster than in the preceding five-year interval, when the country expanded 5.4 per cent.
Most of that growth can be chalked up to immigration, according to Statistics Canada. Over the past 10 years, approximately two-thirds of the change in Canada's population was the result of net international migration, while one-third was natural increase. This contrasts with the much larger United States, where natural increase accounts for the lion's share of population growth, it said.
The bulk of our country's newcomers settled in Canada's largest metropolitan areas - Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal - which together are now home to 35 per cent of the country's population, according to the agency.
The next census release is due out at the end of May.
