When some of our teammates had to relocate for internships, we realized how difficult it is to move to a new city without knowing what each neighbourhood is truly like.
Online research can only go so far — you often need local insights to understand if an area is safe at night, how good the air quality is, how expensive housing can get, or how accessible transit is.
We found no single platform that brought all this data together — that realization inspired Urbanlytics, a one-stop hub for neighbourhood analytics.
Urbanlytics is a data-driven neighbourhood analytics platform that helps people explore and compare communities within a city.
It provides a map-based dashboard where users can view:
- Crime rates and safety scores
- Air pollution and livability metrics
- Average housing costs and transit accessibility
- Overall community insights in one visual interface
Whether you’re moving, planning, or researching — Urbanlytics helps you make informed, data-backed decisions about where to live.
Urbanlytics provides a map-based visualization platform where users can:
- Search for any city and view its neighbourhoods outlined on the map.
- Select key urban indicators such as crime rate, housing prices & pollution.
- Instantly view a heat map representation of the selected indicator.
- Click on any neighbourhood to open a detailed analytics card with multiple statistics and trends.
Whether you’re finding a safe place to live, studying urban development, or planning inclusive city policies — Urbanlytics gives you the insights you need at a glance.
Enter the name of your city to load a map with all neighbourhood boundaries clearly marked.
Toggle between data layers (crime, price, pollution or population density). The map dynamically updates to visualize the chosen dataset using colour gradients.
Click on a neighbourhood to view:
- Average housing price
- Crime index
- Pollution levels (air quality)
- Population density
- Community demographics and growth trends
Our system can integrate open data APIs (e.g. Socrata) to fetch and visualize the latest statistics.
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Frontend:
Built using React (Next.js) with Mapbox for geospatial rendering.
The interface uses a clean, minimal UI for accessibility and performance. -
Visualization Layer:
Dynamic heat maps are generated using Leaflet, adapting color scales based on normalized indicator values.
| Component | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | Next.js/TypeScript |
| Map Visualization | Leaflet API |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS |
| Deployment | Netlify |
This project combines open and public datasets to provide community-level insights for Calgary, including safety, air quality, and housing metrics.
Source: Socrata Open Data API
Provider: City of Calgary Open Data Portal
- Offers community-based crime and incident data.
- Used to generate Crime Rate and Safety Score metrics.
Source: IQAir – Calgary Air Quality Map
Provider: IQAir / AirVisual
- Provides real-time AQI and PM2.5 readings from Calgary monitoring stations.
- Used to calculate the Air Quality and Environmental Health scores.
Source: RentFaster.ca
Provider: RentFaster Canada
- Aggregates rental and housing market data by community.
- Used to estimate Cost of Living and Property Value indicators.
All datasets are aggregated for visualization and insight purposes under fair-use and open-data guidelines.
- Node.js (v20+)
- npm
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/urbanlytics.git
cd urbanlytics
# Install dependencies
npm install
# Set up environment variables
cp .env.example .env.local
# Add your API keys inside .env.local
# Run the development server
npm run devVisit http://localhost:3000 to explore Urbanlytics.
- Predictive analytics for real estate and safety trends
- Integration with live sensor or city IoT data
- Accessibility mode for visually impaired users
- User accounts and saved neighbourhood dashboards
- Comparison view for multiple neighbourhoods
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Mehvish Shakeel | Frontend & UI Development |
| Anfaal Mahbub | Backend & API Integration |
| Al Farhana Siddique | Data Processing & Visualization |
| Nimna Wijedasa | UX Design & Analytics |
| Aly Mohammed Masani | Project Coordination & Full Stack Development |
Urbanlytics envisions a world where urban data is transparent, accessible, and empowering.
By turning complex statistics into interactive visuals, we help build smarter, safer, and more inclusive cities — one neighbourhood at a time.