The path to 880K: Digging into the London region’s future population

After leading the province and country, London’s population growth is beginning to slow as federal government crackdowns on immigration take effect. While its expected to eventually pick up again, reporter Jack Moulton takes a look at what it means in the interim.

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WHAT WILL LONDON’S POPULATION LOOK LIKE?

Based on Statistics Canada estimates as of Canada Day 2024, the city of London’s population stood at 488,640 while the London census region, which also includes Strathroy, St. Thomas and portions of Elgin and Middlesex counties, had a population of 626,260.

In October, the Ontario Ministry of Finance predicted Middlesex County’s population, including London, would swell by 56 per cent over the next 25 years to more than 880,000 by 2051.

The province factored in cuts to immigration and international student visas, and forecast London and Middlesex County would add fewer than 30,000 people between 2025 and 2028.

According to Statistics Canada, the population of London alone grew by more than 50,000 people between 2020 and 2024.

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OVERALL—GOOD OR BAD?

Don Kerr, a demographer at Western University‘s King’s University College, points to immigration, international students and other non-permanent residents driving the vast majority of recent growth.

If successful, Ottawa’s changes to immigration would halt Canada’s population growth altogether, he said. However, he believes that’s not necessarily a bad thing locally during a period of a few years.

“We have not been able, nationally, in keeping up in terms of investment in infrastructure, housing starts, health care, you name it,” Kerr said. “By reducing the pace of population growth considerably over the next several years, we can expect somewhat of a catch-up.”

London and the region still are likely to be buoyed by a continuous flow of residents from the Greater Toronto Area, Kerr said, adding immigration levels also eventually will have to pick up again in order to meet economic needs.

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WHAT ARE THE UPSIDES?

London already has seen some of the benefits of a slowdown in population, specifically fewer international students seeking rental units and more rental units coming to the market.

While the city saw steep rent increases and a low vacancy rate in recent years, 2024 saw the average rent price drop four per hundred year-over-year. In addition, the city’s vacancy rate jumped to 2.9 per cent.

Anthony Passarelli, CMHC’s lead economist for southern Ontario, expects rent prices to continue to soften and for newer, more expensive apartment buildings to continue offering incentives such as free rent or utilities.

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“The rents for those types of higher-end units we noticed were kind of flat-lining to decreasing, because the rent levels are just too high for a lot of renters to afford, and there was just more options out there,” he said . “The older buildings, there’s still a lot of competition for those units because they’re generally less expensive.”

WHAT ABOUT THE DOWNSIDES?

City hall likely will be taking the opportunity to try to bring its infrastructure more in line with its booming population, meaning more construction.

Alexander Wray, geographer and researcher with Western Universitysaid London’s “infrastructure has been outstripped from its capacity” after explosive growth and needs a plan to catch up.

“We have an immense opportunity to capture that growth, and grow into an amazing center in Southwestern Ontario that is a desirable place to live,” he said. “But that requires having a plan in place that would allow that growth to occur.”

The city is in the midst of finalizing a transportation master plan for the next 25 years, expanding its urban boundary, and updating its official planning document to loosen building regulations. In a previous interview, Mayor Josh Morgan also emphasized the need to catch up on water and wastewater capacity.

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@JackAtLFPress

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