This is an in-depth examination of how to create more livable, more successful in-fill projects and communities. It looks at what is going on in Kingston Ontario with first, the rehabilitation of a major brownfield site (the former Davis Tannery waterfront lands) and second, the development of a 1,500-unit neighborhood that must meet many needs and tests from a multiplicity of stakeholders including the city, the developer, the planning community, neighbors, politicians at all levels of government, future residents, guests, visitors, tenants (both residential and commercial), buyers, investors and more... All of them working within a self-declared (by the city of Kingston) climate emergency to produce a community where people can live in an affordable, live-work-play, create-make-learn-grow, entertain-shop, exercise-grow-socialize, diversified-visitable, neo-urbanist, walkable, animated neighborhood. One that is both economically and environmentally sustainable. This requires that the city develops policy planning tools and outside-the-box ideas as a way of attracting business investment and entrepreneurs as well as spurring innovation and creating/permitting development of mixed-use places that function better than current models. This Nutopia: Background Report should be read in conjunction with its (shorter) companion document-NUTOPIA: RECOMMENDATIONS.