Future Cities Canada
Accelerating inclusive innovation in our cities through a national collaborative.
We are embarking on a historic moment for cities in Canada — a moment of transformative change full of new ideas, new technologies and new opportunities for public participation. It’s a moment to ensure we build flourishing cities that are equitable, regenerative and prosperous.
Canada needs a collaborative infrastructure where we can work together to create better cities that benefit us all.
Seeing this need, Evergreen, with four other founders - The McConnell Foundation, TD Bank Group, Maison de l’innovation sociale, and Community Foundations of Canada - came together to create Future Cities Canada.
Future Cities Canada provides the required collaborative infrastructure needed to collectively imagine our future and accelerate inclusive innovation in our cities.
Together with a diverse and growing network of partners from across sectors – universities, governments, foundations, organizations, private partners and more – Future Cities Canada harnesses the collective energy needed for true transformative change.
Hubs, labs and learning networks fuel the transformation of our cities for the betterment of all who live in them.
Learn more about them on the Future Cities Canada website.
Community Solutions Network
The Community Solutions Network is designed to help communities build service area capacity and improve the lives of residents using data and connected technology approaches. The Network is a program of Future Cities Canada, led by Evergreen with Open North and a national community of partners.
As the project lead we are working with Open North and partners to help communities navigate the smart cities landscape. Our focus includes such topics as security, data, procurement, governance, and public engagement.
The Civic Commons Catalyst
Evergreen and the University of Calgary School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape (SAPL) are partnering to support the creation of the Civic Commons Catalyst in Calgary—a creative, shared platform to research, convene and ideate, evaluate, and develop public and private real estate investment opportunities in Alberta’s cities and communities.
Beginning with a focus on downtown Calgary, the Catalyst is taking underutilized spatial assets city-wide in and catalyzing them into positive assets for the community to spark the region’s revitalization.
How Future Cities Canada came to be
The groundwork for Future Cities Canada began in 2015. Evergreen and Cities for People came together for the We Are Cities campaign. We engaged thousands of citizens by asking them to imagine an agenda for the future of our cities.
In the end, we came out of this project with the We Are Cities Action Agenda, a collective expression of the kinds of cities we, as Canadians, want.
The Agenda was built with the intention to inspire and catalyze action—locally and nationally—building on efforts already underway across the country.
A subsequent report, “Towards a Civic Commons Strategy” by Evergreen and the McConnell Foundation revealed the need for a collaborative infrastructure to catalyze inclusive urban innovation for our cities. It became clear we needed Future Cities Canada.
As one of the founding partners, we're providing the foundational leadership and support in the coordination of Future Cities Canada and its programs.
Want to learn more? Visit FutureCitiesCanada.ca for more information.