Neighbourhood Information Systems
The NIS is comprised of five applications: the parcelBase website (address-level housing data), the neighbourhoodBase website (aggregate housing and demographic data), muralBase (information on the 2,000 murals in Philadelphia), crimeBase (5 years of crime data), and Philly Site Finder (an inventory of vacant and underutilized commercial and industrial sites in several Philadelphia neighbourhoods). NIS users can research individual properties; run queries to locate comparables; plan, site and evaluate housing development programmes; and study neighbourhood conditions with user-defined maps, charts and reports. The integrated database also supports academic research on housing, social indicators, public health, school achievement and environmental science. Applications under development include schoolBase a utility for distributing information about schools and children, and a social service locator system.
ParcelBase
ParcelBase was the first of the applications developed by the CML and gives users access to address level data. ParcelBase is a data warehouse that integrates data on over 500,000 parcels, or properties. Users can access data on any parcel in Philadelphia by typing an address. In most cases, the address entered can be interpreted by the master address table, which tries to account for common misspellings and abbreviations and users are provided with information on the property that includes its ownership, sales listing, utility and tax information, basic property description, vacancy indicators, and fire history.
In addition to this standard information, the ParcelBase provides foot survey information and photographs collected by community groups for and uploaded by the CML. In addition to the traditional sources of administrative data, the NIS utilizes several spatial data sources. Spatial data are electronic files that tell cartographers the location of properties, parks, streets, and other components of the built environment. These data elements highlight that well maintained spatial data like streets and parcel maps are critical to the mapping component of the online application. The agency attribute data from municipal agencies are updated on a quarterly basis; census data are updated every ten years, and spatial data are updated when new map layers become available.
NeighbourhoodBase
NeighbourhoodBase gives users access to many of the same data elements in pacelBase, but the data are presented at various aggregate levels rather than at the individual address level. NeighbourhoodBase has much more census data that is more user-friendly than the Census Bureau’s download website. The online mapping, reporting and data analysis tools in NeighbourhoodBase can be used to focus on a specific council district, elementary school feeder area, neighbourhood, zip code, census tract or block group. Users can draw comparisons between individual neighbourhoods or compare local conditions to the city as a whole. Drawing upon physical, demographic and real property data, neighbourhoodBase users have a planning tool that greatly enhances their ability to start new programmes, manage resources and target interventions. NeighbourhoodBase is publicly accessible and can be used by anyone with an Internet connection and Internet browser.
MuralBase
MuralBase is an interactive database and website showcasing hundreds of murals produced by Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Programme since 1990. Visitors to the muralBase website can search for murals by theme, artist’s name, zipcode or year As well as through a map interface similar to the other NIS applications. The community mural projects are significant both as public art and as neighbourhood redevelopment initiatives. Over 2000 murals have been painted on the sides of buildings that serve as canvases for public art in Philadelphia. Having thoroughly documented vacancy and abandonment in Philadelphia through the other NIS applications, muralBase is an effort to document the positive redevelopment that is occurring in Philadelphia. It is also an effort to provide virtual access to a wide range of community art installations. MuralBase is publicly accessible and can be used by anyone with an Internet connection and Internet browser.
CrimeBase
CrimeBase, released in April 2004, is a publicly accessible application that provides online mapping, reporting and data analysis tools for crime data from the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) in a similar form to NeighbourhoodBase. Users can create tables, maps, charts, queries, summary statistics, or trends and can create their own geographic boundaries by defining a neighbourhood and producing aggregated statistics for that area. Users can download much of the data for free.