Principle Planner, Urban Analytics
About The Position
The City of Edmonton is seeking a collaborative, forward-thinking, and data-driven professional to join their Urban Systems Assessments team. This role is crucial for understanding the city's growth, movement, and living patterns to shape its future. The Principal Planner, Urban Analytics will be the analytical and administrative leader responsible for translating complex spatial, demographic, and travel behavior data into actionable policy support and city planning reporting. Key responsibilities include championing the Edmonton Region Household Travel Survey (HTS) program, ensuring data integrity, vendor performance, and contract compliance. The role also involves leveraging Census datasets, growth monitoring information, and relational databases to evaluate strategic urban policies, monitoring key City Plan indicators (e.g., 15-minute city metrics, transit equity, housing and transportation cost indices), and designing interactive dashboards and GIS Story Maps to present insights to senior leadership and community partners. The position requires working within a multidisciplinary team of engineers, economists, and urban planners.
Requirements
- A Bachelor's degree in Urban Planning, Urban Geography, Urban Informatics, City & Regional Planning, Economics/Econometrics, or a related discipline focusing on land use planning, modeling, or economic geography.
- A minimum of four years of professional experience, including direct experience managing large, complex programs in the public or private sector.
- Demonstrated experience handling and analyzing large-scale transportation data, household travel surveys, or mobility datasets.
- Proven experience managing data privacy, security frameworks, and consultant/vendor workflows.
- Advanced proficiency in GIS software (ArcGIS, QGIS), database systems (SQL, PostgreSQL), and scripting languages (Python, R) alongside familiarity with Machine Learning/AI model development.
- Solid comprehension of project management methods and techniques (PMBOK best practices) to keep complex timelines on schedule.
- Outstanding oral, written, and data storytelling abilities to distill complex, technical information into clear insights for non-technical audiences and leadership.
- Ability to manage multiple shifting priorities in a dynamic environment while proactively solving data limitations or technical anomalies.
- Alignment to our Cultural Commitments and Leadership Competencies.
- Embracing a culture of equity, diversity, reconciliation, and inclusion.
- Alignment with the goals of the City Plan.
- Standard corporate compliance policies, including IT security guidelines, the Integrated Corporate Data Framework, and FOIP/privacy regulations apply.
- Candidates are required to hold a valid Alberta Class 5 driver’s license (or provincial equivalent) or higher.
- Candidates will be required to arrange their own transportation and, where appropriate, will be reimbursed in accordance with City of Edmonton policy. This may require the candidate to obtain business-use auto insurance.
- Applicants may be tested.
Nice To Haves
- Post-graduate degree (Master's) in City & Regional Planning, Urban Planning, or Urban Economics.
- Membership or eligibility for membership in the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) and its regional affiliate.
- Advanced training in computer modeling, statistics, and proficiency in Tableau or similar data visualization software.
Responsibilities
- Oversee and coordinate all operational aspects of the ongoing, continuous Household Travel Survey (HTS) program to ensure milestones are met on schedule.
- Coordinate daily fieldwork operations with consultants, manage the project budget, process invoices, oversee participant incentives, and standardize rigorous data quality control processes.
- Develop and maintain sophisticated spatial and demographic models to evaluate the long-term impacts of land use, zoning, and transit investments on regional development, housing affordability, and market demand.
- Conceptualize, build, and maintain interactive program dashboards and web-based GIS Story Maps to visualize shifting travel behaviors and mobility patterns.
- Build and foster strong connections with internal business units, regional municipalities, academic institutions, and data innovation teams to align corporate data governance and maximize community engagement.
- Build collaborative relationships with the teams responsible for essential data (e.g., tax assessment, real estate market, building footprint, and building permit data) to support the modeling platform update.
- Support the team in evaluating the effectiveness of strategies and policies to influence growth pattern and mobility infrastructure usage.
- Carry out additional tasks and responsibilities as required.
Benefits
- Hybrid work arrangement with flexibility to work from both home and the worksite.
- Reimbursement for business-use auto insurance.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
