News

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.

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.

Master of Future Cities student Johanna B. secured Best Idea honors at the Brookfield Renewable Innovation Challenge. Bringing a systems-thinking lens to the Pearl Sullivan Engineering IDEAs Clinic, Johanna’s interdisciplinary team designed an on-campus waste-to-energy organics digester and biogas generator. By turning local campus organic waste into methane fuel for central heating operations, the concept delivers immediate waste management savings while establishing a practical, scalable building block for campus-wide district energy planning and long-term net-zero targets.

Graduate students from the Master of Future Cities (MFC) program recently returned from an intensive, two-week field course in Singapore. Organized by the Future Cities Institute founded by CAIVAN, this experiential learning trip allowed students to step out of the classroom and see how long-term foresight, multi-purpose infrastructure, and high-density housing strategies are deployed in the real world.

At the BE*SPOKE Festival in the Township of Centre Wellington, conversations about climate resilience, urban systems, and community leadership moved beyond abstract policy debates and into something more tangible. Organized by GreenLanes, the festival created space for municipalities, practitioners, and community leaders to engage deeply with the realities of climate change, and the choices communities must make in response. The Future Cities Institute was proud to be part of that conversation through the work of FCI member and Academic Director Nadine Ibrahim, whose talk, “The Future Is Now, So What Are We Building?”, set the tone for the day. 

The pace of change in Canada’s housing landscape is accelerating, but the systems that shape how housing gets built often fall behind. Approvals take years. Cost climbing. Entire segments of housing, especially family-sized, attainable ownership options, are increasingly absent from the market. Against this backdrop, the Future Cities Institute convened the Land Development Bootcamp as both a learning space and a signal: preparing the next generation of planners and practitioners requires confronting these realities head-on. 

As Waterloo Region continues to plan for long-term population growth, one question looms large: are the systems that support daily life ready for what comes next? In January, the Future Cities Institute (FCI), alongside BESTWR, released an updated Vision 1 Million Scorecard, offering a data-driven snapshot of how prepared the region is to grow toward a population of one million residents in the coming decades. By framing the analysis this way, the tool invites decision-makers to think proactively rather than reactively, highlighting where current trajectories may fall short and where strategic intervention could have the greatest impact. 

The City of Kitchener and the University of Waterloo have announced a four-year research partnership to assess the municipality’s natural gas infrastructure and plan for future demand, with FCI cluster lead David C. Del Rey Fernández at the helm. 

This first-of-its-kind partnership will model Kitchener’s natural gas infrastructure using digital twin technology to explore how shifting energy demands could shape the future of municipal utilities.

As part of FCI’s national series of Think Tanks taking place across Canada, November’s event in Toronto brought together leaders focused on unlocking new pathways for private investment in housing and related infrastructure. The conversation was sharp, honest, and filled with insight that directly connects to FCI’s research, training, and partnerships. 

Participants dug into the shared barriers slowing private capital, from permitting challenges to fragmented policy frameworks, and explored the opportunities that could shift the landscape. They were generous in naming what is working, what is not, and what needs to change if Canada is going to compete globally. 

Several themes quickly emerged: the importance of predictable decision-making, clearer alignment across levels of government, and a readiness to test new financing structures that have had success outside Canada. The energy in the room underscored that there is real, urgent momentum behind this work. 

These insights will shape several concrete projects currently underway at FCI. This is exactly the kind of collaborative, solution-oriented dialogue that continues to propel the organization’s mission forward. 

The Future Cities Institute was in attendance on October 15, 2025, at Bold Urban Futures: How to Build Healthier, More Resilient Communities, a packed evening of dialogue, connection and future-focused thinking in downtown Vancouver. 

Hosted at the TELUS Garden and part of the University of Waterloo’s Global Futures series, this special event brought together city-builders, University of Waterloo Alumni and partners working at the edge of change. 

FCI Director, Dr. Leia Minaker, joined an inspiring speaker lineup alongside Lisa Helps (Executive Lead, BC Builds at BC Housing) and Dr. Joyce Kim (Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering and Cluster Lead on Housing at FCI) to explore how collaboration, innovation and evidence can help reimagine Canadian urban life.