Population Densities

I just drove the two and a half hour drive from Toronto to London, Canada and a couple weeks ago for the Canada day weekend I drove all the way to Ottawa. These trips reminded me just how vast, and sparsely populated Canada is.

Consider these two trips: A) Toronto to London, Canada and B) Dhaka to Tangail District, Bangladesh.

A) Toronto to London is 200km approximately and it takes about 2 hours 30 minutes.
B) Dhaka to Tangail is about 85km, and it takes between 4 and 5 hours.

Part of the difference here is traffic, part is the state of the road and cars. Traffic is horrendous in Bangladesh, almost all the time, while in Toronto is only bad at certain times. The traffic problems are based purely on the number of people.

A) South-Western Ontario has a population of 2.5 million and an area of 37 thousand km squared.
B) Meanwhile, the Dhaka Division (which both Dhaka and Tangail are located within) is roughly the same size, at 31 thousand km squared but has a massive population of 46.7 million!!

The difference between those is almost incomprehensible. SW Ontario has a density of 6.7 people per square km, while Dhaka Division has a density 22 times greater at 150 people per square km. This is the problem that I had trying to describe the rural areas of Bangladesh. It is rural in the sense that it is mostly agriculturally based, and it is less dense that the cities. But in terms of people it is not rural by Canadian standards.

The drive to Ottawa really struck home this difference. When you turn off the 401 and head north on Highway 416, you are essentially driving through a forest for the next 75km until you reach Ottawa. Now imagine seeing 100-150 people and their homes, livestock, fields and shops at each km marker along the highway. In addition you have just left Dhaka, a city of approximately 13 million people, and are  going to the small city of Tangail (3 million).

Why does this all matter?

All I am saying is think about this when you are about to complain about not having a highspeed railway network or that it takes too long to get between cities. We simply do not have the density of people required to support all these things. Hopefully as globalization continues there will be fewer and fewer limits on the flow of people. Canada can only benefit from having more people to bolster its economy and life in its cities and towns. People from different parts of the world, with different world views, working and living together bring about new innovative and creative ideas. Which is exactly what Canada needs to be competitive in the global economy.

Cheers,
Michael