We are problem solvers who can help achieve successful outcomes for the full range of urban opportunities.

Urban Strategies® has always balanced public and private sector work and taken a strategic approach to city building.

What we do:

  • Master Planning
  • Urban Design Guidelines
  • Urban Transportation
  • Downtown Revitalization
  • Visioning
  • Regional Growth Management
  • Waterfront Master Planning
  • Sustainable Community Planning and Design
  • Engagement / Consultation
  • Campus Planning (colleges, hospitals, institutions)
  • Parks and Open Space Planning
  • Green Cities
  • City Management / Smart Cities
  • Brownfield Regeneration
  • New Community Plans
  • Community Planning
  • Due Diligence
  • Development Strategy and Approvals
  • Mid-sized City Strategies
  • Plans of Subdivision
  • Policy Analysis
  • Competition Management
  • Model Making
  • 3D Renderings and Animation
  • Shadow Studies
  • Site Analysis & Regulatory Review
  • Expert Testimony
  • Zoning By-Laws & Official Plans

To inquire about working with Urban Strategies on a project, please contact Mary Castel, our Marketing Director.

How we’re different:

We are focused exclusively on communities, cities and regions of all sizes. Individually, we each have a passion for different aspects of city-building, such as TOD, planning policy, campuses, waterfronts, public engagement — but these are overlapping interests. We work to put them together.

Tackling complex issues

Cities are complicated. We lead complex projects in cities all over the world. Clients benefit from fresh eyes and understanding of global best practices, with no preconceived approach or end solutions envisioned. We try and make the complicated simple.

What we don’t do:

We are strategists first. While our staff includes architects and landscape architects, we do not practice architecture or landscape architecture.  Our focus on the larger strategic picture means we can see the forest for the trees. Our plans identify a set of city-building elements that collectively and incrementally work together to catalyze change.

Acknowledgement:

Urban Strategies would like to acknowledge that we are hosted on the lands of Huron-Wendat, Petun, Seneca, Mississaugas of the Credit, Erie, Neutral, Haudenosaunee, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwxw̱ ú7mesh (Squamish), and Selí̓lw̓ itulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations on which we learn, work and meet every day. As a firm, we believe it is important for us to acknowledge these lands, their history and the enduring legacy of all First Nations, Metis and Inuit people – particularly given how the work that we do is so closely connected to the land. We think it is important for all of us, now more than ever, to recognize, reflect on, and challenge the role that settler colonialism plays in how our communities are planned, built and governed.

History

Since the beginning our goals have been to work hard, have fun, and create better urban environments.

What started as a small partnership in 1986 has grown over three decades, into a firm with 65+ staff and an international portfolio. Read about our evolving leadership.

The firm planted some of the first seeds of the ongoing urban renaissance in North America and the UK with groundbreaking studies on downtown living, intensification and urban regeneration. We also guided many landmark developments in Toronto and beyond. Today, Urban Strategies® continues to build on its international reputation as it takes on a diversity of urban challenges across North America and abroad.

Awards & Recognition

Since its founding in 1986, Urban Strategies has been recognized with over 100 awards from local, national and international organizations.

Clients

Municipalities

Governments and Agencies

Institutions

Citizens and Cooperative Groups

Development Companies

Private Corporations