Introducing a group of 16 avatars meant to represent the people who live, work, and play in downtown Toronto.

The planners behind the ongoing TOCore downtown planning process recently introduced a group of "avatars," created from demographic data about the city.
Introducing the #TOcore Avatars. Read their stories and share yours. Visit https://t.co/lLkzG5exuC #TOpoli pic.twitter.com/tLTqhReAbK
— CityPlanTO (@CityPlanTO) May 11, 2016
The TOCore website explains the reasoning behind the avatars:
Businesses create customer profiles all the time to ensure they are thinking about the needs of their customers, like when they are designing new products. This is the same thing, but we're taking our Avatars one step further and making them public.
The website lists 16 such avatars, covering such demographic categories as refugee, homeless, special needs, trans youth, and lots more.
The Regional Plan Association created a similar group of avatars for the purposes of creating the Fourth Regional Plan in 2014.
As for TOCore, the downtown planning effort launched a second phase in April 2016. More information can be found at the plan's website and with #TOCore.
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