“Data is the new water” has never been as true as it is today in countless industries and contexts – and urban planning is no exception. Data is an old and new civic utility to gain and share insights on our communities, and to power evidence-based decision-making.
In this vein, Andy Yan, director of SFU’s City Program, is spear-heading a new course in community data science in order to help equip professionals with an analytic toolkit to make sense of data, so they can better meet the needs of people living and working in their communities.
We invite you to learn more about this new course below, and be sure to read Andy Yan’s new blog post on his recent findings on housing affordability in Vancouver.

Community Data Science Theory and Practice

Nov 21, 22, 28, 29, SFU Harbour Centre
Instructors: Andy Yan, SFU City Program; Craig E. Jones, UBC
This professional development course focuses on the collection, analysis, visualization and dissemination of information derived from structured public datasets. You’ll acquire a basic toolkit for navigating public datasets containing socio-economic, demographic, land-use and real estate data. You will not only develop a familiarity with core datasets like the Census, municipal business licenses and property datasets, but also a basic ability to understand and use most structured public datasets. While you won’t necessarily fully master these datasets in this single course, you’ll learn a set of skills and conceptual understandings to analyze and share information. The course provides a balance of “how,” “what” and “why” of working with data and understanding its possibilities and limitations in the development of evidence-based decisions.
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