In Canada, over 80% of the population already lives in urban centres. Canadian cities have become engines of national economic growth as well as socio-cultural interaction and transformation. Increasingly, they have also been influenced by a variety of environmental changes and have come to be at the centre of natural hazards.

The cumulative effect of these factors worldwide threatens to diminish the quality of life for current and future generations and already represents a challenge on multiple levels to the overall viability of cities as places where people can easily live and work. These effects are inextricably linked to our cities’ form and function, and it is crucial to consider the built environment and how we live in it given many environmental changes.

It is urgent for cities to embrace new ways of producing, building, moving and living to meet the challenge of environmental change. We believe that a joint mobilization of communities of practice, academics and civil society is needed to draw on a full range of ideas and approaches. This collaboration will be able to inform decisions and produce effective tools that offer strategic responses to the challenges cities are facing. It is therefore crucial that our initiative be able to address all aspects of sustainability through diverse research activities, seeking a balance of approaches.