NEW

Urban Work Index 2023

What’s the best city in Canada for youth to live and work? Find out now!

Youthful Cities is excited to release the Urban Work Index 2023, championed by RBC Future Launch. Now in its third iteration, this ranking covers key topics within the ecosystem of work — education + training, affordability, good youth jobs, entrepreneurial spirit, city economy, equity + diversity, sustainability, public health, public transportation, and digital access.

Data-driven solutions to make cities more
youthful. connected. open. dynamic. playful. curious. inventive.

Who We Are

Youthful Cities is a social enterprise that creates data-driven solutions to make cities better for everyone. We bring together young people (15-29 year-olds) to collect data, spark dialogue, generate insights, and then work towards positive action. Click here to learn more about our values.

Keep up to date with all things Youthful Cities by following us on social media and joining our newsletter.

What We’ve Been Working On

THE GRID Video Tutorials

Learn how to use all the features that our open data portal, THE GRID, has to offer with our new video tutorials.

 

#CanadaWeWant Conference 2022

Students Commission of Canada (SDS) invited Youthful Cities to join in the #CanadaWeWant Conference 2022 as young Canadians came together to explore the question: What do young people want for Canada’s future? During the conference this past October, we supported participant conversations on affordability in Canada using Real Affordability data. Keep an eye on the Students Commission of Canada for more information coming from that event.

 

Find out more about what we’ve been involved in by checking out our latest blog post.

Our Latest Data

Real Affordability Index 2022

Young people live in a monthly deficit position in Canadian cities making urban centers unaffordable to the country’s future generations. On average young people are losing $750 per month by living in cities across the country.

Urban Work Index 2021

In 2019 Youthful Cities launched the first Urban Work Index with the help of RBC Future Launch and focused on topic areas traditionally associated with work and cities like affordability, employment, and entrepreneurship.

Coventry City of Culture 2020

The Youthful Cities Program is a partnership between Coventry UK City of Culture, the British Council and Youthful Cities to facilitate a cultural and creative skills exchange between young people across the globe. It has been developed to enable young adults (age 18-25) to creatively respond to important, urgent and youth-focused issues in their cities, encouraging more active participation in civic matters.

In the Media

Prioritizing youth in Canada’s fall economic update is a good start

Elise Pundyk of Youthful Cities responds to Canada’s fall economic statement in light of the Real Affordability Index.

 

Livable Cities

Listen to our operations manager Elise Pundyk talk about affordable, livable cities on RBC’s podcast, In The (K)now.

 

Is Canada Cool?

Check out our executive director Robert Barnard’s National Observer article all about youthfulness.

Our Solutions

Data Products & Visualization

At Youthful Cities, we know data is so much more than just numbers. We create a variety of web apps, data visualizations, and interactive data stories to activate the data we work so hard to capture.

Community Action Research

Youthful Cities uses the community action research model to collect public opinion data, which can take the form of surveys or interviews. We hire youth from local communities and involve them in the process from start to finish.

Index Creation

Youthful Cities has nearly 10 years’ experience working with data to rank cities both in Canada and globally. The 6 Urban Attributes – connectedness, openness, dynamism, playfulness, curiosity, and inventiveness – help us shape our indicators and give our work a unique perspective.

Open Up — Open Data Literacy + Activation Program

Open Up is Youthful Cities’ Open Data Literacy + Activation Program that builds open data capacity in the youth-serving sector by empowering organizations and their changemakers with tools to activate open data in order to enhance their organization’s impact.

Labs & Hackathons

Enabling youth through a pop-up “think and do tank” co-creation model to effect change in their cities. Hackathons are a condensed version of the lab model that can be delivered virtually.

Summits

Summits bring together great people and spark dialogue around important issues. They provide unique opportunities for networking and connection. To make sure great ideas don’t fall through the cracks, summits can be combined with the virtual hackathon model following the conclusion of in-person sessions.

Interested in partnering with Youthful Cities? Let’s talk.