CplKlinger
Senior Member
Just to add more context, they explain how it is calculated here.I agree. I am a believer in statistics, but you have to really understand what they are saying and not misrepresent them.
For instance, in this case it appears the measure is growth. I suppose it is possible, but I doubt more actual people are moving to North Bay than say much bigger places like Quebec City or Calgary. If the measure is growth, a place that had 110 moves to it (vs. 100 in the prior period) would come out ahead of a place that 120 moves to it (vs 115) in the previous period because of the higher growth rate. Yet the latter place would actually have more actual people moving to it. .
Sure, it is valid to look at momentum, but it can also be a fickle thing. You can see that in the brackets, some cities that were higher before (Vancouver at 23 vs. 7) are much lower now. There can be a quite a bit of turn over from period to period using this measure.
Also interestingly, neither of Canada's two largest cities show up in this list. However, I am happy to see Owen Sound on the list. It is a long way from Toronto, but it is a very nice place, seems about the size of Spruce Grove/Stony Plain and has been around that size for a long time.
"U-Haul growth cities are calculated by the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks (i.e. moving vans ranging in size from 10 to 26 feet) arriving in a city versus departing from that city in a calendar year. [...] People coming to North Bay in one-way U-Haul trucks increased 20% in 2020, while departures rose only 3% year-over-year. Arrivals accounted for 57.5% of all one-way U-Haul traffic in North Bay, which ranked fifth for growth in 2019."
I agree with you overall 100%, but I do wonder what the actual numbers look like between Calgary and Edmonton in particular. This alone doesn't make me concerned about Edmonton falling behind Calgary, it just makes me curious about seeing the whole picture.