2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

Introduction to the Field 9
improve and provide services to individual neighborhoods (chapter
5) and to develop strategies for neighborhoods across a city or
region (chapter 6).
• Chapter 7 focuses on methods of analysis. It offers a framework for
identifying methodologies pertinent to neighborhood indicators
and reviews selected techniques and tools that represent promising
approaches to addressing the range of applications for which
neighborhood and community data can be employed.
• Finally, in chapter 8, the authors consider the implications of the
earlier chapters and suggest future directions for the field and recommendations
to enhance its development.
This book has been written to be of value to several audiences. One
is professionals and practitioners who are interested in developing data
intermediary capacities in their own cities since the cities that currently
have NNIP partners represent only a small fraction of all urban areas
in the nation. Equally important, as interest grows in data-driven
decisionmaking and accountability, many others at the local level (civic
leaders, grass roots community groups, local government staffs) need to
understand the state of the art and the possibilities of this field. In addition
to these two audiences, the number of researchers interested in doing
work related to community change is growing. This book should provide
important guidance to their efforts by offering them a solid baseline
understanding of what has been done, thus helping them to avoid redundancy
and to focus their own work more efficiently. We also believe this
book will prove valuable to students pursuing careers in local policy, planning,
and community building and in urban research and to the educators
who guide them in the quest for relevant knowledge. Finally, we seek
to influence the national actors who support the use of neighborhoodlevel
data in local decisionmaking. We hope that raising awareness of the
community information field for practice and research among local and
national stakeholders will ultimately result in more informed and inclusive
decisionmaking in communities across the nation.
Notes
1. Reviews of these programmatic approaches are provided by Von Hoffman
(2012) and Rohe (2009).
2. James O. Gibson, a Rockefeller Foundation Program Manager, mobilized and
directed the Community Planning and Action Program. The Cleveland system was built