Does the number of U-Haul vehicles arriving in a city suggest anything about that city’s prosperity?
If so, then two local communities might be able to count themselves among Canada’s most fortunate.
Every year, U-Haul looks at how many of its vehicles were taken on one-way trips to and from each city in Canada, and uses the resulting data to create a list of what it calls “growth cities.”
For 2016, Kamloops, B.C. replaced Toronto as the Canadian city with the highest proportion of U-Haul vehicles arriving to departing on one-way trips.
Kamloops was followed by Belleville, Ont., with Guelph coming in third place and Woodstock in seventh.
While cities in Ontario comprised the bulk of U-Haul’s top growers – 19 out of the top 25 – most of them were in central, eastern or northern parts of the province.
The other top 25 finisher from this part of Ontario, Simcoe, came in 23rd.
U-Haul says that its data does not show population growth or economic growth in any given city, but does gauge communities’ efforts to attract new residents.
