According to one of the top rental companies for do-it-yourself movers, Sarnia appears to be growing.
The city came in at number 10 on U-Haul's 2020 Canadian Growth Cities list -- Sarnia was 15th in 2019.
Marketing Company President of Western Ontario David Anstett said growth cities are calculated by the net gain of one-way trucks arriving in a city versus those leaving in a calendar year.
"Sarnia had a growth of about two per cent over what was actually leaving, so it's a net increase -- it's not scientific, but more people moved to Sarnia using U-Haul than left," said Anstett. "For awhile, there was an outgoing market where people were moving out, and now it's consistently that more people are moving there, and we can tell because it's creating an imbalance in our inventory."
Anstett said they're seeing a lot of larger trucks coming into Sarnia.
"And we kind of equate it with that there's a lot of people coming there to retire, and there has been a lot of good jobs and growth in the past in Sarnia, which kind of contributes to that," he said. "People are choosing Sarnia to live. I'm out of Windsor and I've worked the Sarnia area quite a bit, and you've got a beautiful city -- I can see why people want to move there."
Anstett said the pandemic may be a factor in the rise.
"A lot of people in Toronto, they realize they can live in a small town like Sarnia and get away from the big city and still be able to work -- work from home, do their jobs remotely."
Chatham also cracked the top 10, for a second straight year, coming in at No. 9 -- North Bay is the No. 1 growth city in Canada.
The company said that while U-Haul migration trends do not correlate directly to population or economic growth, the data is an effective gauge of how well cities are attracting and maintaining residents.
