HealthyPlan.City

Built environment goods, like community amenities, parks and greenspaces are rarely equally distributed in cities. Seeing the favourable and unfavourable areas of distribution helps identify where investments need to be made.

HealthyPlan.City is an environmental equity analysis and reporting tool that provides insights at the intersection of urban planning, environmental exposures and public health. Selecting a city, built environment feature, and demographic group provides you with a map that visualizes the distribution of exposures to show where inequities exist and which populations have favourable and unfavourable environments. 

The tool organizes exposure data across four indexes: heat islands, air & noise pollution, parks & recreation, and local communities. It overlays this data with demographic data from the Canadian Census. All of the data is nationally consistent, making it easy to compare any Census Metropolitan Area in Canada.

Displaying environmental inequity within cities at the level of the dissemination block, the tool provides a snapshot of favourable and unfavourable areas. 

An unfavourable area has a higher proportion of a population group that experiences a lower proportion of built environment goods, relative to the city. (e.g. more children than average who have fewer recreation facilities in their area)

A favourable area has a low proportion of a population group that experiences a high proportion of environmental goods, relative to  the city. (e.g.  fewer children than average who live near more parks than average)

We are looking for your feedback to make the tool even better! Explore the tool below and fill out our online survey to let us know what you think!