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Paul D Barham edited this page Jan 5, 2019 · 6 revisions

Welcome

to the KCNeighborhoodStat app project! We're working to help neighborhoods help themselves by giving them easy access to useful civic open data. We're ultimately hoping to develop an app that- by providing easier access to civic open data- lets neighborhood organization and neighbors:

  • Better understand their neighborhood through data What is my neighborhood- what are its boundaries? How many people live there? How much crime happens here?

  • More easily track development and others projects in their neighborhoods Is a new business opening down the street? Is a building being torn down?

  • Make better decisions as a community Do we have a lot of senior citizens that need help with minor home repair?

  • Become more effective advocates for their community We need more police patrols and codes inspections- here's the data

Civic data: the opportunity

These days, we're seeing a greater availability of civic open data in cities across the country- Kansas City included! We believe this trend towards more open data is especially good news for the neighborhoods that make up the fabric of the city. Rich,up-to-date information about crime, development, and demographics is what neighborhoods need to make better decisions and to advocate for themselves more effectively with government agencies and other organizations.

Civic data: the problem

Unfortunately, even though the data are out there, its potential power to help neighborhoods isn’t yet realized. Accessing civic data might mean hours of wading through spreadsheets, then trying to interpret confusing terminology, or having to go through a website that is not easy to use for the average resident or neighborhood leader. Meanwhile, civic data is usually not presented at the neighborhood-level geography. Right now, for instance, it’s not possible to see the population of a neighborhood or the number of crimes that have occurred there recently.

That’s why we created KCNeighborhoodStat

We’re making an application that displays relevant civic open data at the neighborhood level.

To help realize the full potential of this data in benefitting our city’s neighborhoods, we want this tool to be:

  • User-friendly/visually appealing
  • Customizable (users can select which datapoints to display for a particular neighborhood)
  • Capable of displaying data over time (so that users can understand trends, put data in context)

Search the other pages of this wiki for more info on the project and its progress!