The plethora of sources of urban data presents new opportunities in what the scale, breadth, and depth of data enables practitioners and researchers to achieve – and yet challenges in achieving useable results remain due to the quality, sparseness, confidentiality, validity, interoperability, and relevance of the data.
Our Maps & Data Visualization teams look at patterns of urbanization in Canada and globally, and offers access to unique datasets and tools for our researchers.
Urban Data Research Centre
The School of Cities partners with the Urban Data Research Centre (UDRC), an affiliated initiative whose mission is to enhance the design, planning and operations of cities by expanding the opportunities presented by data, and to address the challenges inherent in data. To achieve this mission, UDRC is undertaking the development of a Canadian Urban Data Repository; standards for the representation of urban data; tools for the management of urban data; tools to support the analysis and interpretation of urban data; and a national Urban Data Network.
News, Media & Research
Private sector support for Urban Data Centre will help wrangle data, enable ‘smarter cities’
From climate change to affordable housing, Toronto and other urban areas may soon be “smarter cities” when tackling critical issues, thanks to the Urban Data Centre at the School of Cities and… Read more
Historical Aerial Imagery Toronto
A web application for comparing historical aerial imagery (i.e. air photos) in the City of Toronto. With it you can view and compare imagery from 1939, 1947, 1954, 1965, 1978, 2011, and 2021.
Tracking Gentle Density in Toronto
Visualizing 10+ years of building permit data to track the uptake of secondary suites and laneway housing in the City of Toronto. Updated January 2024.
Downtown Recovery Rankings
Charting COVID-19 recovery across 66 North American downtowns. Updated with new data in October 2023.
Knowledge Café | Toward Place-based and Equitable Climate Informatics
This introduces the TCO, describes our approach and initial research program. The audience will learn about emerging topic in human-centered climate informatics and about opportunities to participate in an exciting new initiative on campus.
Place and Politics in Toronto
A visual blog post series on mapping mayoral election results in Toronto by faculty affiliate Zack Taylor and Data Visualization Lead Jeff Allen
Stranded without transit? U of T researchers say one million urban Canadians suffer from ‘transport poverty’
If you can’t afford a car or Uber, and there’s no major public transit route in your neighbourhood, finding a job and keeping it can be an uphill battle.