The Value of Investing in Canadian Downtowns - International ...

APPENDIX 1 - PROJECT DESIGN
This study has been designed to have two key components:
Firstly, it aims to provide an in-depth analysis on the performance of 10 downtowns. It brings together a
wide range of data on how a particular downtown has been performing overtime and how it is performing
relative to the rest of the city.
Secondly, this report aims to compare the results from these in-depth case studies to see how downtowns
are performing across Canada.
To achieve these aims we have developed a consistent approach to defining the downtown boundaries, collecting
data and measuring and benchmarking performance. These components of the project and approach to achieving
these are described below.
PROJECT COMPONENTS
In-depth Analysis of 10 Downtowns
CUI designed the study to include an in-depth analysis for ten downtown case studies to date. This analysis provides
an overview of how the downtown case studies have evolved overtime and important lessons that the downtowns
have learned throughout their development.
To inform this analysis, the project team researched each downtown case study (within a defined downtown
boundary) by collecting quantitative data; Geographic Information Systems data (GIS);and interviews with key
stakeholders. The study team then used this data to measure and provide an assessment on how well the downtown
had performed.
Each step of this detailed analysis is described in the following section.
Comparisons between 10 Downtowns
CUI studied 10 unique downtowns that stretch from east to west across Canada. These downtowns range in
population from the thousands to the millions and serve many distinct roles and functions. This diversity creates
many challenges for a benchmarking study. The in-depth analysis is intended to maximize opportunities for
comparison between the downtown case studies.
More specifically, to achieve comparability, every downtown was assessed against the same five principles and
indicators that were developed to consistently present data collected from each city.
Key indicators were also selected based on some of the more interesting results of this study to allow for a quick
overview of key findings and an easy way to compare the varying cities to each other.
DEFINING DOWNTOWN BOUNDARIES
The first challenge for almost every project partner was defining the boundary for the downtown case studies. Every
single person living in a city will likely have a different understanding of what constitutes their “Downtown” based on
their personal frame of reference – are they a resident, a worker, how do they utilize the downtown and how often? -
and the project partners had to balance these various expectations and other key considerations in selecting this
boundary.
CUI provided support to each project partner to create a boundary that made sense for each city. The preferred
approach was adopting the working definition of “Downtown” used by the relevant municipality in plans and policies.
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