Imagine Cities Research/Priority Area Categories
We help neighbourhood organizations understand and use current research, skills and tools to build thriving neighbourhoods that last for generations.
Our obsession with research has allowed us to build an increasingly strong understanding of what it takes to create neighbourhoods that foster opportunities, belonging and happiness. We collect and share research on our search engine across 18 city making categories to keep you up to date.
These categories are regularly reviewed and updated. For instance, we now collect research on DNA and neuroscience. Our improved understanding of our brains and DNA has highlighted how our daily experiences can shape how our brain develops and how our DNA functions which can be passed from generation to generation.
We are entering an era of exponential change never seen before in human history. This era is being supported by a strong culture of innovation and creativity. If we choose, this could be used to solve some of humanity’s biggest challenges. The number of problems we can solve is only limited by our collective ingenuity and ability to work together.
Our research/priority area categories focus on the topics that advance human flourishing. Rooted in systems thinking, the purpose of each description is to provide a high-level understanding of each category’s importance to neighbourhood life. The descriptions are not comprehensive but provide you with a framework for further exploration.
Complementing our white paper and values, the descriptions listed below attempt to answer the following three questions:
- What the research category is about;
- Why is the research category is important and;
- What are some cities doing to make improvements.
Note: we’ve provided is our perspective which will evolve over time. We update our categories on a regular basis. We welcome constructive feedback on any category covered. Send your feedback to research@imaginecities.com.
Category #1: Arts & Culture
The impact of arts and culture on society cannot be understated. The social, health, educational and economic outcomes are wide ranging and significant including the ability to improve struggling communities. When we consider neighbourhoods that people gravitate to, it almost always involves arts and culture. With a new economy that’s dependent on creativity, the indirect impact of arts and culture is playing a growing economic role by building the creative muscles and inspiration needed by innovators to create the future. The importance of increasing access to art and culture led Toronto to preserve cultural hubs through implementing a tax break while Malibu City’s utility box art program gives more people access to art in their neighbourhood, and Paris’ famous public arts festival Nuit Blanche is an immersive arts experience for everyone.
Category #2: Climate Change, Energy & Pollution
The science of climate change is clear. While the planet has historically warmed and cooled, increasing human activity has been directly linked to our warming planet. Tackling climate change is not about saving the planet because the planet will survive changes in climate. It’s about saving human life on this planet because civilization can only survive within certain temperatures. Embedded in this warming is pollution such as greenhouse gases. There is also so much plastic pollution that humans consume thousands of pieces each year. The largest producers of greenhouse gases include electricity, transportation, industry, property development, and agriculture. This has led to an effort to find solutions to reduce our carbon footprint by lowering the carbon intensity of fossil fuels, investing in more types of energy, lowering our need for energy and mitigating the impact of global climate disruption and pollution. There is even a database that provides information on the most effective climate policies.
Category #3: Density
As populations in cities grow, so will our use of land. In the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area, growth between 2006–2016 saw 1,000 hectares of agricultural and natural habitats get paved over per year (a hockey rink is 0.15 hectares). Studies have shown that more compact urban design saves between 38%-50% of upfront infrastructure costs, 10% on the delivery of services, and produces 10 times more in taxes per hectare. In addition to negative economic impacts, urban sprawl has wide ranging negative health impacts as well. On the flipside, cities that depend on high-rises also have a negative impact on quality of life. This is why how we design density is important. Consider that New York has over 300 skyscrapers and Paris has only 18. Yet, Paris is twice as dense as New York.
The way we choose to design our cities is critical to how we experience our cities where density is not the goal but is a critical ingredient to creating better outcomes for residents. This is why California has ended the development of single family homes to add more density to communities and why more cities are proposing establishing 15 minute cities where you can get what you need within 15 minutes of your home which also involves implementing, not high or low density, but well designed density that has wellbeing at its core.
Category #4: Diversity, Inclusion & Equity
Many of us believe that the way we perceive the world around us is reality. Our brain creates a version of our reality that is unique to us and is informed by a wide array of factors like our DNA, our social network, the media we consume, and our lived experience. Our brains are taking in 11 million bits of information a second, most of that information we’re not aware of. To conserve the amount of energy we use, our brain creates shortcuts otherwise known as biases.
Sometimes these shortcuts are good, like being able to play the piano better the more times you practice, but other times it can lead to terrible outcomes such as placing limitations on who can live in a good neighbourhood. While your reality is unique to you, others can have a similar version of reality depending on how similar their experiences have been to yours. This includes having similar biases. If too many people with similar biases have access to too much power, this can lead to inequitable outcomes for those without similar experiences leading to outcomes like a gender pay gap, the over imprisonment of black and indigenous people, and the racial wealth gap.
Category #5: Economic Development
The strong relationship between urban design and economic development dates back to the 18th and 19th century when it was found that there was a correlation in the US between registered patents (i.e. innovation), access to canals and railway (multi-modal transport), and the agglomeration of people (dense communities). The most productive economies apply the same principles today.
The ability to create economic growth relies on investments in key assets that amplify the capacity to innovate, improve competitiveness and household income. In the new economy, a symbiotic relationship exists between the ability to attract and retain talent and businesses. There are many who have made the investments and those who have not, which has led to growing economic divergence across regions as some cities lack the capacity to be more productive leading to disastrous outcomes for residents. In this era of transformative innovation, many are working to reshape the economy to also be more resilient while better addressing the needs of society and the environment.
Category #6: Education
Education serves many purposes including enabling our cognitive development which allows us to acquire the capacity to reach our potential, our ability to participate actively and responsibly in a more cohesive society, a critical driver of economic growth and upward social mobility through enhancing innovation, productivity and improving competitiveness, and socializing people to the evolving norms and values of a society that enables local and global cooperation. With education being part a significant part in the wellbeing of a nation, the quality of an education system has many knock on affects.
For instance, research has demonstrated that time spent in the classroom does not equate to receiving a quality education. While students in the US spend an additional 1,300 hours in school compared the averages of other countries, they lag in academic achievement. This has led many to experiment in education to learn about what can improve outcomes such as the importance to early childhood education and school lunches to brain development. In Finland, one the most successful education systems in the world (which is also publicly funded), having small class sizes, minimizing homework, empowering teachers to develop the curriculum, and providing additional resources to struggling students has led to better outcomes.
In the US, experimentation with publicly funded Charter Schools, while not universal, has shown some indications of success. At the same time, they have been criticized for not accepting as many students with developmental delays and multiple disabilities including intellectual. In addition, studies in Montessori approaches to education has also shown some success. Like public schools, success in both are dependent on specifics of the approach school taken to educate.
Less proven approaches are also emerging like MOOC platforms suchs Coursera, EdX, and The Knowledge Society as well as charitable programs like Khan Academy. Most recently, approaches have also begun to incorporate AI like in China to monitor student attention and in the US which has replaced teachers with adult guides.
Category #7: Engagement
Cities are full of people overflowing with creativity and innovation, but the ability to innovate to solve urban problems has long been siloed within the hands of the few. More thoughtful solutions can be proposed at a faster pace when increasing the capacity for more diverse participants to become involved leading to increased happiness among residents. This can be accomplished by creating policies, approaches and platforms that can propel trust and increased participation.
Traditionally, this has involved community associations, business improvement areas, nonprofits and charities, but recent innovations have led to more tools to improve engagement including crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, tactical urbanism, participatory budgeting, community benefit districts and data. In many regions, purpose driven companies are also playing an increasing role in solving problems in communities.
Category #8: Food Security
From early childhood, access to not just food but quality food is critical to the development of our brain and body. Living in a food desert means that you don’t have convenient access to quality food. Those with less access have a higher probability of having obesity and other related health outcomes, adverse mental health impacts, and negatively impact your ability to be productive at work. On the flipside of the inability of many to access food is the problem of growing food waste. We throw away billions of dollars of food each year. In addition to accessing quality food, there’s also the threat of the quality of our food as the nutrition levels in food have been declining over the past 50 to 70 years and climate change is leading to negative impacts on crops. Despite the challenges, there have been so many incredible innovations solving some of these complex problems such as apps that reduce food waste, the emergence of upcycled food, fast food chains that serve healthy food, nonprofit grocery stores, drought resistant farming techniques.
Category #9: Finance
Municipal finance requires the local government to manage funds and financial activities necessary to adapt urban landscapes to meet the evolving needs of cities. The World Bank Group Report analyzes how cities enhance competitiveness and economic growth, despite financial constraints such as reliance on property tax and the inability to run budget deficits. In this environment of increasing competition, cities require continuous investments to maintain and improve quality of life. It’s critical for cities to organize and use their finite financial resources to effectively optimize investments leading to more significant results for its residents.
Depending on macro and micro economic conditions, cities have access to different funding opportunities to maintain and increase their competitiveness compared to other cities. In a higher tax environment, cities have the revenue needed to make necessary investments. In a reduced tax environment, cities become increasingly dependent on non-tax funding sources to make investments. Whether it’s tax or non-tax funding sources, like Public-private partnerships, each has varying degrees of risk.
In Salt Lake City, a partnership with FedEx assisted in gaining public support for a tax increase to prioritize public transit investment. In Toronto, a partnership with developers led to the redevelopment of Canada’s largest social housing project into a community that meets modern design standards. In Victoria, Fernwood NRG partnered with the public sector, private sector, and foundations to make investments leading to neighbourhood transformation. In Calgary, microgrants are being used to support grassroots initiatives like community gardens to address climate change, while community bonds in British Columbia fund affordable housing. In the U.S., Opportunity Zones are being used to revive distressed neighbourhoods while in Cleveland, an Anchor Institution Agreement led to a partnership with a local hospital led to the creation of high quality jobs leading to more local economic resiliency.
Category #10: Government
Whether you believe in limiting or expanding the role of government, the importance of the role of government in modern life cannot be understanded. In her article for the World Economic Forum, Anne Marie Slaughter states that the government serves three core roles: protecting its citizens from violence, providing goods and services, and investing in talent. Considering our ability to access healthy food, clean water and clean air, what is the role of the government? While many people have differing opinions about the role of government, most can agree that the government must be given the capacity to successfully fulfill its goals such as having the power to collect taxes.
Category #11: Housing
The first rung on the ladder to providing opportunity is access to housing in a good neighbourhood. A lack of access has many wide ranging effects a person. For instance, young people without access to adequate housing are less likely to graduate while having housing leads to better economic outcomes as adults. Parents benefit from reduced negative mental and physical health impacts when housed and providing housing is cheaper when supporting those who are homeless rather than relying on police and emergency room visits. In Toronto, Trillium Housing has been making housing more affordable asking for a 5% down payment, in the US Section 8 housing has helped millions of families move into better neighbourhoods, tiny homes are being used to provide those who are homeless with temporary shelter, and Housing First policies have dramatically reduced homelessness across the world.
Category #12: Mobility
Urban mobility refers to the ability to get from one point of a city to the other. Sitting in traffic can have disastrous wellbeing outcomes and wasted time. The way we design our communities to improve our mobility options can have a significant impact on our health, local and industrial scale economies, and the environment. For cities that rely on a single mode of transport, the outcomes can be disastrous for residents. To advance a future that reduces congestion and gets people to where they want to faster, cities are advancing a multimodal future such as embracing tolls which reduced traffic by 20% during rush hour in Stockholm, Germany’s cycle highway and New York’s protected bike lanes, Paris’ growing micro mobility options, as well as Barcelona’s Superblock design which encourages walking. In the near future, options could also include drone and autonomous delivery systems and taxis.
Category #13: Parks & Biodiversity
With the decline of our mental health in cities and the growing impact of climate change, parks and biodiversity are becoming increasingly important to urban life. Improving access to green space with higher levels of biodiversity has a direct positive impact on our brain and improves mental health while also assisting in mitigating the impact of climate change. Studies show that access to parks increased the property values in New York City by $15 billion. The presence of tree-lined streets and public parks increases the value of your home. The financial cost of poor biodiversity planning is also significant. Over a nine year period, the City of Calgary estimates a financial cost of $45,376,000 due to vehicle collisions with wildlife. Due to the far reaching impacts of parks and biodiversity, cities are finding creative ways to increase access to green space and biodiversity including China’s sponge parks, wildlife crossings, Montreal’s biodiversity corridor, establishing nature districts, green roofs on buses, green walls, and urban farms, among many others.
Category #14: Public Health
Public health is a discipline that focuses on improving the health of communities through research, community engagement, policy, and education to promote disease prevention, prolong life, and our overall well-being. This includes the social determinants of health such as economic, social, and environmental factors that influence quality of life. Breakthroughs in neuroscience and DNA research have also contributed to public health by helping us better understand how our life experiences shape our brain and genetic code well into adulthood.
To improve public health, cities around the world are reshaping urban life. Take a look at our other research categories to learn more about ideas that are improving public health in neighbourhoods. For instance, cities like Amsterdam are developing 15 to 30 minute cities that provide all amenities for populations. This innovation has a number of compounding impacts such as minimizing car usage, increasing physical activity, and reducing emissions to improve air quality which in turn reduces cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
Category #15: Public Space
Public Space refers to free or relatively low-cost spaces that provide essential opportunities to socialize, exercise, and escape from our daily routine to help fulfill vital social functions. With the rise of loneliness and an increasingly divided world, cafés, public squares, libraries, recreational centres, playgrounds and parks, create opportunities to interact with others outside of the home and work to promote a sense of community. Due to climate change, public spaces are adopting urban designs that reduce the impact of rising temperatures. Cities are taking creative approaches to enhance public spaces by conforming to the ecological environment, integrating communities into public space, partnering with the private sector to improve recreational facilities, and redeveloping industrial parks with vibrant communal spaces.
Category #16: Safety & Security
While urban centres have witnessed a decline in violence since the 1990s, safety remains top of mind for residents. A lack of safety, perceived or real, has wide ranging short and long term impacts on individuals and communities. Some associate safety with having sufficient policing, a robust criminal justice system, and prison, but many are questioning whether these systems are as effective at making us safer as we may think they are. While the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, countries like Denmark have some of the lowest. This has been achieved through drastically different approaches to safety.
Research breakthroughs, like in neuroscience, have led to better understanding some of the conditions that could lead to criminal activity such as knowing that 50%-80% of prisoners suffer from traumatic brain injury which make it difficult for them to think. Researchers have also found that prisoners can have underdeveloped parts of their brain resulting in less capacity to reason and understand of the consequence of their actions.
Some cities are trying to expand the toolkit of preventative measures such as diverting young people from prison or using treatment rather than prison to help with drug addiction, designing neighbourhood streets to have more “eyes on the street”. Other cities are increasingly relying on technology such as artificial intelligence, which has had mixed results.
Category #17: Smart Cities
Through scientific study, we’re gaining an increasing understanding of what it takes to build great cities. By supporting data programs and the use of indicators, an increasing number of cities have built the capacity to measure whether their city is improving or not. Alongside this knowledge is a growing effort to create mechanisms to enable more people to participate in problem solving. Whether it’s through the use of technology or buckets of paint and some lumber, cities are becoming smarter and more creative in their ability to meaningfully identify problems and solve them.
Category #18: Water Security
Water security is fundamental to the health, wellbeing, and stability of cities around the world. Outside of personal consumption, water is a critical ingredient for industries like agriculture, manufacturing, electricity, and transportation. A lack of water in cities like Cape Town, São Paulo, London and Melbourne, the unpredictability of climate change, and rising demand have led many to seriously consider their future relationship with water. In Holland, Hydraloop is helping families recycle water in their home while Canada’s Otto helps families conserve sprinkler water. Some cities are banning lawns while others are encouraging rainwater harvesting and desalination.
