Neighbourhood Information Systems

PhillySiteFinder
PhillySiteFinder, released in July 2004, is a publicly-accessible, web-based mapping application developed in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC), the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and the City of Philadelphia Commerce Department. The application is designed to provide potential investors with information on an inventory of vacant and underutilized commercial and industrial sites in the Kensington, Richmond, Bridesburg and Fishtown neighbourhoods of Philadelphia. Users can search for parcels and uncover details including size, past sales, property assessment information, data from the Environmental Protection Agency, photographs, and zoning classification.

Technological advances
Community information systems utilizing GIS and providing data on the Internet are a relatively new phenomenon. For this reason, innovation and technological advances constantly change how users interface with the online system. This section describes new technology that has been incorporated into the Neighbourhood Information System and other community information systems. How and why new technology is incorporated into the online system and how these new technologies are changing the way end-users interact with online community information systems are discussed.

NeighbourhoodBase provides users with data aggregations at various geographic levels like neighbourhood, zip code and census tracts. These arbitrary geographic divisions sometimes prove challenging for users to interpret given that each organization determines its neighbourhood or study area differently. In other words, not every group will agree on the boundaries of a neighbourhood, nor will they necessarily find the NIS’s geographic demarcations useful. Given the limitations and overwhelming demand from users, the Neighbourhood Information System recently began implementing the user-defined neighbourhood function. This tool literally gives users the ability to zoom into a particular area of Philadelphia and draw the boundaries of their neighbourhood on a map. Once the user has outlined their neighbourhood on the interactive map, they are given a custom data aggregation for this user-defined geographic area. Where users previously had to approximate their neighbourhood based on a NIS name scheme and geographic division, users can now create their own geographic divisions and data aggregations.

This new tool is a very powerful way of placing more control in the hands of the users and giving them greater control over how geography is defined for the purpose of data aggregation. However, this new technology has some limitations. Users must define neighbourhoods in terms of the smallest NIS geography (census block group). Because administrative data is often not disclosed at a geographic level smaller than this arbitrary census designation, users are required to use it as a building block to create user-defined neighbourhoods. Furthermore, the technology requires very precise navigation of an interactive map. Users are required to zoom into a certain area of the city and use the city streets to pick the area they seek to define as their user-defined neighbourhood. Early experience with users has shown that this technology will be advantageous to organizations and individuals seeking more precise neighbourhood-level data. It has also shown that training is a key method for teaching users how this new technology works.

The ability to extract data from the Neighbourhood Information System and use it in statistical software or tables in reports has been sought by users for some time. To meet this need, which has been primarily demanded from a group of advanced users, the NIS recently developed the export data function. Once a user has created a table of multiple data elements, they can click on the export it shortcut tool and choose to download the data into a common database application like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access. Previously users could only view data on a webpage while browsing the Internet. Now, data can be extracted and used without the Internet or NIS online interface. Many users have taken advantage of this option to remove data and analyze it in their own GIS or statistical software applications. To facilitate this process the Neighbourhood Information System has also begun disclosing shapefiles for download. Shapefiles are electronic maps that are required to use any data in a GIS desktop software application. By giving users the ability to download data, the Neighbourhood Information has made a significant step from simply being an online data intermediary to being a data clearing house where users can both utilize the NIS’s online functionality and they can extract data from the Internet to use in their own analysis.

Data in the NIS is unique because it is geographically related, but also because it gives users a snapshot of how things have changed over time. Since 1997 the NIS has been collecting data from various city of Philadelphia agencies. In 2004, the NIS began to implement a trending capability in the Neighbourhood Information System. Given five years of data since its inception, the NIS interface was upgraded to allow users to see how specific data elements have changed over time. By providing users with trend data, the NIS is allowing organizations, individuals, and agencies to measure the effectiveness of interventions. It also helps users plan for future programming and interventions. Furthermore, the NIS is a very rich archive of City of Philadelphia administrative data. For example, the United States Post Office, from which the NIS draws information about which addresses are vacant, destroys their data after only a few months. The NIS archives this data and allows users the ability to trace back in time to see how vacancy patterns have changed.

CONCLUSION
Though this article has not directly addressed community information systems in the Middle East, the applicability to this region of the world is very relevant. While from country to country data sources, both spatial and administrative, vary, the need to have geographically relevant data and data browsers is critical. The implementation of a GIS web-based system should follow many of the steps outlined here and address many of the concerns outlined in this article.

References
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  • Neighbourhood Transformation Initiative, City of Philadelphia (2004). Retrieved on October 15, 2004 from http://www.phila.gov/nti/whatisnti.htm
  • New York University, Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, New York City Housing and Neighbourhood Information System. Retrieved on October 15, 2004 from http://www.nychanis.com.
  • Romer, D. Wacheter, S.M. and Wong S. (2002). Community information: The Need for a new generation of community statistical systems. Reported to the Fannie Mae Foundation.
  • Sawicki, David S. and Flynn, Patrice (1996). Neighbourhood Indicators: a review of the literature and assessment of conceptual and methodological issues. Journal of the American Planning Association, 63(2), 165-183.
  • Snow, Christopher, W., Kathryn L.S. Pettit, Margery Austin Turner. Neighbourhood Early Warning Systems: Four Cities’ Experience and Implications for the District of Columbia. Urban Institute, Housing and Communities Policy Center, March 2004.
  • United States Census Bureau (2004). American Factfinder. Retrieved on October 15, 2004 from http://factfinder.census.gov.
  • University of California, UCLA Advanced Policy Institute, (http://nkla.sppsr.ucla.edu).
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