Urban Data Storytelling

Welcome to the Urban Data Storytelling online textbook, written and created by the School of Cities at the University of Toronto.

Urban data storytelling is the process and practice of using data to craft compelling narratives about cities, in order to communicate research and key insights, inform policy-making, build public will, or advocate for change.

Urban data storytelling combines data analytics, data visualization, and narrative techniques to make complex urban trends understandable and engaging for specific audiences, such as policymakers, funders, or community members.

This online textbook has several core modules, each composed of one or more notebooks or tutorials.

Note that this is a living textbook - we will likely be updating and adding new sections to it in the near future.

Framework for data storytelling

Contributors and citing

This online textbook was compiled by Jeff Allen using Quarto with content contributions from (in alphabetical order by last name) Jeff Allen, Karen Chapple, Isabeaux Graham, Julia Greenberg, Aniket Kali, Lindsey Smith, Evelyne St-Louis, Nate Wessel, and Michelle Zhang. Each page lists its authors.

If you want to cite this online textbook, here is the recommended citation:

Allen, J. (Eds.). (2025). Urban Data Storytelling. School of Cities, University of Toronto.

@book{allen2025urbandatastorytelling,
  editor    = {Allen, Jeff},
  title     = {Urban Data Storytelling},
  year      = {2025},
  publisher = {School of Cities, University of Toronto},
  url       = {https://schoolofcities.github.io/urban-data-storytelling/}
}

If you want to cite a specific page, here is an example of a recommended citation:

Greenberg, J. & St-Louis, E. (2025). Exploratory data visualization. In Allen, J. (Eds.), Urban Data Storytelling. School of Cities, University of Toronto.

@incollection{greenberg2021dataviz,
  author    = {Greenberg, Julia and St-Louis, Evelyne},
  title     = {Exploratory data visualization},
  booktitle = {Urban Data Storytelling},
  editor    = {Allen, Jeff},
  publisher = {School of Cities, University of Toronto},
  year      = {2025},
  url       = {https://schoolofcities.github.io/urban-data-storytelling/urban-data-visualization/exploratory-data-visualization/exploratory-data-visualization.html}
}

License

This online textbook and its notebooks are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License.

You are free to:

  • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

Under the following terms:

  • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
  • NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
  • ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.