Canadian cities' big bets on downtown living shift to the suburbs
Ari Altstedter, Bloomberg News
VIDEO SIGN OUT
Few countries have done as much to cater to the millennial generationâs desire for downtown living as Canada, where gleaming new apartment towers crowd city skylines and once-languishing neighborhoods have been reshaped by an influx of young people.
The countryâs three largest metropolitan areas â Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver â built more apartment units per capita than almost every other large North American city over the past decade. But the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant remote-work revolution now have urbanites leaving in record numbers, emptying condo towers and sending rents tumbling for thousands of mom-and-pop investors who took part in the boom.