Economic and Community Development and Land Use Policies
Our economic development and industry studies examine the economic structure and performance of different geographic areas or industries. Our client organizations use the results of this research to assist them in developing communication and planning strategies and in dealing with the regulatory process.
- The Centre for Spatial Economics is currently (2006-2007) working with the IBI Group to build a transportation model for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The C4SE is developing projections of the various types of land uses that will occur throughout the GGH over the next three decades, including for residential and employment purposes. The model will cover more than 2,500 traffic zones throughout the GGH.
- For the Urban Development Institute (Ontario) we reviewed the current stance of government policies to determine which might threaten Ontario’s ability to reach its economic potential over the next several decades (2006).
- For the Ontario Ministry of Finance’s recently released publication Toward 2025 we contributed an assessment of the Key Forces Shaping the Economic Geography of Ontario to 2025 (2005).
- For the Economic Development Department of the City of Brampton we developed a detailed assessment of the City’s economic base by industry and evaluated the City’s manufacturing growth potential against a backdrop of the cluster analysis carried out on behalf of the Greater Toronto Area by the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity (2005).
- For the Regional Municipality of Niagara we recently developed a current and potential future economic profile of the Region in support of their efforts to develop a regional economic development strategy (2004).
- We provided expert testimony on behalf of the City of Burlington at an Ontario Municipal Board hearing in 2003, defending the City’s attempts to prevent the rezoning to residential of a major tract of commercial and industrial property (2003).
- We carried out the official population projections for the City of Barrie in 2003, the City of Hamilton in 2002, the City of Ottawa in 2001 and the Greater Toronto Area in 2000.