Why Communities Choose CityViz

I am pleased to provide this letter as a reference for CityViz based on the City of Langley’s experience

working with them to implement our online economic and community data platform.

The City of Langley selected CityViz through a competitive process that included other established

market providers. A key requirement for the City was the ability to integrate social and community-level

data alongside traditional economic indicators. CityViz distinguished itself by offering a flexible,

customizable solution that met these requirements and worked closely with City staff throughout

implementation.

Throughout the project, CityViz demonstrated a strong understanding of municipal data requirements

and worked collaboratively with City staff to tailor the platform to our priorities. As part of the project,

CityViz integrated the City’s business licence data with NAICS-based categorization and developed an

interactive business directory map. This tool supports shop-local initiatives, supply chain analysis, and

cross-analysis with employment and industry data.

More recently, CityViz supported the launch of two tourism-oriented interactive map tours showcasing

Langley’s parks, trails, attractions, and other “moments of wow.” These maps are now used to engage

users of the City’s data portal and to promote visitation to key outdoor and cultural assets. The ability to

repurpose the platform for tourism and place-based storytelling has added value beyond the original

economic development scope.

CityViz delivered the project in line with scope and expectations, was responsive and collaborative, and

demonstrated strong technical capability and client service. The City of Langley has been satisfied with

both the implementation process and the performance of the platform.

Based on our experience, CityViz is a capable and reliable partner for municipalities seeking a

customizable data platform that integrates economic, social, and place-based data.

Our organization undertook a website redevelopment project in 2024/2025 and we’re

looking for a new and dynamic way to integrate the data and analytics that are key tools to

any municipality and economic development organization.

The implementation of the CityViz economic development tools to our new website has

helped enhance the user experience to website users by providing an easy to navigate,

visually compelling and easy to update set of resources to help inform local businesses

about business health in our community and provide a detailed snapshot of Lethbridge to

business leaders and decision makers considering our location for their next operation.

The process with Sasha and his team has been professional and educational right from Day

1. The time spent showcasing and highlighting what the tools could do and how we could

add them seamlessly to our new website was truly appreciated. We had many

conversations about the suite of products and how they would work for us and how we could

also add some custom data points that our organization felt were vital to telling the

Lethbridge story, which were added to the offerings by supplying the information needed,

and CityViz did the rest.

We are excited to see how these tools will continue to provide our city and organization up

to date, quality information to those who need it. Our team also appreciated the functionality

of discussing the needs of businesses and then being able to send them customized reports

for the information they have requested, a tool that has been used numerous times since

adding the CityViz Economic Development Data Platform.

I would recommend CityViz to other economic development organizations in search of a

tools that can help tell the story of their city, location, municipality in a compelling and

visually appealing style and at a cost that provides huge value to our organization.

In late July of 2024 we decided to buy some CityViz data offerings to augment our Investment Attraction website www.chooseportalberni.ca

Three weeks later, CityViz had successfully integrated the data into our website. In reviewing my emails in that time period, I see that the CityViz team communicated their progress almost daily. Delightfully, minimal staff time was required on our part and we took advantage of the discount offered to BCEDA members.

After seeing immediate interest in the data, we moved it into its own tab on our website.

In mid-December we asked CityViz for some additional data and tools that we could use for understanding the impact of changes in employment levels in various economic sectors. By the end of December, CityViz had installed that and taught us how to use it. The Economic Strategy tool allows us to consider which sectors are best suited to recovery, strengthening or diversifying initiatives. The Economic Impact Calculator allows us to see the financial impact to our economy of changes in employment in our existing economic sectors.

Altogether the Economic Dependencies section of the data portal has emerged as one of our most used tools. In the two and a half months since the data became available, we have used it for grant applications, the master plan for another municipal department and orientation sessions with Council.

CityViz has been very responsive to our change requests and very thoughtful about how the data is best presented and used and I do not hesitate to recommend them.

You are welcome to go to the data portal on our aforementioned website, ‘poke around’ and see for yourself the value in it.

Sincerely,

CityViz offers an invaluable data platform for investment attraction. Their team excels in compiling and presenting statistical data from diverse, credible sources. The platform’s ability to provide community-specific insights has significantly enhanced our economic development website www.choosecranbrook.ca, by offering users reliable, accurate information and customizable reports tailored to their needs.

This online data portal is instrumental not only in responding to investment inquiries but also in supporting the broader information presented on our site. Having access to this level of data shifts the conversation with developers and investors, enabling more informed, data-driven discussions and facilitating quicker, more confident decision-making. I highly recommend CityViz for their professionalism, expertise, and outstanding customer support.

The CityViz data portal has provided our team with the tools and abilities to access data in one place. Not only does this streamline our processes in terms of providing information to clients, but the portal is publicly available providing our community, decision makers, and business executives with information at their fingertips they can use to make informed decisions. The CityViz team is always working on new innovative ways to display the data, source new data sets, and works with our team to customize the dashboard to meet organizational strategic priorities.

Working with CityViz has been nothing short of amazing. They are enjoyable to work with, they listen to what you need and want, and they put it all together with ease and accuracy. The data platforms they have developed for the communities I have been involved with over the past couple of years offers the opportunity for better decision making which leads to better results from an economic, planning and development perspective

CityViz offers a data platform that is a must have for investment attraction! CityViz team does an excellent job of compiling and presenting statistical data from a variety of sources. The value of having statistical data specific to our community enhances our economic development website www.investgrandforks.com by providing users with reliable, accurate information and the ability to create reports specific to their needs. This online data portal is not only beneficial in responding to investment inquiries, but also helps support information provided throughout our website. I highly recommend CityViz as they are very professional, knowledgeable and provide helpful support.