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Vancouver’s Suburban Exodus Is Underway! — Families Fleeing the Urban Core for Affordable Housing

799 views · Published 10 February 2017 · 10:13 · Indexed 1 November 2026

Channel: Mike Martins · 2017 · News & Politics

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“By 2020 Vancouver is going to be like a ghost city.” — Mike Martins

The latest census numbers are starting to show something I’ve been talking about for a while: people are moving farther away from Vancouver’s expensive urban core in search of housing they can actually afford.

Today I picked up the Province newspaper and right on the front page was “Suburban Boom.” According to the article, Surrey and the Township of Langley are seeing major population growth as residents spread farther out across Metro Vancouver. Between 2011 and 2016, Metro Vancouver’s population increased 6.5%, but some suburban communities grew considerably faster. The Township of Langley reportedly grew 12.6%, while Surrey added nearly 50,000 residents, an increase of about 10.6%.

And what keeps coming up? Housing affordability.

People still need somewhere to live. They still need to raise families. They still need jobs. But when Vancouver housing and rental prices get completely disconnected from what ordinary working people earn, eventually people start looking somewhere else.

I know because I’m doing it myself.

I saved for years thinking that money would eventually become a down payment on a Vancouver home. Instead, I left the city and bought a large family home in Merritt for about $270,000, without taking on the enormous Vancouver mortgage I was trying to avoid.

Now I'm meeting other people who have also relocated from Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. I'm meeting families, workers and people looking for a different quality of life.

So here's my question: Are we witnessing the beginning of a major demographic shift away from Canada's most expensive cities?

And I'm making another prediction in this video. I'm saying that if this continues, by 2020 Vancouver could start feeling like a ghost city, particularly if large numbers of condos continue being held without permanent residents while working families relocate farther away.

We'll see.

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