UCG 4.0 (2025-26): Inequality, data, and democracy

Robert Soden, Lead, Toronto Climate Observatory, Department of Computer Science and the School of the Environment; Nidhi Subramanyam, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and Planning; Hamed Ibrahim, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering; Steve Easterbrook, Director, School of the Environment & Professor, Department of Computer Science 

Decades of research has demonstrated the disproportionate effects of disasters on vulnerable groups. However, current approaches to producing disaster risk information lack robust methods for taking such equity concerns into account, which means that efforts to develop evidence-based climate and disaster risk management interventions may inadvertently increase inequity in the settings where they are applied. An equity-aware approach to risk information is critical for adequately addressing community needs and supporting public engagement in efforts to enhance resilience against flood events. Our research will examine these concerns in the context of flood information in Southern Ontario, which has recently experienced significant flooding and where flood vulnerability amongst marginalized communities is significant. We will build upon previous collaboration with the School of Cities to articulate a vision for equitable and democratic flood information infrastructures for the region, to develop a framework and approach for evaluating equity, quality, and usability of public flood information to guide future investments in flood information in Southern Ontario and be replicated in other geographies, evaluate the current status of public flood information in Southern Ontario, and identify priorities for improving flood information infrastructures for the region. 

Christoph Becker, Professor, Faculty of Information; John Robinson, Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the School of the Environment; Anne Gloger, Executive Director, Catalysts’ Circle 

While people in marginalized and racialized communities roll up their sleeves to create well-being, resilience, and equity strategies, urban data ecosystems bear little relationship to these initiatives, create inequalities between different communities of data users, and entrench a transactional understanding of democracy.  Public institutions lean on highly processed quantitative data at the scale of the city. Residents and community organizations produce knowledge and data from their lived experiences and collective efforts towards neighbourhood improvement and systems change.  

In this project, we develop practices that make heavily processed (far) data relevant for local knowledge contexts, and re-embed community generated knowledges and aspirations (near data) in a far-data context. Building on ongoing work centering the Connected Community Approach, we integrate near and far data to express the community’s social and ecological aspirations and concerns and embed these at local, regional and global scales. By linking both near and far data to contextualize policy proposals, we hope to add nuance and richness to the data used in municipal decision making, change how municipal decision makers interact with  community-based change makers and residents, and contribute to just sustainable futures in the City of Toronto that are authentically grounded in communities’ aspirations and actions. 

Shion Guha, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information and Department of Computer Science & Beth Coleman, Associate Professor, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology & Faculty of Information, UTM 

Designing Human‑Centred Algorithms to Reduce Inequalities in the Toronto Unhoused investigates how municipal homelessness data can be leveraged to produce equitable service delivery. Building on a two‑year ethnographic partnership with Toronto Shelter and Support Services (TSSS), the project reframes homelessness risk prediction as an interaction between individuals and resource‑constrained environments, rejecting reductive client‑level scoring. The team will secure and analyse the city’s Shelter Management Information System (SMIS), integrating quantitative records with narrative case notes. A mixed‑methods pipeline couples thematic analysis with machine‑learning and information‑theoretic feature evaluation to (1) map what data are collected and when across the client journey, and (2) identify which data combinations best illuminate heterogeneous needs of equity‑deserving sub‑populations. 

The work proceeds in three phases: data acquisition and cleaning, participatory model co‑design blending critical interpretive inquiry and technical development, and knowledge mobilization via policy briefs, interactive visualisations, and scholarly publications. Outputs include open, privacy‑preserved datasets and reproducible code, guidance for municipal data governance, and a shift in algorithmic‑fairness discourse from client classification to systemic accountability. 

Tenley Conway, Professor, Department of Geography, Geomatics and Environment, UTM 

Urban forests, comprised of all trees in a city, provide many environmental and social benefits. However, in many cities trees are unevenly distributed, with marginalized communities typically having relatively few trees, thus experiencing fewer benefits. In 2024, the Toronto Tree Equity Score Analyzer (TESA) was created to guide targeted tree planting to support an equitable urban forest. A limitation of the tool is that it only considers the locations of trees and measures of marginalization. Missing are data related to each communities’ diverse needs and expectations (i.e., recognitional justice). Recognitional justice is important when considering how to equitably plant trees in marginalized communities, as these neighborhoods have often been left out of urban forest decision-making. Through case studies in the Moss Park and Black Creek neighborhoods, the project’s goal is to combine recognitional justice data with the distribution-focused TESA and assess ways to support equitable urban forest decision-making and outcomes. The goal will be addressed through a participatory mapping exercise, future scenario visualizations, and focus groups exploring if and how the visualizations can be used by the communities. Through community generated data and the new data-driven TESA, the project aims to identify an approach to grow a just urban forest. 

Bomani Khemet, Assistant Professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design & Aziza Chaouni, Associate Professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design 

Zanzibar City’s Ng’ambo district contains East Africa’s most unique blend of precolonial and modernist Swahili housing blocks commonly known as the Karume – New Town. Our research catalogues, evaluates and preserves the sustainable and economically reproducible technologies found in Karume’s post-revolutionary socialist housing. The project aims to systematically preserve the human experience and heritage values embedded in these housing developments. Two Karume – New Town housing developments will be evaluated through occupant surveys and physical measurements. Occupant surveys capture demographic data, occupant design preferences, subjective thermal comfort, and occupant perspectives on the heritage value of their building and neighborhood. Physical measurements capture air temperature, humidity, natural ventilation rate, and radiant temperatures for both interior and exterior environments. The research team will utilize interactive digital visualization tools to present survey results bilingually with Kiswahili as the anchor language. Data on subjective human comfort will be correlated with suite characteristics in a statistical analysis. Suite data pertaining to interior and exterior environmental parameters will be used to create a thermal comfort and building energy model for each Karume building. Finally the research team will create new drawing sets with 3-dimensional models of these heritage buildings to be archived by local governmental and academic partners. 

Priyank Chandra, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information & Matt Ratto, Professor, Faculty of Information 

This research project investigates how outdoor gig workers in Indian cities, particularly delivery drivers and ridesourcing operators, navigate compounded vulnerabilities caused by environmental hazards (e.g., air pollution, heat stress, flooding) and socio-economic inequalities (e.g., caste, gender, migration status). Using a participatory-action research methodology, this project set in Kolkata, India will center gig workers in the research process, allowing them to contribute to data generation and analysis. The project combines three innovative data sources: (1) participatory mapping to document hazardous geographies, (2) environmental sensors carried by workers to collect real-time air pollution and temperature data, and (3) historical and ongoing messages from union WhatsApp groups, which capture contextual information on risks and challenges. These data sources will be integrated with official environmental datasets to reveal discrepancies in risk documentation and identify systemic inequities. Through participatory data analysis, workers will collaborate with the research team in refining insights and co-creating outputs beneficial to worker advocacy efforts. The analysis will produce actionable outputs, including multi-layered hazard maps, risk profiles, and policy recommendations. This research not only aims to empower gig workers and unions through data but also inform equitable policy interventions and democratize urban governance. 

Aradhya Sood, Assistant Professor, Department of Management, UTSC and Rotman School of Management 

Segregation across space is a widespread phenomenon, yet its underlying drivers remain underexplored. Despite a rich literature documenting segregation, a key challenge lies in disentangling supply-side de jure or implicit discrimination (by developers, sellers, and real estate agents) from demand-side preferences (residents’ location choices based on neighborhood demographics). This project examines the role of demand-side preferences and supply-side discrimination in contributing to racial and ethnic segregation in the 1940 Minneapolis metro housing market. We will construct a novel dataset at the household-housing development level from the Minneapolis metro area, linking households from 1940 census data with data on developments and de jure forms of housing discrimination. We show that models overlooking restrictions on neighborhood choices for discriminated households inaccurately estimate preferences, particularly for minority residents facing discrimination. To address this limitation, we will build a two-sided matching housing market model that accounts for discrimination as variations in neighborhood choice sets across demographic groups. This approach accommodates observable de jure sources of discrimination and implicit forms contributing to segregation. This project aims to generate counterfactual racial and ethnic sorting patterns from 1940, absent both supply-side discrimination and demand-side preferences, to quantify their impact on segregation. 

Michel Mersereau, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information 

This project resolves a critical, yet under-researched area of supply side dynamics in the fibre-broadband service market concerning the public’s subsidization of commercial telecommunications service providers (TSPs) through their use of the public realm for deployment of commercial broadband infrastructure. This analysis highlights the political economy of Canada’s regulatory arena concerning TSPs, and will shed light on the scope of market power over the public realm to assess the extent to which commercial use of the public realm by TSPs yields best-value for the public’s investment. 

The project utilizes Freedom of Information (FOI) mechanisms to obtain GIS dataset files containing the locations, directionality, project year and project term, and total lengths of buried and aerial fibre telecommunications infrastructure deployed by regulated Telecommunications Service Providers within the public right-of-ways of regional municipalities throughout the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA). The data files are analyzed with custom pivot tables, and the GIS markers are combined with open GIS datasets to produce original views of TSP fibre infrastructure at the neighbourhood level. 

Tom Kemeny, Associate Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy & Prentiss Dantzler, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology 

The GEOWEALTH-CA project investigates the geography of wealth in Canada between 1971 and 2021. In partnership with researchers at Arizona State University and the London School of Economics, the project adapts a novel machine learning-based approach developed for GEOWEALTH-US in order to generate the first data infrastructure describing patterns of wealth within and between Canadian cities. Using Census data and financial surveys, GEOWEALTH-CA will produce local estimates of wealth and inequality across 41 Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) and available Census Agglomerations (CAs). The project will document how wealth gaps vary across regions, generations, and racial and ethnic groups, and explore local drivers of inequality. All data will be made public, with tailored infographics and explainer videos—developed in partnership with the Housing Justice Lab—highlighting regional housing and wealth dynamics. The team will engage with community groups, policymakers, and researchers to ensure findings are accessible and impactful. Ultimately, GEOWEALTH-CA aims to serve as a foundational resource for understanding and addressing rising wealth inequality in Canada. The project is committed to equity and inclusion both in its research design and its recruitment and training practices. 

Ishtiaque Ahmed, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science & Lisa Austin, Professor, Faculty of Law 

AI technologies increasingly shape urban life but often deepen inequalities by silencing marginalized voices and erasing cultural agency. This project addresses these challenges by developing ethical AI frameworks that foster inclusion and equity. Through participatory action research, the project will collaborate with local communities to deliver two key interventions. The first will design AI tools for fair and inclusive content moderation in digital public spaces. The second will develop generative AI models that respect and celebrate marginalized cultural contributions. At the core of this work is the creation of Extended Civic Data Trusts, which will serve as community-driven governance systems. These trusts will enable residents to manage and annotate data ethically while ensuring transparency, privacy, and shared ownership. By combining interdisciplinary academic expertise with deep community engagement, the project will advance both technical solutions and democratic urban governance. Outcomes will include open-source toolkits, collaboratively created datasets, and policy recommendations to help cities worldwide build inclusive digital ecosystems. Ultimately, the initiative aims to transform AI design and governance in urban contexts and contribute to the creation of more just, participatory, and democratic cities. 

Marianne Hatzopoulou, Professor, Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering & Jad Zalzal, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering 

This project aims to investigate how the past two decades of urban growth have shaped disparities in the distribution of urban environmental stressors and environmental justice (EJ) across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). This research is particularly important in rapidly growing areas, such as the GTHA, to ensure that areas grow equitably without exacerbating existing disparities in the distribution of environmental burdens. Through this project, we will offer a unique approach to conducting EJ analyses by combining historical data on urban environmental stressors (air pollution, access to green space, and urban heat exposure), urban growth (construction data and building permits) and socioeconomic status. This combination of datasets aims to capture how the rapid urban growth in the GTHA has impacted the trends and spatial patterns of air pollution, access to green space, and urban heat, as well as the trends and spatial distribution of socioeconomic characteristics. To maximize the impact of our project, we will integrate our findings into HealthyPlan.City, a web-based visualization platform developed by CANUE, offering free, accessible data for diverse stakeholders. This democratized access to data aims to facilitate equitable and just urban transitions. 

Stanka Radovic, Associate Professor, Department of English and Drama, UTM and Department of English 

Aesthetics of Participation asks city users to produce creative responses to the aesthetic components of their urban environment to investigate the impact of street level language and art on their urban experience. The research team, composed of volunteer U of T graduate students across disciplines, will work on two topics: 

1. “Word City” – how does street writing shape our experience of the urban environment through graffiti, posters, advertisement, poetry in the subway, random street messages, etc.? 

2. “Art City” – how do we perceive and respond to public art, whether commissioned or spontaneous? 

The City of Toronto’s “Percent for Public Art Program” webpage claims that art is “a public benefit to be enjoyed and experienced by residents and visitors throughout the city”. This project will engage the issue of street aesthetics as a democratic and democratizing force in urban life. 

At the end of the project, the research team will showcase their creative responses to the specific instances of public art across Toronto. The final exhibit may include creative writing, photography, visual art, audio/video essays, etc. that document the participatory and democratizing effects of public art.  

Elizabeth Harney, Associate Professor, Department of Arts, Culture, and Media 

In 1969, Toronto residents visited the first Caravan, a week-long festival highlighting the material and cultural history of the city’s many immigrant communities. Access to these events was widely available, costing a few dollars for a passport to visit each cultural pavilion. The extensive reach of Caravan into the public sphere and psyche of the city was extraordinary. It produced a rich sensorium of public and private memories—leaving an archive of visual, sonic, culinary and material culture, the import and impact of which have received scant scholarly attention. This project re-visits these multi-sensorial histories of the Caravan archive, viewing them as an early experiment in democratic cultural participation. It will pay particular attention to its spatial unfolding, focusing on the psychic maps of belonging for those who, at the time, held limited economic, political or social power in the city. By treating the festival as a data source and working with colleagues across disciplines and community stake holders, it will analyze the shifting patterns of cultural representation, participation, and access to the city’s spaces, connecting these to current discussions of equity in the arts landscape.  

Erica Allen-Kim, Assistant Professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design & Morris Lum, Assistant Professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design

The uncertainties of development have a significant effect on communities that rely on specialized shops and services that cannot easily relocate. Planners and developers account for delays when calculating the risk of a contentious approval process or volatile market. Less is understood from a policy side about the effects of stalled development on a community’s well-being, which includes the ability to create spaces where they feel at ease. Ethnic malls function as informal community centres, yet many older shopping centres in the GTA are vulnerable to redevelopment. Dragon Centre in Agincourt (1984) is the first Asian enclosed mall in North America. In 2012, the owners announced plans to redevelop the property into two condominium towers. This project traces the ripple effects of stalled development as a form of disinvestment. If planning policies are created to mediate relationships between individuals, the case of Dragon Centre raises questions about existing pathways to citizen participation in Scarborough. To narrow the gap between planning and community-generated knowledge, we will bring together planning history with stories of displacement and planning limbo. By studying the lifecycle of shopping centres, this project will identify blind spots and opportunities to help create spaces for community. 

Farzaneh Hemmasi, Associate Professor, Faculty of Music 

This collaboration between the Kensington Market Community Land Trust and the interdisciplinary research team Kensington Market Soundscape Study will support the KMCLT’s initiative to collect data on land and property use within Kensington Market, and the creation of an online digital map to represent this data in an accessible, interactive form. Understanding that Kensington’s socio-economic and cultural diversity and distinctiveness are threatened by unaffordability, KMSS researchers will contribute to a layer of the interactive map focusing on past and present arts, performance, and other “cultural spaces” within the neighborhood. By moving beyond anecdotal evidence of the neighborhood’s changing land use and cultural scenes, acquiring and democratically sharing data will help KMCLT expand their mission of “place-keeping” to the cultural realm. 

Larissa Lai, Professor and Richard Charles Lee Chair in Chinese Canadian Studies, University College & Department of English 

Nerd Revolutions hosts Asian Canadian futurist writers speculating on the possibilities and dangers of artificial intelligence. With the rapid development of large language learning models and AI systems (eg. Chat GPT, Watson, DeepMind, and DeepSeek, etc), insufficient thought has been given to the possible uses and misuses of next generation developments in the technology. Even less has been given to the ethics and the social consequences of deploying such systems across a wide range of contexts. However, speculative fiction has had a long history of thinking about AI; consider Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, Dick’s Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep, or Asimov’s I, Robot, and my own Salt Fish Girl. The genre also has a long and venerated tradition of extrapolation as Ursula LeGuin has taught us. Further, by virtue of the fact that Asian people, particularly Asian women have long been problematically figured as dolls, robots, cyborgs and AIs, and as we fight back against such figuration by taking up our own subjective locations and incorporating these figurations as a matter of reclaiming them, we are now uniquely positioned to speculate on what the future might hold in relation to these technologies.  

Aditi Mehta, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography & Planning 

Pathways to Community Safety convenes urban planning professionals and transformative justice practitioners across Canada to discuss collective understandings of, and pathways towards community safety in cities. The concept of “pathways” is a shared metaphor across critical planning and critical criminology theory. In urban planning, pathways denote streets, roads, lanes, and transit lines which are often surveilled, policed, and governed in harmful ways towards communities of color, women, and LGBTQ2S individuals. In critical (feminist) criminology, pathways refer to the structural, systemic, and interpersonal violence that leads to law-breaking. How can planners and abolitionists learn from one another and collaborate to design and build safe “pathways” for all urban residents? 

To spur reflection on pathways, the research team will facilitate a photography exhibition among participants. Before the convening, participants will submit a photograph and accompanying caption responding to the prompt: 

What do you see as a pathway to community safety in your city? What obstacles lie in these pathways? 

The photographs and stories will serve as a starting point for cross-sectoral dialogue among participants to build solidarities among individuals from disparate fields. We will use the photos to identify themes among everyone’s experiences confronting the carceral state and/or working towards community safety.