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Leveraging Urban Data Storytelling to Create Change in Your Community
What is Urban Data Storytelling?
Urban data storytelling is the process and practice of using data to craft compelling narratives about cities. Its goal is to communicate key insights, inform policymaking, build public will, or advocate for positive change. Urban data storytelling combines data analysis, data visualization, and narrative techniques to make complex urban trends understandable and engaging for specific audiences, such as policymakers, funders, or community members.
Our Approach
Our team, working jointly across UC Berkeley and the School of Cities at the University of Toronto, uses an applied teaching approach to data storytelling. In our training, we take learners through the steps of data storytelling using real-world examples. Using a specific project as the basis for the workshop, learners start by thinking through their project goals, who their audience is, and what their audience’s stake is in the project. This forms the foundation of the story. Then, learners will be taken through the data analysis process, including identifying metrics, selecting data sources, analyzing the data, and creating data visualizations, to bolster the story. By the end of the training, learners will produce a presentation combining their narrative and data elements into a final story.
Urban Data Storytelling Use Case: Eau Claire, WI
Since 2023, our team has worked with several cities, one of which has been the City of Eau Claire, WI. This group included city staff, elected officials, and transit advocates, who came together to figure out how they could use data storytelling to build more buy-in for public transit in their community.
Eau Claire is a small urban center where driving remains the travel mode of choice, despite the operation of Eau Claire Transit, a bus system consisting of 20 bus routes and on-demand paratransit. The project goal identified by the Eau Claire team was to strengthen community awareness of the bus system and encourage residents to incorporate it into their daily travel, to sustain long-term public support for bus service.
The Eau Claire team started by engaging with community organizations and influential social clubs, such as the Elks. When addressing these community groups, the team crafted a story that emphasized how public transportation could be one of many solutions to help alleviate the time, financial, and environmental burdens of getting around, especially as the cost of living continues to rise.
The Eau Claire team supported this story by using data analysis and visualizations that (1) illustrated the personal and communal time, cost, and emissions benefits of using public transit, and (2) visualized functional ways in which residents could integrate public transit into their daily routines. One example, above, is a transit accessibility map showing bus travel times from a major hospital in Downtown Eau Claire. This map demonstrates how transit makes the hospital - an essential service and major community resource - accessible to many Eau Claire residents. Furthermore, this data visualization relies solely on publicly available data, obtained from the City of Eau Claire and OpenStreetMap.
Apply Now: Workshop in Urban Data Storytelling
The Workshop in Data Storytelling (WUDS) is an AICP CM credit-eligible training program for planners in the U.S. and Canada seeking to leverage data analysis and data storytelling to advance local urban initiatives. Register for this program if you are interested in: (1) acquiring foundational technical skills in data analysis and visualization, and (2) learning how to communicate data insights compellingly to your specific audiences.
We are offering two versions of WUDS right now:
- WUDS Hybrid: 4 weeks of virtual asynchronous learning in May 2025, followed by two days in-person at the University of Toronto (June 4-5, 2025)
- WUDS In-Person: Five days in-person at the University of Toronto (May 26 - May 30, 2025)
Find us on the CM Search Tool here and here.
Learn more on our website or register for our next virtual info session on March 20.
Apply here by March 28!
