A compendium of urban form measures
We have plans to develop a wide range of urban form measures at three and six digit postal code levels for all of Canada. This database will include GIS calculations of various measures of land use mix, street connectivity, walkability, and access to transit services. Our team has expertise in measuring and validating these measures and linking them to national health surveys.
Looking at nighttime light
The US Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) has collected imagery of night-time lights at approximately 1-kilometer resolution continuously since 1992. Using Google Earth Engine, we will link nighttime light with Canadian postal codes, enabling research into the link between neighbourhood light levels and health.
New metrics of the social and physical environment
We are currently experiencing a revolution in the availability of digital information about our environment; we can ‘see’ and sample neighbourhoods like never before using virtual auditing techniques from sources such as Google Streetview. The CANUE team will develop and validate new, nationally-consistent and ‘analysis-ready’ metrics of the social and physical environment. One of the ways we will achieve this is by exploring approaches to developing relevant indices from available data (such as the Canadian Marginalization Index, Community Change Index, Deprivation Index).