The School of Cities understands why cities matter – for sustainability, prosperity, inclusion, and justice. Providing public access to the research and analysis that informs change is one of our primary objectives. Here you will find a growing set of insights into the most pressing issues of our time, in the form of publications, maps and videos and created in collaboration with affiliated faculty, visiting scholars, expert practitioners, students, and community organizations.
In the spotlight
The 2026 mayoral election: Local landslides
Maps, charts, and analysis of the 2026 mayoral election in Toronto
Who built Toronto’s fibre internet?
Mapping and comparing where telecom companies build fibre internet infrastructure under Toronto streets
Broadband Infrastructure Market Insights (BRIMI): A Broadband Data Space for Canadian Cities
BRIMI is a platform showing who builds broadband infrastructure in Canadian cities, what agreements there are for access to public space, and household capacity for internet services.
Voter turnout in Ontario municipal elections
Charting turnout in Ontario’s 34 largest municipalities over time and relative to other election characteristics
Who are food delivery workers?
Food delivery has become a familiar part of urban life, but what does this work actually look like for the people behind our orders? This series explores how platform-mediated food delivery is reshaping work and the way we experience cities.
One city, uneven participation
Mapping turnout across Toronto elections, and the combination of neighbourhood characteristics most closely tied to it
The five Torontos
Cluster analysis of neighbourhoods in Toronto based on voting patterns
Visit every Toronto library by transit
Animated map of 10 tours visiting every public library in Toronto by public transit
Reframing Housing: Is Immigration Responsible for the High Cost of Housing?
Housing affordability continues to be a hot topic and key issue for many people in Canada and the United States. Often, the high cost of housing has been directly attributed to immigrants causing too much demand for a limited housing supply. But is that really the case? Research on the topic shows a far more nuanced relationship between immigration and housing costs.
The Cost of Ending Homelessness and Housing Need in Canada
What would it cost to guarantee everyone in Canada an affordable, adequate home? Carolyn Whitzman estimates at least $118 billion a year in financing, plus $5.7 billion in rent subsidies and supports. It’s a lot, she argues, but Canada can afford it, and it’s far cheaper than the alternative.
How long does it take to get to a library in Toronto?
Maps and analysis of transit and walking accessibility to public libraries
Food delivery work and the city
Food delivery has become a familiar part of urban life, but what does this work actually look like for the people behind our orders? From flexibility and financial pressures to mobility and public space, this article explores how platform-mediated food delivery is reshaping work and the way we experience cities.
Projects
Canada’s Infrastructure Deficit
A series of chapters, commissioned from experts and researchers across Canada, addressing a crisis in deferred maintenance and construction of critical infrastructure and how it impacts global competitiveness, place-based prosperity, and democracy.
Downtown Recovery
The Covid-19 pandemic renewed debates about the future of downtowns in North America which, even as life has returned to them, are no longer bustling centres of activity. This trend has led many to wonder: is this the death of downtown?
Learning from What Works
This is a time of extraordinary uncertainty in Canada, but there are already great ideas at the local level for how to address our economic, social, environmental, and cultural challenges. This project features local ideas that work and identifies effective approaches to solving place-based challenges.
The Metropolitan Mindset
This initiative aims to cultivate the metropolitan mindset in Canada through research, education, partnerships, and advocacy.
Affordable Missing Middle
This initiative explores and advances ways to add gentle density to our residential neighbourhoods in an effort to achieve affordability and equity.
Housing Innovation Scaling Hub
This program, run in partnership with University of Toronto Entrepreneurship, empowered CMHC Level-Up Housing Supply Challenge semi-finalists to scale their innovative housing solutions through research, events, and entrepreneurship consulting.
Climate Displacement & Cities
The Global Research Network on Climate-Induced Displacement, Resettlement, Adaptation, and Resilience for Cities connects social and physical scientists and practitioners to refine understanding of human decisions about adaptation and migration and the adaptive capacities of different groups and infrastructures across contexts.
Reframing Housing
Reframing Housing is a multidisciplinary hub for urban research, education, and engagement at the University of Toronto with the aim of uncovering and clarifying common misconceptions and complex issues in the housing realm.
Bundling Assets Solutions Lab
The ‘Bundling Assets’ lab, funded by the CMHC through its Solutions Labs, engages regional community housing providers and national sector-level organizations to explore how bundling the assets of multiple community housing providers can increase access to finance and improve development and management capacity.
Canadian Municipal Barometer
The Canadian Municipal Barometer (CMB) is a national research partnership – funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and of which the School of Cities is a partner – that seeks to understand and improve local democracy in Canada.
Products
Maps & Data Visualization
We create accessible interactive maps and data visualizations aimed at disseminating academic research to a broader audience, visual storytelling focused on important urban issues, and creating new modes for understanding our cities.
Knowledge Café
Knowledge Café is a monthly speaking opportunity for the tri-campus community of U of T faculty and researchers to present analysis and highlights of their research on a theme that is important and relevant to cities.
City Beats Blog
The City Beats Blog invites experts affiliated with the School of Cities to publish essays, responses, and reflections in a variety of formats and at any stage in the development of new ideas or research.
Videos
The School of Cities is committed to mobilizing knowledge in innovative and accessible ways. We work with communities, scholars, policymakers, and visual creators to make videos that are informative, impactful, and approachable.
Exhibitions
The School of Cities has created high-quality, public-facing exhibitions on pressing urban issues that showcase the work of academics, students, and practitioners.
Publications
City Research Insights
City Research Insights is an occasional series that translates academic research into impactful solutions and leverages our community of urbanists and urban-oriented researchers to create a rich, multidisciplinary community of urban faculty, researchers, and students across disciplines and perspectives.
Policy briefs
School of Cities publishes occasional policy briefs, which aim to distill research findings and data, make recommendations, and draw links to policy initiatives.
Reports
This selection of reports is based on research and projects undertaken by School of Cities faculty, researchers, postdoctoral fellows and/or affiliated faculty, or that has been funded in part or in whole by the School of Cities.
Working papers
School of Cities publishes occasional working papers, often authored by affiliated faculty from other departments or universities and intended as starting points for discussion, debate, and data analysis.