A Profile of Canada’s Metropolitan Centres

Abstract

Ever-accelerating urban growth over the last few decades has been, above all, a function of modem technology. Dramatic advances in both agricultural and industrial productivity and the resultant transformation of the social order have removed a number of limiting factors in urban development. Engineering achievements in road construction and high-speed transportation have almost out-dated the concept of geographical distance. With rapid expansion of the industrial economy and concomitant rise in the general standard of living, modem facilities and conveniences have ceased to be the monopoly of city life. In the process, the very nature of cities has been revolutionized. In the place of relatively compact centripetal communities that developed in the past, metropolitan centres with immense population spilling over into sprawling suburbia have made their appearance. Even in such a land of vast open space as Canada, the forces of technological progress have given a tremendous impetus to the emergence of gigantic population concentrations.