Aging and Age-Friendly Policy in Ontario’s Mid-Sized Cities

The most significant demographic shifts towards an aging population in Canada are occurring in small (population 10,000-50,000) and mid-sized (population 50,000-500,000) cities. These cities often have fewer resources to examine, evaluate and respond to local challenges than their big city counterparts. Small cities are most affected by aging, but may lack the resources to respond. Mid-sized cities are aging and while they may not have the resources of large cities, they do have more capacity than small cities to develop and implement comprehensive policy measures. In addition, mid-sized cities have the advantage of being small enough to implement truly local, contextualized policies that respond to unique needs of individual neighbourhoods. In this paper, we add to the discourse by evaluating the extent of the aging phenomenon in Ontario’s mid-sized cities and discussing the opportunities and challenges of current and future policy.