City’s electorate may be changing
Fresh research data shows Vancouver voters concentrating in higher density neighbourhoods
This is a changed election and it’s going to be a changed election for everybody.”
Mike Witherly
Vancouver’s distribution of voting-aged citizens has shifted heavily in recent years, suggesting the electorate that goes to the polls this Saturday could be different than the one that preceded it, new data suggests.
From 2006 to 2016, some of the city’s lowest density neighbourhoods saw outflows in voting aged citizens, while heavily populated neighbourhoods saw their ranks of voters swell, according to analysis by Andy Yan, the director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program.
In some areas of the city the changes are startling, and for Yan, the population shifts could point in part to “an emergence of new power neighbourhoods.”
There has been a 63 per cent increase in the number of Canadian citizens aged 18 and over in downtown Vancouver from 2006 to 2016, according to Yan, who relied in part on census data from Statistics Canada. About 9.7 per cent of the city’s potential voters lived in that neighbourhood as of 2016, up from 6.6 per cent in 2006.
Meanwhile, Shaughnessy saw its number of voting aged citizens drop 15 per cent, followed by Dunbar-Southlands at eight per cent, West Point Grey at seven per cent and Strathcona at six per cent.
During the same time period, neighbourhoods in south Vancouver — including Killarney, Marpole, Sunset and Victoria-Fraserview — saw their relevant populations increase 10.6, 6.3, 5.9 and 4.1 per cent, respectively.
Yan chalked up the changes to three things: demographics, affordability and development. While some people are aging out of neighbourhoods like Shaughnessy, others can no longer to afford to move into gentrifying neighbourhoods like Strathcona. At the same time, people are moving into areas that are seeing the most development.
The changes could have consequences for the way the city’s voters cast their ballots on Oct. 20.
The 2014 municipal election was to some degree a race between Vision Vancouver on the centre-left and the Non-Partisan Association on the centre-right. Analysis done by Postmedia News after that election showed voters in lower density neighbourhoods in the city’s south and west tended to throw their support behind the NPA.
While those same neighbourhoods to the west have seen their relevant populations decline, those to the south have seen increases. Worth mentioning is that mayoral hopeful Wai Young was elected to parliament in 2011 in Vancouver South.
Voters in northern neighbourhoods, from Kitsilano to Hastings-Sunrise, and those in Riley Park and Kensington-Cedar Cottage, have tended to vote more progressively. With the sole exception of Strathcona, those neighbourhoods have seen significant population increases, which could be a boon to left-leaning parties like Vision, OneCity and COPE.
Diego Cardona, a Vision Vancouver council hopeful, said his strategy has simply been to canvas the entire city — including some of the more conservative areas like the strengthening south.
Mike Witherly, a strategist with the NPA, said he was not worried about the population shifts.
“At the end of the day this is a changed election and it’s going to be a changed election for everybody,” Witherly said.
For Yan, the biggest question is yet to be answered.
“This may be where the possible voters are living, but then, do they turn out to vote?”