Northeast Avalon home to half the province's population by 2025, survey predicts
St. John's region survey is 'hard data for future decisions,' say mayors
A new survey says the St. John's region continues to grow and is expected to contain half the population of Newfoundland and Labrador by 2025.
The survey questioned thousands of people on the northeast Avalon and the mayors of five municipalities say its findings will give them a better picture of who they serve and what residents want.
"The value to all of us is that it gives us the hard evidence and the hard information and data that we need going into the future to plan for our city and the same goes for all the municipalities that participated," said St. John's Mayor Dennis O'Keefe.
More than 25 per cent of people in the region are either retired or don't work.- Newfoundland and Labrador Statistics Agency
He said data in the survey challenges the idea that people in the region avoid downtown St. John's.
It found that 72 per cent of people in the region visit downtown St. John's at least once a month.
Mayors from five municipalities in the region — St. John's, Conception Bay South, Paradise, Torbay, Portugal Cove-St. Philips — were at a meeting Wednesday to release the findings of the survey.
"When we do our budgets, when we look at community services and development issues going forward, it's going to be a great help," said Torbay Mayor Ralph Tapper.
"For instance, the households; we learned that there is a great percentage of households in our community that have more than three people. So that indicates that there are more families in our communities than we really realized. So development and services have to be more concerned with families."
Age distribution and employment
The demographic and opinion survey was conducted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Statistics Agency and looked at issues like age distribution.
It found that more than 43 per cent of people in the region are over the age of 45 years old. It also found that more than 25 per cent of people in the region are either retired or don't work.
The survey also predicts further population growth for the region, with today's population of about 220,000 growing to about 250,000 by 2025.
If that happens, about half of the province's population is expected to be concentrated on the northeast Avalon.
Some municipalities didn't take part
Some municipalities in the region chose not to take part in the survey or pay a share of the $39,000 cost, which surveyed more than 3400 people in the St. John's Census Metropolitan Area.
"The City of Mount Pearl declined to be part of the survey and, as one of the largest communities in the area, it is a glaring omission, there is no doubt about that," said the mayor of St. John's.
Still, O'Keefe says some people in Mount Pearl were surveyed for the study to make the research statistically significant for the region.
Mount Pearl Mayor Randy Simms said his council believed it already had a good understanding of the demographics of its residents.
Simms told CBC News that Mount Pearl also correctly assumed that the federal government would bring back the long-form census which includes a lot of the same information as the regional survey.