U-Haul has named Chatham its No. 10 growth city in Canada after arrivals of one-way trucks to the city rose in 2019.
By: Tom Morrison
U-Haul has named Chatham its No. 10 growth city in Canada after arrivals of one-way trucks to the city rose in 2019.
There was a two per cent increase in arrivals last year, while departures were down 13 per cent from 2018 numbers.
The company determines its growth cities based on the net gain of one-way trucks entering a city versus leaving the city during the calendar year. Other communities in the region to rank included St. Thomas at third, Stratford at seventh, Sarnia at 15th and Strathroy at 23rd.
The top cities were North Vancouver, followed by Trenton, Ont.
Chatham previously ranked 13th in 2016 and 11th in 2017. It did not rank in 2018.
Victoria Bodnar, co-ordinator for resident attraction and retention for the Municipality of Chatham-Kent, said the U-Haul rankings are useful for seeing trends in population growth but are not as certain as census numbers.
“It is a good indicator for us in between those census years to see if our community is growing and what kind of trajectory we’re headed in, even without the definite numbers of what our population stats actually look like,” she said.
According to a news release from U-Haul, arrivals accounted for 54.4 per cent of all one-way traffic through Chatham in 2019.
Since this is Chatham’s highest ranking in recent years, Bodnar said she hopes it means attraction efforts are paying off after facing declines in population over several censuses.
“At the very least, it shows that our community is increasingly being seen as an attractive place for people to come and live and work,” she said.
The municipality has been focused on improving which markets it targets, said Bodnar.
“The biggest change within the last five years would be connecting more to selling what increasing jobs are available in the community and really showcasing that people can build entrepreneur opportunities … which has been a long-term project with us,” she said.
Bodnar said attraction efforts have also focused on a message that Chatham-Kent is welcoming to newcomers, immigrants and people of all ages.
One method the municipality has been using is putting advertisements for Chatham-Kent in movie theatres along the Windsor to Greater Toronto Area corridor in cities which have higher housing costs or less access to an “outdoorsy” quality of life, she said.
“Those are the places we’re targeting for sure and places that we’re seeing where people are naturally moving from anyways,” said Bodnar.
One limitation of the U-Haul ranking is how it only lists Chatham, when other parts of Chatham-Kent have U-Haul locations, she said.
“They’re city-specific, not community (specific) the way we would define ourselves,” Bodnar said. “It’s hard for us to say how our stats might change if we included U-Haul stops such as in Wallaceburg and other communities.”