Housing built in waves around the auto plants
Oshawa’s housing follows its industrial history. It was a village by 1849 and became a city on 8 March 1924. The Plan of Simcoe Heights took effect in May 1912, laying out 68 acres and 424 lots, and the houses documented there are two-and-a-half-storey detached homes in Tudor Revival and Foursquare styles. General Motors of Canada was formed in 1918, and industrial employment passed 3,000 by 1920. Construction of the GM South Plant began in 1950; it was running by late 1953 and took over final assembly in 1954. The census shows how much of that era is still standing. In 2021, 23.6 per cent of Oshawa’s 66,630 occupied dwellings were built in 1960 or earlier and 35.0 per cent from 1961 to 1980, so close to six in ten homes predate 1981 (Statistics Canada, 2021 Census Profile). In Whitby, by comparison, only 8.2 per cent of homes predate 1961. The north end is the exception: in the L1L postal area, 92.6 per cent of homes were built in 2001 or later, and nearly half since 2016.