2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

Advances in Analytic Methods for Neighborhood Data 337
information contained in the typology is compared to the reality on the
ground, inaccuracies and imperfections will undoubtedly surface. This
information can then be used to understand the instances in which the
data are misleading, fine-tune the profiles, and make them more accurate
and useful.
The typology could also be expanded in several ways. It would be
relatively easy, for instance, to develop a next layer of neighborhood subtypes.
This information is already embedded in the hierarchical structure
of the typology, and it needs to be extracted and made accessible.
Doing so would yield a more detailed picture of each type and enable a
more granular analysis of particular places.
An additional next step would be to update the data and track changes
in neighborhood type over a longer period. This would serve two important
purposes: it would ensure that the typology is always relevant and
up to date, and it would reveal additional information about patterns of
change and transitions between neighborhood types that could then be
incorporated in the type profiles and enhance their value.
Finally, and perhaps most important, the typology could be expanded
to include neighborhoods in other cities. This step would probably be
the most valuable in order to increase the applicability and usefulness
of the typology. Every time a new neighborhood is added, it enriches
the base of information used for the typology and increases its accuracy,
both in profiling each type and in revealing useful information regarding
their patterns and drivers of change. Moreover, while the four cities
selected for the analysis encompass a wide variety of neighborhood
types, many neighborhoods in other cities certainly would not fit neatly
in any one of them, and might in fact represent entirely new types that
are not included in this typology. By adding them to the sample, we
would expand the scope of the typology and ensure that it is broadly
applicable beyond the four cities for which it was originally constructed.
These improvements would successfully build on the innovative
approach of this typology while addressing its current structural limitations
(related primarily to data availability and timeliness), but the main
challenge remains making tools like this routinely available to those who
could use them—that is, community development practitioners and
policymakers. This issue, of course, transcends this specific tool and its
applications, but it should be a chief concern for all of us who seek to
develop better data and methodologies for neighborhood analysis and
development.