News

This video recap of FCI's BUILD NOW design charrette features Philip Mills and Scott Higgins on what it meant to have students as genuine collaborators, and FCI Director Dr. Leia Minaker on why applied, grounded engagement sits at the core of FCI's work. Over 60 planning students, many of them the demographic BUILD NOW is designed to serve, brought real ideas and challenged assumptions in a working session with the BUILD NOW: Waterloo Region leadership team.

FCI researchers attended the Nunavut Economic Development Association Conference in Iqaluit to present and pilot an AI-powered Community Economic Development Planning Tool with community leaders and administrators. Workshops surfaced real challenges around fragmented planning, connectivity, and language access, and reinforced FCI's grounding principle that responsible, effective tools are built only after listening closely to the people they are meant to serve.

Director Leia Minaker joined Philip Mills for a conversation on BUILD NOW: Waterloo Region, drawing on real examples in front of a room of practitioners and municipal leaders engaged in how cities grow and change. At the FCI booth, co-op students Aster Penney, Len Dizdar, and Weixi Zhou shared updates on two active projects, the Growth Management Tool and the newly updated Vision 1 Million Scorecard, fielding questions with confidence throughout the morning. It was a productive opportunity to connect with municipal staff and industry colleagues, and to hear firsthand what people are working on across the region.

FCI supported the Experience Ventures Ideathon, hosted by GHD in Waterloo and organized by Conestoga College. Students working across disciplines presented creative, well-developed ideas to a real industry panel, closing out a program designed to build entrepreneurial thinking through hands-on, structured experience. A strong showing from participants and a well-run event from the organizing team.

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 Future Cities Institute hosted a panel on BUILD NOW: Waterloo Region, bringing together Philip Mills, Michelle Lee, Michael Maxwell, and Mayor Dorothy McCabe for an honest conversation about what it takes to deliver missing middle housing at scale. The discussion covered the role of cross-sector partnership, the real costs of slow approvals processes, and what it means for planners to be genuine problem-solvers. A grounded exchange that connected lived experience on the ground with the people working to understand and shape it.

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.