The Editor,
Why facts are important and how you can be misled by numbers, an example:
As I predict that the issue of the Bert Flinn Park right of way will become a lightning rod of polarized points of view for and against during the 2018 civic election, I decided to look at just one piece of information presented in the Save Bert Flynn Park website.
Now, I am not a stats wizard and, frankly, most of us aren’t so we don’t question the “experts” when they throw out numbers. Here is the statement: With more than 1,270 persons per square kilometre, PoMo’s residents are already 15% more tightly packed than neighbouring Coquitlam, Port Moody’s density now exceeds the average for Metro Vancouver (which is 803 persons/sq. km) by nearly 60%!
Having some time on my hands, I decided to validate this claim with the 2016 census data and this is what I found: Vancouver’s population density is 5,400 per square kilometre. Coquitlam has a population density of 2,009.4/sq. km and Port Coquitlam has a population density of 1,931.3/sq. km while Port Moody has a density of just 1,295.9 per square km.
It sounds quite different when you present the actual numbers for each city. Port Moody has the lowest population density of any of the Tri-Cities and has had the lowest population growth since 2011. We are impacted by the growth of population in not only our neighbours to the east but, also, Anmore which has grown by over 5%.
I consider this information somewhat relevant when I hear about how little our council is doing to control traffic or density.
It is certainly either deliberately misleading or a glaring inaccuracy to compare our city density to that of Metro Vancouver, which comprises 2,882.5 sq. km.
Wilhelmina Martin,
Port Moody
UPDATE:
SETTING IT STRAIGHT
Re. “Port Moody is not as densely populated as some would suggest” (Letters, The Tri-City News, Jan. 3).
The referenced letter contained two incorrect figures. Here is the correct sentence: “Coquitlam has a population density of 1,138.9 per square kilometre while Port Coquitlam has a population density of 2,009.4/sq. km and Port Moody has a density of 1,295.9/sq. km.”
