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Canada’s Urban Infrastructure Deficit: Toward democracy & equitable prosperity
With the release of Volume 2, this report series continues its examination of Canada’s looming crisis in deferred maintenance and the construction of critical infrastructure—both physical and social. Commissioned from experts and researchers across the country, the series outlines how addressing these challenges is essential to bolstering global competitiveness, place-based prosperity, and democracy.
Leading Urban Change: Cross-sector collaboration for urban transformation
Apply by February 20 for Leading Urban Change, an executive education program that empowers mid- and senior-level leaders with the tools and skills to drive equitable urban transformation.
Urban Data Analysis & Storytelling Professional Advancement Certificate
The Urban Data Analysis & Storytelling Certificate helps professionals transform complex urban data into insights that shape policy, planning, and community outcomes. Earn stackable microcredentials online and gain hands-on skills to drive evidence-based, impactful decisions in cities today.
Mapping Tariffs
Interactive map showing potential local impacts of U.S. tariffs on jobs and businesses across Canada
Learning From What Works: Leveraging local solutions to make better places
Learning From What Works highlights 89 community-driven solutions to housing, mental health, climate, small business, and more. Led by the School of Cities and the Canadian Urban Institute, the initiative shows how local innovations across Canada can be scaled to strengthen communities and create better, more inclusive places.
Visiting Experts
Visiting experts are influential practitioners in civil society, the arts, business, media and government; members of the global urban academic community; and emerging leaders in their urban-related sectors. While at School of Cities, they engage in intellectual, cultural and artistic exchange; nurture new ideas; and support research, collaboration and knowledge creation across geographies, disciplines and communities.
highlights
Maps of Line 5 Eglinton
Maps and data of surrounding land-use and population change along Line 5 Eglinton
Mapping development changes along the Eglinton Crosstown corridor
Analysis and visualization of building massing data 2013 to 2025
Podcast Launch: Unmasking Higher Education: Indian International Students in Canada
Canada’s two-tiered higher education system and its impacts on the “Indian international student”
Where do the snow plows go?
Mapping GPS locations of snow plows in Toronto
Where do the snow plows go?
Mapping GPS locations of snow plows in Toronto
Creating a webpage for viewing historical aerial imagery in Toronto
Cross-post from the University of Toronto Map & Data Library blog
Night as Method, the City After Dark
This essay examines Where There Is No Room for Fiction, a multimedia installation by Tong Lam presented at Toronto’s 2025 Nuit Blanche. Installed at STACKT Market, the project uses night as an operative condition, activating logistics-based urban infrastructure without altering it. Through projections, lightboxes, and moving images, the work aligns disparate global sites to foreground circulation, visibility, and dispossession as shared urban logics.
Toronto Building Heights
Interactive map of building footprints and average heights in Toronto
Toronto’s Linguistic Heritage
Exploring how language communities have evolved over five decades in the Toronto region.
Backyard housing in Toronto
Mapping laneway and garden suite development, 2018–2025
Layers of Climate Risk in Canada
Multivariate maps and visualizations of Canada and Canadian cities.
Layers of Climate Risk in Canada
Multivariate maps and visualizations of Canada and Canadian cities.
Latest media MENTIONS
Meric Gertler joins the School of Cities
The School of Cities welcomes Meric Gertler as Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, effective January 1, 2026. A former President of the University of Toronto, Professor Gertler brings deep expertise in cities, innovation, and sustainability to support the School’s mission and future direction.
Steven Farber and Shoshanna Saxe in Toronto Star | Where have the TTC’s riders gone? Transit ridership never recovered from the pandemic. We asked why — and what could bring them back
Matti Siemiatycki in Montreal Gazette | Ottawa-Montreal first up for high-speed rail link, but money could be better spent, expert says
Karen Chapple in National Post | ‘The worst is behind us’: Canada’s economy is defying some of the grim forecasts about Trump’s tariffs
Matti Siemiatycki in CTV News | Speed enforcement cameras officially banned across Ontario
School of Cities in Globe and Mail | Parks should be made for people. Why does such an obvious idea elude us?
Carolyn Whitzman in Globe and Mail | How presales helped Canada’s condo market boom, then collapse
Karen Chapple & Matti Siemiatycki in CTV News | How housing in Toronto has changed since the last time the Blue Jays were in the World Series
School of Cities in Waterloo Region Record | Trump tariffs put Preston and northwest Kitchener neighbourhoods at biggest risk
School of Cities in CTV News | Interactive tool from UofT researchers shows where tariffs could hit Ontario hardest
School of Cities in the Toronto Star | Trump tariffs’ potential damage highest in Canada’s smaller centres, U of T tool shows
School of Cities in CityNews Halifax | Halifax relatively unaffected by Trump tariffs, data shows
Upcoming Events see all
Knowledge Café: Rethinking Municipal Systems from Within
In this special edition of Knowledge Café, learn how great ideas move from concept to execution, and how local leaders can overcome organizational inertia to make change happen.
Knowledge Café: Could history help end the disinformation crisis?
Dr. LK Bertram discusses how World War II-era history holds the key to solving the disinformation crisis in the modern AI Age.
Creating Sustainable Places: A comprehensive approach to sustainable urban design
A talk with Prof. Nico Larco of the University of Oregon on the role of physical planning and design in global sustainability goals.
The Art of Public Infrastructure
A Creative Communities Commons talk featuring Ilana Altman, CEO of The Bentway Conservancy and School of Cities 2025–2026 Urbanist-In-Residence, on reimagining infrastructure as a creative, civic, and social asset.
SOCIAL: The walkability gap in Indian metro cities
This session of SOCIAL features two scholars with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, beginning with a lightning talk by Vipul Parmar followed by a main talk by Arnab Jana.
Knowledge Café: Data collection challenge for Vision Zero
Dr. Brice Batomen will examine critical gaps in data and evaluation of safety interventions for Vulnerable Road Users in North America
The School of Cities is a unique multidisciplinary hub for urban research, education, and engagement creating new and just ways for cities and their residents to thrive. Based at the University of Toronto and in a fast-growing, culturally diverse, and economically dynamic urban region, the School of Cities supports leading scholars, practitioners, and community members spanning disciplines and lived experiences to co-create new understandings, policies, and practices.
Learn more about us.