There comes a time in every thinking person’s life when he or she realizes that unrestrained generalizations, educated guesses, and hand-waving observations just don’t ring with the same sweet authority as real, well-supported, factual arguments. Whether you’re working on a thesis, putting together a company report, or trying to end a flame-war you started on the forums, solid research skills are about as indispensable to one’s intellectual prowess as the plastic toothpick in a Swiss-army knife is to a pulled-pork junkie.

I should say now before going any further that the greatest asset in one’s toolbox is a sharp, inquisitive mind. Learning how to skim through articles, interrogate texts with the wit and determination of an octopus, and dig through bibliographies for oft-cited references takes practice. But in time it can make the difference between professional and amateur. On the other hand, knowing where to start can be more than half the battle. Here’s my short list of useful research tools on the web.

PolicyMap.com:

This is a new one to me, as it will be to a lot of you, but nonetheless it’s one of the most useful tools for visualizing statistics I’ve seen in a long time. Basically, PolicyMap took a bunch of public statistics (population density, average household income, demographics, overweight population, economic hotzones, etc.) and created color-coded overlays for interactive maps (similar to the Googlemaps interface). It’s so good I should have thought of it.

Say you want to know what the obesity levels look like around Bowling Green, Kentucky. Type in the zip code, select the statistic and in less time than it takes to eat a Twinkie, you can see an accurate geographic representation of how many people need to stop eating Twinkies. Now zoom out and see just how the rest of the U.S. stacks up by comparison. Warning: you may feel the sudden compulsion to renew your gym membership. The data sets are incredibly comprehensive (want to know how many choreographers there are in Temecula, CA?) and you can see convenient graphs and tables and even search by congressional districts, counties or school zones. Anyone in public policy, political science, market research or analysis will fill find this tool insanely useful. And those looking for a new home, trying to start a small business, or doing some well researched regional trash-talking will find it equally beneficial.

Click here to read this article and the rest of the list by Alexander Bandazian in Loudbus Magazine on January 25th, 2010.

The White House Office of Urban Affairs and the White House Domestic Policy Council today began “A National Conversation on the Future of Urban and Metropolitan America.” And, they started this morning in Philadelphia with a conversation about the intersection of fresh food, health, economic development, workforce development, and neighborhood revitalization.

The event included a tour of Jeff Brown’s Parkside Shop Rite Supermarket followed by a townhall to engage leaders about the success of the Fresh Food Financing Initiative and other efforts throughout the state to improve access to fresh foods.

Jeff Brown’s ShopRite sits in a largely African American neighborhood with a declining population where close to 75% of households earn less than $50,000 a year. The successful grocery store (see our map here) gives this neighborhood easy and affordable access to fresh foods and suburban-like grocery store amenities.

The White House hopes to highlight local innovations like this around the nation to amplify the work of the private and non-profit partners who contributed to the success of this program, and identify ways the federal government can create incentives for this type of collaboration and policy integration.

Learn more about Parkside – or any neighborhood around the nation – by visiting PolicyMap.
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TRF’s PolicyMap Unveils Version 2.0

Upgraded Online Mapping Site Lets Users Layer and Compare Data

(Philadelphia) May 11, 2009 – TRF’s PolicyMap (www.policymap.com) today unveiled version 2.0. The newest version of this revolutionary website provides quick and flexible analysis of neighborhood-level data nationwide. At subscribers’ fingertips now are answers to questions relevant to job training (e.g. Where are neighborhoods with low educational attainment rates and low household incomes, but close to mass transit?), housing (e.g. Where are high poverty areas in close proximity to a mass transit stop and in good school districts?), energy (e.g. Where are stable communities with high utility costs, potentially most in need of home weatherization assistance?) and more.

With PolicyMap 2.0, those involved in deciding where and how to spend unprecedented stimulus dollars or foundations deciding how to allocate limited resources have a quick and flexible tool for searching for those neighborhoods where intervention could matter most.

“With the introduction of PolicyMap Analytics, TRF’s PolicyMap can reshape how policymakers use data and maps to understand the markets in which they work,” said Jeremy Nowak, President of TRF. “PolicyMap is the simple, fast, and efficient platform that many are demanding to guide policy decisions and help strategically allocate resources.”

PolicyMap subscribers can find those neighborhoods that meet up to three criteria from more than 4,000 data indicators related to demographics, real estate markets, education, employment, money and income, crime, energy, and public investments. TRF aggregates data from a variety of public and private sources including U.S. Census, Claritas, FBI, IRS, the Postal Service, and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Additional PolicyMap 2.0 functionality lets users rank data, download public datasets and provides for an extraordinary level of
customization.

“PolicyMap offers tools both for us as the investor and for the organizations that we support, offering both of us the detailed neighborhood data to plan for real impact,” said Lois Greco, Senior Vice President and Evaluation Officer, Wachovia Regional Foundation.

Nearly 150,000 people have used PolicyMap since the site launched just under a year ago. To date, PolicyMap has more than 11,000 registered users. Its varied subscribers include the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia, foundations such as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, public agencies including the New Jersey Housing Mortgage Finance Agency, private entities like Comcast as well as nonprofit community organizations nationwide. PolicyMap is a 2009 finalist for CNET’s Webware100 award.

About TRF’s PolicyMap

PolicyMap is an online mapping tool that makes it quick and easy to gather and analyze geocentric information. PolicyMap is a service of The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a not-for-profit leader in the financing of neighborhood revitalization. TRF developed PolicyMap to empower decision makers with better access to credible market and demographic data. To see how PolicyMap Analytics works, check out tutorial address. To learn more about PolicyMap, visit www.policymap.com.  To learn more about TRF, visit www.trfund.com.

Add National Online Mapping to Recovery.gov

The advent of online data and mapping, provides Recovery.gov (and the federal government itself) with a unique opportunity to take advantage of platforms that are fast, efficient, cost effective and accessible. Just under a year ago, we launched a national data warehouse and mapping tool – www.policymap.com – to provide users with online access to data, maps, tables and reports in a sophisticated yet easy to use web platform. Based on that experience, we have some thoughts and examples on what the Recovery.gov data and mapping application should provide to the public so that the result is not just a high-quality visual display of information, but an underlying searchable database of information for the government and the public. We’ve started to map stimulus transportation investments in most of the MidAtantic states on PolicyMap and hope to post a link to those later this week – in the meantime, check out some of our current work to see what we are talking about.

We would recommend that any platform used by Recovery.org to make stimulus investments transparent to the public possess, at a minimum, the following abilities:

1. Recovery.gov’s database and mapping platform should be a national online platform that allows users to see stimulus investments in a standardized way throughout the country. States have begun to create their own websites showcasing their investments (which is great), but they appear in different formats. Some have pdfs listing their investments, others have begun to create state maps showing investment dollars, and still others offer a series of tables showing investments by county. As these sites proliferate, it will become difficult to compare information across important planning geographies (like MSAs) or by type of investment. Creating a uniform format and then providing states and grantees with the ability to load their investment data directly into a single national platform will allow stimulus dollars investments to be both transparent to the public and easy to analyze across geographies and investment types.

2. Once loaded, individual stimulus investments should appear as clickable points or shapes in a fast, online map. The mapping component needs to be able to display the exact locations of investments (points or shapes) so that people can zoom into a neighborhood or city or MSA and see EXACTLY where the money is going. The mapping needs to show not just where the money went, but for what purpose, how much and to whom. And the location on the map should provide a link back to the agency that received the funds. The public needs an online interactive map to see where investments have been made in their city, neighborhood, block or next door. For an example, this link shows investments at the neighborhood levels on an interactive map. You can zoom, pan, and search for locations and click on any point to read the details of the investments.

3. The online mapping platform also needs to house information beyond just the locations of the stimulus investments. Federal dollars allocated to communities through the stimulus (or even other federal programs) should be a part of the platform and displayed thematically. Users should be able to simply mouse over any geography in the nation to see how much federal money they are getting. They should be able to overlay the stimulus site investments themselves to then see exactly where that money went within one integrated platform. For an example this link shows a map of Earned Income Tax Credit received by zip code in 2006.

4. When it comes to any conversation about investments in “place”, the need for accurate, relevant and timely information about neighborhoods, cities, metro areas, and states is essential. The government is a repository of great public data; information about unemployment from BLS, tax return data from the IRS, population characteristics from the Census and many other statistics are regularly collected and freely available. By incorporating this type of information in the online platform, users can see on a map not just where dollars directed at creating new jobs have gone, but see what the unemployment rate is in that area; users can see not just where homes are receiving weatherization assistance, but what the average age of a home is in that area, etc. This capacity gives the Recovery.gov site the potential to become not just a place for the presentation of data, but as an underlying tool for evaluating the impact of investments. This map shows an investment at a specific place layered over the vacancy rate. Combining context data layers is necessary to diagnose need and measure the effect of recovery dollars.

5. The platform must be searchable by the public. While Recovery.gov will need to display a series of pre-drawn tables and graphs that help to visually display where stimulus dollars are being allocated, the underlying online database platform must be searchable by the public. As states and grantees upload their investments information into the single online platform, users should be able to quickly download a list of investments meeting any number of criteria so a whole range of questions can be answered on the fly. From “How many energy investments have been made as a part of the stimulus in my city compared to another city?” “How have stimulus dollars been allocated by congressional district?” “What are the education investments being made in my neighborhood being used for?” Making information accessible and making information usable are two different things. The stimulus investment reporting must allow citizens to interact with the data in useful ways to answer questions about their communities.

UPDATE: Voting in the 2009 Webware 100 Awards is now closed! PolicyMap was voted on as a finalist in the Location-based services category.

Last days to vote for PolicyMap for CNET’s “Webware 100 Awards.” We have a shot if you vote TODAY (it just takes a click and no registration required).

CNET, nationally known for its reviews of tech products, evaluated more than 5,000 sites to pick the 100 they believe are the best Web 2.0 applications for 2009. PolicyMap is a finalist for the best GPS and Location-Based Services category!

Please vote now! Just click on the button below to submit your vote (it won’t ask for identifying info). PolicyMap is not yet a year old but has a shot if you vote and you share this with friends, post this to Facebook, Twitter about it, or blog about it.

Winners will be announced in May. We’ll keep you posted!

The PolicyMap Team

The Federal Government is hosting an online conversation starting Monday, April 27^th to hear from the public, consumers, grantees and vendors about how technology can and should be used to make recovery efforts transparent.

“What ideas, tools, and approaches can make Recovery.gov a place where all citizens can transparently monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds?”

We’re planning to log-on as we believe online mapping is essential to making the public aware of where, how and for what purpose stimulus dollars are being spent in our states, cities and neighborhoods — next door or down the street.

If you are interested in joining the conversation, check out the Recovery website at www.recovery.gov for more information as it becomes available. Or read more here

We’re taking a stab at mapping the stimulus transportation investments in the MidAtlantic states and will have something up on PolicyMap for you to check out in the coming weeks.  We’ll keep you posted.

Maggie McCullough, Director of PolicyMap

UPDATE: Voting in the 2009 Webware 100 Awards is now closed! PolicyMap was voted on as a finalist in the Location-based services category.

Competition begins now for CNET’s “Webware 100 Awards” and PolicyMap needs your vote!

CNET, nationally known for its reviews of tech products, evaluated more than 5,000 sites to pick the 300 they believed are the best Web 2.0 applications for 2009. PolicyMap is one of the finalists and has been nominated for the best GPS and Location-Based Services category! And we aren’t even a year old.

User voting for the “Webware 100″ starts now! Just click on the button below to submit your vote. Help us get out the vote by sharing this with your friends, posting this to Facebook, Twittering about it, or blogging about it.

Winners will be announced in May.

We’ll keep you posted!
The PolicyMap Team

Watch the Video

By Linsey Davis

WASHINGTON — The number of American workers drawing state unemployment benefits hit another record high this month. If you’re one of them, you’re probably wondering what you need to do to track down a job.

Location, location, location – that mantra doesn’t just apply to real estate. Turns out the recession can discriminate based on where you live.

California, Florida, and Nevada — are all feeling the pinch of foreclosures. The financial sector is taking its toll on New York and Chicago. While the auto industry has positioned the Great Lakes states smack dab in between a rock and a hard place due to slumping manufacturing jobs.

“Sectors that are still hiring are again: government, education and health,” said Jeremy Nowak, CEO, Reinvestment Fund and Policy Map.com.

University towns top the rankings of best places to live during a downturn.

“State college PA, healthy town, right? Penn State University is the main employer there , it’s not going away anywhere, any time soon. Think about college towns that are also state capitals, right? Madison, Wisconsin; Austin, Texas,” said Nowak.

Government towns also tend to be relatively stable. Even when budgets are slashed, cities don’t tend to go out of business.

“I would say Washington, DC, obviously, federal government, but also suburbs, right outside of Washington, DC,” said Nowak.

While the rest of country is in significant decline, Texas is described as being flat.

“Good education and medical sector and also energy sector that still relatively healthy,” said Nowak.

But should you pack up the U-haul for a job?

“The household has to make a decision, based on their own self-interest, and what they think the best opportunity is, for them,” said Nowak.

In that case, Arlington, Virginia, Washington DC, and Durham, North Carolina may all be good places to call home at least in a recession.

This article by Lindsey Davis aired on 94 ABC News affiliates on friday March 19th, 2009.

PolicyMap on ABC News Tonight!

Watch your local ABC News tonight for an interview with Jeremy Nowak, the CEO and President of The Reinvestment Fund regarding the geography of the recession. A few months ago, BusinessWeek.com used PolicyMap data to talk about cities that might best survive this recession and ABCNews wanted to explore the topic further.  They asked him questions about where the recession is hitting hardest or where the best opportunities might exist.

BusinessWeek used PolicyMap data to look at cities across the country that had high concentrations of jobs in “safe” industries, such as: healthcare, education, law, energy and the government and came up with the list of “top 20” recession proof cities below.

Jeremy Nowak’s interview is being distributed by ABC News tonight. The original BusinessWeek.com articles can be found in our News section (http://blog.policymap.com/?p=1586) or at businessweek.com.