State of Our City 2026 Report Released
This week, Sustainable Calgary released its seventh edition of the State of Our City report. State of Our City 2026: Widening Our Circle of Care marks the project’s 30th year, providing an important analysis of the social, economic, and environmental issues Calgarians face and potential solutions.
“Calgarians know that our city is grappling with bigger and more complex challenges, from water main breaks, to housing shortages,” said Sustainable Calgary Executive Director Celia Lee. “The State of Our City reports provide unparalleled insight into where we’ve been and where we can go in the future to build a more sustainable city for everyone.”
The report is the result of hundreds of hours of volunteer work from researchers and experts and tracks Calgary’s progress on seven domains: Community, Economy, Wellness, Natural Environment, Resource Use and Governance. The authors warn, “The indicators reflect poorly functioning democratic institutions, resource-intensive city-building, failure to reverse growing inequality, and increasing deprivation of the most marginalized in our city.”
While results are concerning, the report also highlights the opportunities for cities to provide meaningful changes and to be at the forefront of improvements for humanity as a whole. Re-designing municipal priorities on modes of transportation, housing density and energy diversification can have outsized positive impacts on public health and well-being and Calgary is poised to succeed due to its growing design culture.
“We have seen a troubling trend in the wrong direction when it comes to building a city that works for everyone,” said Noel Keough, Sustainable Calgary Co-Founder and Lead Researcher on the State of Our City project. “Though we face a polycrisis of mounting issues, refocusing on caring for one another, building community and pushing governments to invest in housing, education, food security and healthcare can turn this trend around.”
Sustainable Calgary would like to thank the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, and our other sponsors for thier generous support.
The print version of the report is available at Pages in Kensington, Shelf Life Books, Owl’s Nest Books, and Canary Refillery.
Local coverage of the report on City News
Download the full report here.