A GIS Case Study: Mississauga, ON, CAN
The City of Mississauga is in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in Ontario, Canada. The GTA is the largest metro area in Canada with Ontario being the most populated province. Home to the Toronto Pearson International Airport, Mississauga is conveniently located close to forty percent of Canada’s business headquarters. The City has a workforce of over 460,000 people, with seventy percent holding post-secondary degrees. You will find seventeen internationally recognized colleges and fifteen world-renowned universities within one-hour drive of Mississauga. Fifty-five percent of Mississauga residents have relocated from other countries (or 30% of Ontario residents), and more than two hundred languages are spoken in the province, which supports the largest tech sector and second largest financial center in all North America.
With these impressive statistics, it’s easy to see why Mississauga is an area focused on healthy economic development. It has a robust and engaged team at the Economic Development Office (EDO) that is focused on positively influencing and guiding community growth. The City of Mississauga has allocated a large amount of resources to the economic development projects with a goal of expanding the successes related to existing industries and infrastructure. The City has grown to support large key sectors, which include advanced manufacturing for aerospace, automotive, cleantech, food and beverage, financial services, information and communications technology, and life sciences.
“There’s something happening in Mississauga. Whether you call it innovation, growth or economic development, the fact is that people and ideas are gathering in a way that is truly special. We’re here for the small business, mid-size and the global CEO. We’re here for you.” (TheFutureIsUnlimited.ca/about/why-mississauga/)
The City of Mississauga’s shared vision is to “inspire the world as a dynamic and beautiful global city for creativity and innovation, with vibrant, safe and connected communities; where we celebrate the rich diversity of our cultures, our historic villages, Lake Ontario and the Credit River valley.” With this in mind, the City built goals on a strong foundation of strategic planning and processes. The current strategic plan spans forty years and is set to “direct the shape of the City in a variety of areas such as business development, land use planning, infrastructure, service delivery and asset management.” As a part of this plan, The City of Mississauga sought the support of Geographic Technologies Group (GTG) to plan and implement a three-pronged approach to GIS implementation for economic development.
GIS Application Development and Implementation
As this GIS for Economic Development plan unfolded, the EDO team decided on the creation of three primary web GIS applications, each utilizing economic development and relevant spatial and non-spatial data from a myriad of sources. The first is a public-facing Esri Story Map that details Mississauga offerings for business growth. The second application is also public-facing and provides access to both spatial and non-spatial economic development data in a format that is easy to consume and augments the EDO efforts in the community. The final component of their three-pronged approach is the creation of an internal web GIS application to aid in city operations and decision making regarding the economy and expansion of industries.
The live Story Map is an integral part of the EDO website and features information on their location, vision for the city, area advantages, key industry sectors, current development opportunities, testimonial videos, and more. A portion of the Cascade Story Map includes vacant land listings and visually represents site plans, rezoning, and approved applications on a map of Mississauga. The application closes with an invitation to contact the EDO team, which has been recognized as one of the top ten economic development offices in Canada.
The second application developed for the city by the GTG team is the Mississauga Economic Data Centre. The EDO is excited to implement GIS technology to make their community and government data more accessible and improve the user experience for residents and businesses engaging with City services. Their primary goal is to increase the Mississauga community’s appeal for new businesses looking to expand existing operations or relocate to the area. To create the Mississauga Economic Data Centre, GTG’s technical team embedded multiple instances of Esri web applications along with custom GTG solutions in one web GIS solution. This application aggregates data from a multitude of sources to provide charts, tables, and mapped data that are accessible through a variety of tabs and accordion menus. It offers information on:
- Population, housing, employment, and business growth
- Existing top industries in the area
- Development opportunities including vacant land, market statistics, entrepreneurship, and planning frameworks
- Workforce demographics and employment and commuting data
- A query tool for business resources and tools
- Community amenities such as transportation, parks, and public safety facilities
- Contact information for the EDO and Business Enterprise Centre.
Overall, it presents a cohesive look at how businesses benefit from and grow in the Mississauga environment.
The final piece of The City of Mississauga’s three-pronged GIS strategy is an Internal Application. This internal viewer gives EDO employees instant access to data in the form they need, providing analytical tools that help them do their jobs more efficiently. It provides an interactive web-based data platform, rather than spreadsheets and raw data that can require time to interpret and summarize. This internal app is meant to allow city officials to have a deeper understanding and aid in better data driven decision-making for active projects, programs, and economic initiatives. While EDO team members may not be able to share all data directly with the pubic, this internal viewer will allow them to assist residents and businesses with questions about the area’s economy.
Conclusion
Mississauga’s EDO team says, “The GTG team was very responsive to our unique and evolving needs. They used their subject expertise to help us develop our vision and make key decisions over the project period. As a result, the final products were much improved from our initial concepts. From the planning to implementation stages, our office received quality service from the GTG team that made the process simple, on-time and on-budget. Our story map continues to receive praise and has proven to be a great asset for our website.”
With three applications deployed, the Mississauga EDO is positioned to gain an even better understanding of the economy and how it affects the businesses and individuals they serve. With comprehensive reporting tools and increased public engagement, Mississauga is well on its way to achieving economic growth goals for decades to come. Their future is truly unlimited.
To learn more about Geographic Technologies Group and how they serve government organizations around the world, contact us or call 888.757.4222.
