Murtaza Haider clearly grasps the nature of his assignment — to create and lead a cities institute that will be “the envy of the world.”
When he takes on his new position this summer as the inaugural Radhe Krishna Gupta Executive Chair in Cities and Communities in the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ School of Business, he plans to pull together the best minds at the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ to envision what a thriving city of tomorrow will look like — starting with Edmonton.
“Edmonton has the potential to be a city of three million,” says Haider. Connected to Calgary by high-speed rail, the region could become “the next economic zone of seven to eight million people who will help drive the nation’s prosperity.”
Haider is tasked with leading the new Cities Institute, drawing on expertise from a variety of disciplines including economics, engineering, social science, environmental science, computer modelling and urban geography.
“The ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ is an intellectual powerhouse, with the intellectual weight to think creatively and be bold about solutions,” he says.
“I see an opportunity to build a tent that invites in everyone with the courage to think outside the box, who is not afraid of sharing ideas that may not be part of conventional wisdom.”
Haider’s vision recognizes that conventional approaches to city building have been hampered by a narrow focus, according to , dean of the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ School of Business.
“Many of the problems that exist today defy single-sector solutions and require collaboration beyond traditional business disciplines,” says Mehrotra.
“To remove this barrier, we believe an integrated, visionary approach uniting business with multiple city-building leaders will pioneer new ways to push beyond the status quo.”
Half the world’s population resides in cities, and that number is expected to rise to two-thirds by 2050. The new institute will respond to that trend head on, says Mehrotra, helping to bridge the gap between experts, decision-makers and industry players.
Mehrotra says Haider was the ideal candidate to promote this integrated approach.
“It takes a special person to tackle the work required to get this job done. Murtaza’s curiosity, clarity and collaborative mindset, plus his ability to connect data with lived experience and turn insight into impact, make him the right person for this role.”
Haider comes to the U of A from Toronto Metropolitan University, where he was a professor of data science and real estate management. He is also an adjunct professor at McGill University and research director of the .
With a PhD focused on the intersection of transportation engineering with the mathematical modelling of housing markets, he has done research on business analytics; data science; housing market dynamics; transport, infrastructure and urban planning; and human development in Canada and South Asia.
He is the author of Getting Started with Data Science: Making Sense of Data with Analytics (2016), published by IBM Press and Pearson. He is also a syndicated columnist with , writing a weekly column on the economics of cities.
The new executive chair is made possible by a $5-million gift from Rohit Gupta, president of the Rohit Group, and his parents, Western Canadian real estate developers Radhe and Krishna Gupta, who also support two scholarships in the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ School of Business to provide financial aid to students from India in the BCom and MBA programs.
Haider says when he first heard about the new chair, he was struck by how it encapsulated everything he’s been working on for the past three decades, a vision “not focused on just one aspect of urban development, but looking at it as an ecosystem, as an economic system.”
He has spent much of his career exploring how to “build economies and societies where we not only flourish and prosper, but also create a sense of shared prosperity that leaves no one behind, with wealthy cities that take care of all, not just a few.”
Haider argues that Edmonton has the potential to be a shining example of urban development. In an article published last year in the Financial Post called , he pointed out that, despite its much smaller population, Edmonton recorded 9,441 ownership starts in 2024 — predominantly low-rise, family-oriented units — whereas Toronto managed only 8,730 starts in the same category.
“Edmonton’s housing construction boom is no accident,” he wrote, but “the result of a co-ordinated effort by governments. Strong municipal political will and a commitment from planning officials have allowed Edmonton to streamline development processes, whereas cities like Toronto remain mired in red tape.”
As an expert in analytics and numeric modelling, Haider is also keenly aware of the role artificial intelligence will play in cities of the future, in predicting building trends but also in re-envisioning the labour market.
To respond to that challenge, he plans to establish a new lab in the institute where undergraduate and graduate students are given the chance to tackle urban problems that “keep deputy ministers awake at night.”
“The goal is not to generate models, because AI can now do that for you. It’s about storytelling. The fun part is to tell the story from data about a future city that we collectively want.
“Now is the time for governments and our academics to sit together and say, ‘We can design a city of the future’ — robust to disruptions of artificial intelligence while focused on creating wealth.”
