PolicyMap News

A few weeks ago, The Reinvestment Fund launched one of the cooler internet tools in recent memory: PolicyMap. Those interested in public policy, in mapping, or just procrastinating with a cool diversion are going to have to check this out.

Basically, what PolicyMap does is bring data and mapping to the masses. Given its place as a lender and public policy research center, TRF has always accumulated all kinds of data. About a year or so ago, they decided that they were going to try and put that data online, in a way that the general public could see it. And from that, and many (many) hours of development, PolicyMap was born. They mapped something like 4000 pieces of data, and then put it online in a format where anyone can map it. And if they got the data free (ie, Census, etc), they give it away for free too.

Anyway, enough blathering, because check out what you can do in about one minute. These maps are focused on Philly, but, data is available Country-wide:

Let’s say you are thinking about the foreclosure crisis, and in trying predict what neighborhoods are going to be hard hit, you want to see what neighborhoods in Philly had the most subprime loans in 2006. After about 45 seconds, you get this:

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Click Here to read the full article.
This article by Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg on Young Philly Politics on Monday June 30th, 2008.

We’ve got new quarterly home sale data in PolicyMap. With block group and census tract level data thematically mapped from 2001 (with quarterly updates through 3^rd quarter 2007), subscribers can see how neighborhood housing prices have changed over the long term and how they’ve done as the housing market has started to tumble.

Our home sale data comes from county recorder offices around the country and, as a result, will always be about 6 months behind. These aren’t estimates and they aren’t county or state level statistics; these are real sales, in real neighborhoods – analyzed.

Exploring home sale maps of Philadelphia, for example, allows subscribers to answer questions such as:

“Where did home prices increase the most between 2001 and 2006?”

“Which neighborhoods saw the highest price increases between the 2^nd and 3^rd quarters of 2007?”

“Which neighborhoods saw prices double between 2001 and 2006 AND continued to experience price increases during the first three quarters of 2007?”

(more…)

PolicyMap.com can help answer these kinds of questions — not for specific people but for the neighborhood as a whole.

You can view color-shaded maps of specific neighbor- hoods or pull back to see the state, or even the country as a whole.

Drawn from diverse sources, PolicyMap’s data vary in timeliness and geographic precision. Some information comes from the 2000 U.S. census, but presidential campaign contributions are current through March 20 of this year. Income levels can be viewed by neighborhood; crime data are offered by county.

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Scott Wilson

This article appeared on page C-2 in the Los Angeles Times on Monday June 16th, 2008

MemberSpeak: The Reinvestment Fund

Good Data Drives Good Investment Decisions

by Maggie McCollough and Jeremy Nowak, The Reinvestment Fund

The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a leading community development financial institution active throughout the mid-Atlantic, , recently launched PolicyMap- an online mapping application for policymakers, lending institutions, foundations, government agencies, developers, and other civic investors.

Why did TRF develop PolicyMap?

For almost 10 years, TRF has conducted research for foundations, local and state governments, and civic groups in order to help these institutions make better public policy and investment decisions. Geographic analysis, in particular, allowed us to help

state governments understand the types of neighborhoods most impacted by foreclosures; enabled city governments to analyze neighborhood conditions and markets as a way of allocating limited resources; and helped foundations to understand the types of neighborhoods in which they are making investments.

Over time, we started to dream about serving interactive maps on the web for our clients and partners – along with the public – as an alternative to generating static, paper maps. We explored a number of ways to build PolicyMap and chose to work with Placebase, the developer of Pushpin™, a powerful platform for the development of professional web applications in mapping, business geographics, and location-based services.

It is our hope that PolicyMap will encourage institutions from all over the country to use data to target investments and refine their strategies to preserve and rebuild vulnerable communities. By just going online, pulling up a map and clicking on a shaded area, institutions now have the ability to quickly understand neighborhoods in which they are making investments, evaluate neighborhoods for potential investments and see how neighborhoods have changed over time.

What is PolicyMap?

4,000 indicators related to demographics, real estate markets, crime, schools, housing affordability, employment, energy, and public investments. (Hence, our tag line “All the data you need, all in one place, all online.”!) We’ll regularly update the data that is in PolicyMap and will continue to add new datasets including detailed school performance statistics, health indicators, and more affordable housing information.

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If your business or organization is planning a move to a new area, or perhaps planning a project in a part of the country that you know little about, services that provide general but extensive demographic information about the location are a windfall. Non-profits looking to set up shop where they’re most needed, or businesses looking to relocate their corporate headquarters to cities with highly qualified candidates all turn to services like PolicyMap to provide the type of demographic information they need to make intelligent decisions. PolicyMap collects information on over 4,000 indicators for areas around the country, including real estate, jobs, education, income, and energy, and makes the information available to everyone from civic and non-profit organizations to developers and government agencies.

PolicyMap’s free trial allows you to search by city or zip code and see a little more about your neighborhood, even select a few filters to learn more about your community. Even so, services like PolicyMap aren’t generally aimed at individuals, although a civic group or city council could likely learn more about their locale than they might know using a service like PolicyMap.

When one of the companies that I worked for considered moving its corporate headquarters about 50 miles north, the executives had to weigh several important factors including room for growth, affordable building space, and whether or not they would be able to attract highly qualified candidates for the company. Granted, services like PolicyMap collect aggregate data and statistics on education and real estate, not individual academic careers or home values, for example.

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PolicyMap

I like the look of the new PolicyMap site. PolicyMap facilitates the data mashing of more than 4000 data sets with US geographical mapping data. Apparently you can also upload your own data sets for manipulation, though I couldn’t work that out myself.

It’s another example of the best kinds of data presentation evolving outside of government. It’s sites like this that show the potential of making government data available to civil society for innovative presentation rather than government trying to do the job itself.

Click here to read this article on The Tree of Knowledge on June 8th, 2008.

Posted by Jim Dornberg

It seems like I’ve either seen or written about PolicyMap before, but I was reminded of it by the always outstanding Librarians Internet Index blog.

PolicyMap is produced by The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a national leader in the financing of neighborhood revitalization.

A free (registration required) account allows the user access to most of the 4000 datasets, and the ability to save maps.

Here’s a screenshot of a very basic map showing the amount of electricity consumed by residential users in 2004 (the last year data is available). You can zoom in for more detailed views, but in this instance the data is compiled at the state level.

A map legend is included, and the user can even determine the number of ranges to color the data in.

Also see the National Atlas, another site that allows the user to generate custom maps with a number of “layers” of data.

Click here to read this article by Jim Dornberg on EdTech Update on Thursday June 5th, 2008.

POSTED BY

Ellen Miller

PolicyMap.com launched last month. It’s a very cool and fun site, especially if you’re into mashing up maps with demographics…And which public policy geek isn’t? It’s an online mapping tool that allows you to easily research market and demographic data by geography throughout the United States – down to a census tract level. It includes literally thousands of indicators related to demographics, real estate markets, money and income, education, crime and more.

The site is a project of The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a non-profit community development financial institution that works across the Mid-Atlantic region financing affordable housing, schools, businesses, supermarkets and other projects “that build wealth and opportunity for the people and places that need it the most.” They say that they have long recognized the need for good data and analysis about neighborhoods. And through PolicyMap, they are generously sharing information they’ve collected over the past decade with the public.

Much of PolicyMap is free to the public. They offer subscription options for the features and proprietary data that they are not allowed to give for free. That part we don’t like so much, but hey, this is worth a look.

Click here to read this article which appeared on Sunlight Foundation on June 4th, 2008

Directions Magazine (DM): What is TRF and why is it in the data/mapping business?

Maggie McCullough (MM): The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a charitable nonprofit organization, is a national innovator in capitalizing distressed communities and stimulating economic growth for low- and moderate-income families. Since its inception in 1985, TRF has made over $725 million in community investments. TRF is also nationally recognized for its research and housing-related policy analysis. Since 2000, TRF has used data analysis and mapping to help public sector and philanthropic clients with their strategies to preserve and rebuild vulnerable communities. TRF created PolicyMap as a more efficient and dynamic way to serve this type of social investor’s needs.

Percent of all families that live in poverty in 2000 in Los Angeles. (Click for larger image)