CUI's Actions

Using a data-driven approach, Measuring Main Streets explores what’s working, what’s not and what’s next for Canada’s main streets, empowering city builders from the neighbourhood to the national scale.

In the face of economic transformation, main street practitioners and urban leaders will only be as informed as their data allows them to be. This one-of-a-kind dashboard offers at a glance, the most critical data on how any regional economy is performing.

My Main Street is a local investment model aimed at fostering the stabilization and revitalization of main streets. The program leverages funding to offer streamlined direct-to-business supports and complementary programming for community projects that will encourage growth and economic prosperity.

Stewarded by the Canadian Urban Institute, the Main Street Action Network is a growing community of partners mobilizing and leveraging each other’s voices, research and networks to support our main streets.

How are Canada's main streets and downtowns doing? This question evades answer with the diversity of our nation's main streets and economies. This new index offers a prosperity score for any main street, generated comparatively to the state of 5 critical indicators across 100 pan-Canada main streets.

Bring Back Main Street was a nationally-coordinated research and action campaign to ensure the people, business and organizations that that call Canada’s main streets home could recover and emerge from the COVID-19 crisis more resilient than ever, demonstrating a model for recovery.

CUI’s technical practice helps the public and private sectors build capacity for informed, creative decisions; shape public policy; and implement the best community practices. Through research, guidebooks, and more, discover the latest research on Canada's main streets and beyond.