URBAN TRUTH COLLECTIVE
Truth about cities in an age of disinformation
The Urban Truth Collective is a collaboration between leading practitioners with persuasive communication, marketing, and branding expertise applied specifically to solving difficult challenges of better cities. This collective was started by three people but is designed to grow with diverse perspectives and experiences that reflect who and what makes our cities great.
Too much of the information environment about cities has become toxic. Actions and decisions that would make our cities more successful, sustainable, equitable and healthy have been portrayed as everything from threats that would destroy our communities, to literal jails. Heavily funded disinformation efforts are more powerful and determined than ever. But this is really just a new tip of an old iceberg. For over a century, a steady stream of disinformation about better city-building has flooded the public consciousness, and the result has been a dangerous lack of progress on our biggest urban crises.
While many are doing excellent work to improve the urban information environment, there would be great value in a tight-knit group of focussed practitioners with strong experience in communication and messaging related to better city-building, working to successfully push back against harmful lies in this space. That’s what the Urban Truth Collective is for.
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The Collective will share persuasive research, evidence and information in ways that will successfully break through the noise and influence decisions. The Collective will create new messaging, brands, and marketing campaigns to help expand understanding around the truth about better city-building, and build defenses to urban disinformation. And the Collective will forcefully call out the lies, and the liars, that seek to undermine both the truth about, and the achievement of, better cities for people.
Brent Toderian
Coordinator
Brent Toderian is an internationally respected thought-leader on cities, and global practitioner in sustainable urbanism, city planning, transportation, urban design, and complex change management. His establishment of TODERIAN UrbanWORKS Inc. in 2012 followed 6 years as Vancouver, Canada’s Chief City Planner. Brent was the founding President of the Council for Canadian Urbanism; a frequent writer for Fast Company, Huffington Post, and many other publications; and an international speaker and media commentator on better cities. He has twice been voted one of the 100 most influential global urbanists in history by the website Planetizen.
Tom Flood is a communications professional with over 20 years of experience in marketing + advertising who has worked on a wide range of clients from financial institutions to automotive manufacturers. Through Rovélo Creative he helps organizations both in and out of the advocacy space develop their brands, creative and messaging. In addition to this creative and strategy work he has been writing, giving lectures & running workshops globally that focus on reframing the mainstream narrative around road safety, road violence and active transportation. www.creativebyrovelo.com
Tom Flood
Coordinator
Clarence Eckerson Jr.​
Collaborator
Clarence Eckerson, Jr. has been documenting advocacy transportation since the late 1990’s producing 1,200 videos for Streetfilms (www.streetfilms.org). He is referred to as “the hardest working man in transportation show biz” for his dedication to making difficult, wonky concepts more accessible and entertaining to the general public. He won an award in 2022 from the United Nations, recognizing his lifetime body of work.
Reena Mahajan
Collaborator
Reena Mahajan is an urban designer, architect and founder of Studio DiverCity, a practice committed to the transition toward people-centred, nature-positive cities. Having worked across India, Uruguay and France, she is currently developing StreetSmart, a platform designed to surface the hidden systems and narratives shaping our streets and build the cultural permission needed for transformative urban change. studiodivercity.com | livestreetsmart.com
Grant Ennis
Coordinator
Grant Ennis is the author of Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Undermines Our Health And The Environment. His work has been quoted in the House of Lords in the UK, cited in The Lancet and other academic journals, and used in legislative debates in the U.K., Ireland, and Australia. He was a keynote speaker at Velo-City in Ghent, Belgium, and has spoken about urbanism and other topics around the world, including dozens of podcasts available online. He is a Lecturer at Monash University part of the Global Challenges bachelor honours programme. For over two decades Grant has worked in public health, diplomacy, and humanitarian affairs in 10 countries. He lives in France.​​​​
Lanrick Bennett Jr.
Collaborator
Lanrick Bennett Jr. is a Toronto-based urbanist and community practitioner who serves as Urbanist-in-Residence at the University of Toronto School of Cities and Manager of Donor Education & Engagement at United Way Greater Toronto. His work connects research and community practice, focusing on equitable mobility, climate justice, and how cities can better serve the people who live in them.
Sara Kirk
Collaborator
As a Professor of Health Promotion, Sara's research explores the creation of supportive environments for chronic disease prevention, with a focus on equity. More recently, Sara has focused her research and knowledge mobilization efforts on creating safe spaces for active mobility, given the need to have safe, healthy and convenient alternatives to car use in a climate-threatened world.
More To Come
Collaborator