Justice
Cleveland Is Mapping Every Abandoned House in the City, the Old-Fashioned Way
Eight pairs of surveyors are covering every street in the city to determine exactly how many homes are vacant.
Scribbling on a map doesn’t change the territory. But walking around the territory, jotting notes on an iPad, may be the best way to change the map.
That’s the idea in Cleveland, where the Western Reserve Land Conservancy’s Thriving Communities Initiative is undertaking an enormous survey of the city. Eight pairs of surveyors are walking down each and every street in the city, visiting all of the storefronts, houses, and vacant lots there are to see. Parcel by parcel, the teams are documenting how many of Cleveland’s roughly 158,000 properties are vacant, distressed, or abandoned.