2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

The Potential and the Way Forward 409
needed technical capacity and then charge it with developing recurrently
updated data systems, applications, and processes necessary to encourage
productive use of the data. The civic leaders must begin with the
understanding that their goal is to build capacity that will be permanent.
The selected institutions must regularly prove their worth to continue
to receive support. NNIP experience offers a variety of models as to how
this goal can be accomplished in differing civic environments.
Although accomplishment at the local level is the ultimate goal, we
recognize that the needed improvements will also require the development
of a national support system for this field. We do not offer a precise
plan for how this system should be built, but suggest that it should be
developed by a coalition of representatives of the federal government,
national nonprofit organizations, and national networks that have a
strong interest in effective local governance. Priority for using data to
address the problems of low-income neighborhoods in an inclusive
manner should be a part of its mission statement. The support system
would provide (or arrange for) services in a number of areas based on
the coalition’s assessment of priorities.
Clearly, more effective use of data in local decisionmaking will not be
sufficient to fully address poverty and the other major social problems
of our time; such results will surely depend on fundamental changes
to socioeconomic structures and policies. Nonetheless, the public and
policymakers alike dramatically underestimate the scope and importance
of local-level governance decisions to national well-being. Effective
use of data can markedly improve the quality of those decisions.
There may be few investments that offer a higher payoff than resources
devoted to expanding data capacity in local communities throughout
America.
Notes
1. It should be noted, however, that NNIP partners are typically located in larger
metropolitan areas, so their influence may be greater than their fraction of the number
of metro areas might seem to imply. Metropolitan areas with NNIP partners in 2012
had a total population of 119 million (2010 census), more than one-third of the total US
population.
2. For additional information on the Utah Community Data Project, see http://
www.ucdp.utah.edu/.
3. The need for such coordination and possible means of achieving it are discussed
in a recent review of the overall data environment in Chicago (Pettit and Kingsley 2013).