It has been over a decade since the launch of Collaborating for Competitiveness, the City of Toronto’s last plan to advance economic development, with a focus on job creation and economic growth. Since then, new trends, challenges, and opportunities have emerged both at the global and the local level, reshaping the city's and regional industry competitiveness, supply chains, workforce dynamics and land use pressures. Given its fundamental strengths, Toronto is well positioned to face these challenges and leverage opportunities toward an economy that is competitive, inclusive, and advancing towards net zero emissions. Achieving this vision, however, will require a long-term plan with impactful actions, dedicated resources, and intentional and collaborative coordination with partners. Before aspirational targets for inclusive and sustainable economic growth can be met, the integrity of basic City services and the foundation they create for economic growth must first be addressed. This Action Plan sets out a vision to both get the basics right and set an aspirational agenda to drive Toronto's economy forward, confronting its challenges and leveraging its many strengths. Guided by this bold vision, Sidewalks to Skylines - an Action Plan for Toronto's Economy (2025-2035) provides a roadmap for the City to strategically maximize its levers and collaborate with its partners to enhance Toronto's economy with a focus on livability, inclusivity, and prosperity in the next ten years. The Action Plan is the result of robust research and analysis of best practices in other jurisdictions, as well as extensive engagement and consultation with over 1,000 stakeholders, including business leaders, academics, small businesses, business associations, major employers, institutions, community coalitions, labour unions, and residents. It identifies three priorities: Strong Main Streets, Quality Jobs, and Global Competitiveness. These priorities are anchored by a foundational priority, Getting the Basics Right, which focuses on key City levers to improve quality of life and enable a business environment that optimizes conditions to achieve broader economic ambitions and facilitate economic prosperity. The success of the Action Plan will be dependent on effective partnerships — it will also depend on the access to resources and revenues commensurate with the City's responsibilities as a municipal government to support Toronto's role as Canada's leading global centre for commerce, creativity, and capital. To guide these efforts, in addition to a five-year work plan, the Action Plan highlights 29 leading actions, including 10 to strengthen the foundation and 19 to advance the priorities to drive meaningful change. To monitor the progress of the Action Plan, each of the 29 leading actions is accompanied by one or more success indicators. Progress will be reported to City Council on an annual basis. In 2030, informed by the success of and lessons learned from the first five years, a new five-year work plan responsive to the economic context of the time will be presented for consideration by City Council. Through the implementation of the Action Plan, the City will help advance liveability, inclusion, and shared prosperity beyond the traditional measure of economic growth in partnership with other organizations and for all communities across Toronto.
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