Building Inclusive Cities: Diversity in the Infrastructure Industry

The infrastructure industry is at the heart of city-building. The industry includes the government departments and private firms that together build large highways, transit lines, hospitals, water treatment plants, schools, and more. It includes the companies that are engaged in the rapid development of the next wave of smart-city technologies. The industry has a massive effect on how cities are built. And so it is imperative that its leading decision makers are representative of the wider communities in which major infrastructure projects are planned, built, and operated.

On January 14, Matti Siemiatycki and Yoko Cecelia Pye presented new research on the diversity of the infrastructure sector, discussed how women and racial minorities are underrepresented in leadership positions in the industry, and shared strategies to overcome this diversity gap.

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Speakers

Matti Siemiatycki is the interim director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto, and Canada Research Chair in Infrastructure Planning and Finance. His work focuses on delivering large-scale infrastructure projects, public-private partnerships, and the effective integration of infrastructure into the fabric of cities. His recent studies explore the value for money of delivering infrastructure mega-projects through public-private partnerships, and the ways that multi-stakeholder partnerships can achieve collaborative advantages that neither partner could realize on its own.

Yoko Cecelia Pye is a Masters of Science in Planning candidate at the University of Toronto. Her research examines the lived experiences of women and visible minorities in transit planning. The next stage of her research includes one-on-one interviews with the leaders of regional transit boards to explore whether the discourse of their boardroom meetings affects the decision-making process.