The Neighborhood Data Portal Every City Needs

Two years ago, we would have celebrated the city that published all of its crime stats on an open, interactive platform, or the city that made it easy for residents to track where vehicle collisions most commonly occur, or the city that recognized the link between childhood obesity rates and access to parks.

We're not too impressed by any of that any more. As the open data movement has matured, public city-wide vital stats have come to feel more like a citizen's right than a civic innovation. This is where things should head next: Take all of that data, map it, connect the dots between public health, land use, economics, education, crime and housing. And portray those patterns – and the inequality they often reveal – down to the neighborhood level.