Purpose
Five years ago when I finished my first degree at Queen's, I moved to Canada's largest city from the small city of Kingston, Ontario. I found that most people in my situation (including myself) moved to a single neighbourhood in the city - Yonge and Eglinton - which I very quickly became bored of. My objective in this project was to create an interactive data-based tool that helped young professionals make well-informed decisions about where to live in the city.
Parameters
In this project, each student was to create an in-depth and multi-faceted information graphic about a pre-determined topic - in this case, the topic was neighbourhoods in the city of Toronto. We got to choose whether to design a print piece or a web piece.
Process
The guide analyses 17 different neighbourhoods in Toronto, and evaluates their liveability based on five different factors. I chose these neighbourhoods based on two criteria. First, I found Toronto's 20 youngest neighbourhoods based on the percentage of residents between the ages of 20 and 30. Second, I took only those neighbourhoods that were considered geographically central by eliminating those that did not fall within the boundaries of Highway 401, Highway 427, the Don Valley Parkway, and Lake Ontario. The five factors that are analysed in each neighbourhood were determined by an informal social media survey that I conducted in which I asked members of the target demographic to list their most valued factors when choosing where to live in a new city.
I then conveyed the data in two different formats: an interactive colour-based map that allows the user to understand geographic location, and a ranked bar graph which allows the user to easily compare all five factors analysed by the tool.
Data Sources
The data presented in the Crime, Rent, and Greenspace sections of the guide comes from the City of Toronto's Wellbeing Toronto website, which provides a vast collection of data related to well-being. The reference period is the 2011 calendar year. The Walkscore and Transitscore data is from the Walk Score® website which is an internationally-recognized website that provides ratings based on how walkable or transit-accessible different neighbourhoods are.
