About the ANC Partners
The Montreal Urban Ecology Centre, The Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) at Clean Air Partnership, and Sustainable Calgary Society have worked together over the course of a decade, building a movement for co-designing active communities.
When we first began, few organizations were using participatory approaches to citizen engagement, and discussions about the benefits of built environments that support walking and cycling were only beginning to emerge. We have seen these movements grow, and have been thrilled to contribute our voices to a growing chorus of support for healthy, active, and liveable communities.
Our partnership was funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Innovation Strategy. As this generous funding draws to a close, we’re sharing some of the change we’ve created by convening diverse partners, citizens, and professionals to co-design active, healthy, and sustainable neighbourhoods across Canada.
Over the course of the project we engaged:
5,993 residents
in
24
communities
across
3
provinces
in co-design activities to re-imagine their neighbourhoods
A three-pronged
approach to change
Community
Working with residents and local partners to re-imagine public spaces in their neighbourhoods, using over two dozen original co-design tools.
Professional Practice
Helping built environment and public health professionals understand the value of citizen engagement, and the importance of co-creating communities that support active lifestyles, through courses, workshops, webinars, and presentations.
Policy
Creating long-term systemic change by advocating for policies that support health and equity in the built environment, and supporting Canadian communities to make policy change with our Healthy Places Policy Toolkit.
Hear what some of the
communities have to say
Spotlight on communities: Saguenay, Québec
Spotlight on communities: Peterborough, Ontario
Spotlight on communities: Calgary, Alberta
Communities
Alberta
- Acadia, Calgary
- Anderson-Heritage Coalition (6-community coalition), Calgary
- Bridgeland-Riverside, Calgary
- High River, Town of High River
- Marlborough, Calgary
Ontario
- Donovan, Sudbury
- Downtown Jackson Creek, Peterborough*
- Haliburton Village
- Jackson Park-Brookdale, Peterborough*
- Stewart Street, Peterborough*
- Talwood, Peterborough*
- Thorncliffe and Flemingdon, Toronto
Quebec
- Chicoutimi, Saguenay
- Chomedey, Laval
- La Petite-Patrie, Montréal
- Mercier-Est, Montréal
- Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montréal
- Parc-Extension, Montréal
- Plateau-Est, Montréal
- Saint-Marc, Shawinigan
*In partnership with the NeighbourPLAN program at GreenUP.
We have worked to advance knowledge and create original research on the relationship between the built environment, health, and equity.
Explore some of our project publications and research.
Let’s Have a Conversation About Healthy Places
This report highlights key information on Canadian urban issues: cost-benefit analysis of active and motorized transportation options, inspiring practices, and information on the challenges of addressing equity and health. Fuel your electoral debates and workshops on urban policies.
The ANC network produced this tool and invites Canadians to use it with decision makers at all levels of government.
Building Active Communities Together
This report details the successes, challenges, and lessons learned during our twelve Active Neighbourhoods pilot projects. Discover how policymakers, professionals, community groups, and citizens can work together to develop solutions that promote active transportation and active citizen engagement in communities across Canada.
PARTICIPATORY URBAN PLANNING: Planning the city with and for its citizens
This guide was designed to give communities step-by-step support to carry out a participatory planning project. Whether you are redesigning an intersection, making a street safer, creating a public space, implementing a local travel plan, or greening a common courtyard, the participatory planning approach will allow you to make your project a truly collaborative initiative.
Pedestrian collisions are an issue of equity: streets in lower-income areas more dangerous for pedestrians
Walking is the healthiest, most affordable, and most inherently safe form of transportation. This research examines whether the way we build our communities gives everyone equal and safe access to this most fundamental form of mobility. We learned that in Calgary, inadequate pedestrian infrastructure in low-income neighbourhoods puts those residents at a higher risk of collisions and deepens the inequities experienced by these communities.
Our research, tools, and publications have reached thousands of people across Canada and beyond*.
14,000
People reached
through conferences, courses, workshops and webinars
82,000
website visits
on participatoryplanning.ca
from
2,094
cities in
166
countries
8,200
downloads
of our co-design tools
*Numbers represent the reach of our work up until March 31, 2020.
The breadth of this reach has helped amplify a movement for more equitable, healthy, and sustainable cities.
We couldn’t have
done it alone
We’ve worked
with over
65
partner
organizations.
Here is what some of them have to say about working with us:
Over the past five years, GreenUP has been working with ANC to implement neighbourhood co-design projects in Peterborough, Ontario. Our partnership has provided us with vital mentoring, an established framework, and the opportunity to learn from practitioners from across the country. Following a successful pilot project, GreenUP was able to leverage nearly $500,000 to invest in the expansion of the project (locally called the NeighbourPLAN program) into three new neighbourhoods. Our ongoing connection to the ANC Network continues to increase our capacity and deepen our impact.
Brianna Salmon, Executive Director, GreenUP
I love the work of Sustainable Calgary and the real and direct impact they have on Calgarians, through Active Neighbourhoods Canada. They leverage what they learn through prototypes and community engagement to influence policy and policy makers. They are unwavering in sharing their grassroots experience, design exploration, and the latest public health research to inform policy on built form and sustainable practices. Sustainable Calgary puts theory into action and works to move projects from thought experiments into real world design changes that have an impact.
Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra, City of Calgary
The Active Neighbourhoods Canada experience in Saguenay served as a precedent to encourage new practices and to create the reflex to work in collaboration with the community.
Simon-Olivier Côté, City Councillor & Vice-President of Chicoutimi Borough
Throughout the Anderson to Heritage Coalition process in collaboration with ANC, it became apparent that there was so much to do! So now Acadia and Fairview and Haysboro have done a fair number of parallel initiatives that have spawned off of this one. This project started off with 6 communities working on one vision, and so much great content came out of this process that we split off back into our groups, went after additional funding, and have accomplished lots since!
Kim Warnke, Anderson to Heritage Coalition
The Active Neighbourhoods Canada approach aims to raise awareness and transform the environment by local stakeholders. It has the advantage of being "bottom up" and of allowing the participation of different segments of the population.
Juan Torres, Vice-doyen, Faculté de l'aménagement, Université de Montréal
Graduate students from Ryerson University worked with the ANC team and local communities to co-design two neighbourhoods in Peterborough, ON. Together, we designed communities that would be healthy, active and sustainable. It was a great experiential learning opportunity for our students, who are now implementing these concepts and skills at work as young professionals.
Dr. Raktim Mitra, Associate Professor, Ryerson University School of Urban and Regional Planning
When we have conversations with people, especially that aren’t skilled in planning, traffic safety, cycling infrastructure and that sort of thing [...] part of being able to help folks open up and have good discourse is creating a safe space for conversation. And that’s one thing that Sustainable Calgary, through the ANC program, does really well! Working with Sustainable Calgary, what I've enjoyed is the sense of wonder that comes from providing people with a different lens. Many people thought that because the landscape looks the way it does in the city, that that's the way it SHOULD be! Providing options and food for thought has been invigorating.
Keith Simmons, Acadia Community Association
