Northern Development Initiative Trust has launched a new economic visualization tool that provides economic insights for northern and central British Columbia. The Northern Economic Dependencies Dashboard – or NEDD – presents information at three different levels: for the north/central region as a whole, the nine regional districts in Northern Development’s service region, and 32 local areas – which combines the region’s communities, including First Nations.
NEDD aims to help residents, economic development officers, and local and First Nation governments understand the impact of economic changes and industry transitions in their communities. The tool was developed for Northern Development by CityViz, a data visualization company. It utilizes Statistics Canada Census data (2016 and 2021) combined with the BC Stats proprietary macroeconomic model, licensed to the Trust for non-commercial purposes.
Features of NEDD include:
• Visualization of economic data at regional, district, and local levels
• Analysis of industry diversity, location quotients, and employment impact ratios
• Insights into population changes, job distribution, and income dependencies
• Forest sector vulnerability index
The dashboard offers both current snapshots and five-year change data, allowing users to track economic trends over time. It provides a range of indicators, from basic population and job data to more complex economic metrics such as industry diversity indices and local supply shares.
NEDD is designed to be user-friendly, featuring drop-down menus, printable graphics, and easy comparisons. It also allows for the download of raw data for custom analysis.
“The local area economic dependencies profiles for Northern B.C. are a unique data set we’re pleased to provide to members of the public, economic development professionals, community, and business leaders at no cost,” said Joel McKay, CEO, Northern Development Initiatives Trust. “This data set is different but complimentary from the State of the North Economic Report in that it shows economic dependencies at a regional district and localized level, whereas the State of the North shows economic data at a regional or sector level. Together, these two tools create a powerful data set that’s unique to Northern B.C., easy-to-use and allows us to track trends and identify challenges or opportunities to support economic development in the North. A big thank you goes to our economic dependencies profiles partners CityViz, the Economic Trust of the Southern Interior of B.C. (ETSI-BC), the Island Coastal Economic Trust (ICET), and the Province of B.C. for making this possible.”