The University of Waterloo’s Future Cities Institute (FCI) founded by CAIVAN advances pragmatic, data-driven solutions with cities and communities by incubating interdisciplinary talent and tools. We are evidence-based, politically agnostic, and measured by what we do, not what we say.
News
Why Water, Primary Care, and Child Care Unlock Everything Else
On October 1st, the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce hosted Vision 1 Million: Healthcare at the Delta Waterloo, where FCI Director Dr. Leia Minaker presented the second update to the Vision 1 Million Scorecard. Produced by BestWR and FCI, the scorecard grades 28 metrics to assess whether Waterloo Region is ready to grow to one million residents. Minaker walked the room through what has improved, what is lagging, and what is holding steady. She then narrowed the field to three priorities: water, primary care, and child care. Progress on those three, she argued, would unlock progress across several other domains at once. She later joined Chamber President and CEO Ian McLean for a fireside chat. The next scorecard update arrives in January.
Why more data wasn't the answer for Nunavut
Preethi Raghuraman, a junior product manager at FCI, and Krishnam Jhalani, an FCI co-op student, joined Managing Director Eryn Stewart in Iqaluit for their first trip north. They met with the Nunavut Economic Development Association (NEDA), FCI's longtime partner on a tool to help Community Economic Development (CED) officers in Nunavut's 25 hamlets create and track their CED plans. Listening to NEDA reshaped the project. Long plans often end up on a shelf, staff change over time, and internet connectivity is limited, so the tool is shifting toward short visual summaries, progress tracking between plan cycles, spoken input, and private storage for each hamlet's documents. "Once we sat down with the people it's being built for," says Preethi, "it was clear the best version could only come from listening."
Fees, Taxes, and Supply: Frank Cairo on Ottawa's Sub-$300,000 Townhomes
In September, CAIVAN began selling townhomes in Ottawa's west end for less than $300,000. On The Graham Richardson Show, co-founder and CEO Frank Cairo explained how. He pointed first to government relief on fees and taxes, including the expanded HST rebate and Ottawa's lower development charges, then to CAIVAN's own cost-cutting across manufacturing, land development, and home building. He was also candid about the limits. Without steady new supply for years to come, he said, prices could again climb beyond what buyers can afford. CAIVAN is the founding donor of the Future Cities Institute (FCI), which had no part in the project.
