Population Change in South of Fraser and Langley Points to More Families

I was recently looking over the presentations from the Regional Planning Committee for the Metro Vancouver Regional District. I saw the change in population and dwellings for all member jurisdictions based on the latest census data. One of the things that stood out to me was the population change in Langley City, with a relatively lower change in dwellings.

I decided to make the following table, which includes the change in the number of people divided by the number of new dwellings built between the 2016 and 2021 census. I called it People Per Dwelling. This number doesn’t mean that all these people moved into new dwellings. Some people could have moved into existing housing. It does show an indicator of housing efficiency, which generally means families.

Jurisdiction	Population Change	Dwelling Change	People Per Dwelling
Lions Bay	56	11	5.1
Belcarra	44	9	4.9
Langley City	3075	758	4.1
Surrey	50435	15707	3.2
Langley Township	15318	4946	3.1
Maple Ridge	8734	2841	3.1
Pitt Meadows	573	210	2.7
White Rock	1987	730	2.7
Delta	6217	2300	2.7
Anmore	146	56	2.6
Port Coquitlam	2886	1131	2.6
Bowen Island	576	229	2.5
Tsawwassen First Nations	1440	607	2.4
New Westminster	7920	3391	2.3
West Vancouver	1649	757	2.2
Coquitlam	9341	4624	2.0
City of North Vancouver	5222	2648	2.0
Burnaby	16370	8935	1.8
Richmond	11628	7623	1.5
District of North Vancouver	2519	1715	1.5
Vancouver	30762	21420	1.4

Anecdotally, more families are living in Langley City than ever before. This table confirms that. The People Per Dwelling numbers indicate that the South of Fraser and Ridge-Meadows areas are where most families are moving to in Metro Vancouver. I was surprised to see that Langley City was near the top of the list.

On the other end, the City of Vancouver is seeing more singles and couples without children.

The table doesn’t include Port Moody, which saw a population decrease, unincorporated areas, and the University Endowment Lands. As a note, Lions Bay, Belcarra, and Anmore are villages with small populations.

Dwellings include all housing types, including detached, attached, and apartments.