2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

Progress in Data and Technology 99
has been generalized and improved since its initial conception. In 2013,
the Open311 website listed about three dozen cities that had adopted
the standard. Fleming’s essay describes the role of 311 data overall in
improving local government operations.
The General Transit Feed Specification offers another impressive
example of data standards; more than 200 local governments are using its
published data on transit stops, routes, trips, and other schedules. 14 The
adoption of this standard most prominently powers the public transit
directions on Google Maps, but it is open source and can be used by any
application. One more recent effort is HouseFacts, 15 a proposed standard
for health and code violations of residential properties. The standard was
developed by a coalition consisting initially of a private-sector firm that
offers code enforcement management software, the City of San Francisco,
and Code for America. The short-term hope is to have unified
property profiles for prospective homebuyers or renters to evaluate the
quality of homes they are considering. Longer term, the standard has
the potential to deter violators through more public scrutiny and help
code enforcement agencies better manage internal systems.
How do these standards relate to neighborhood indicators? The
spread of standardized local data facilitates application development for
individual needs, but it also opens up opportunities for data analysts,
researchers, and practitioners. As more cities come on board, the likelihood
of consistent definitions of data fields over time increases. This
comparability could enable the development of indicators for larger
geographic areas and easier benchmarking of neighborhood conditions
across cities. For example, one could aggregate data from multiple jurisdictions
up to a metropolitan-level indicator for the share of households
within one-half mile of a bus stop or compare the rate of service calls
from low-income neighborhoods in one city to a parallel figure in comparable
cities. Like open data, standards also lower barriers for academic
research that includes multiple cities.
Technology Related to Neighborhood Indicators
Technological advances since the mid-1990s have changed many aspects of
creating and using neighborhood indicators. More powerful and affordable
hardware and software and the growth of the Internet have expanded
neighborhood indicators in scale and scope. Sanders’s essay describes the