We wanted to review some of the unique ways subscribers can use the Analytics features.

Sometimes when working with data, you are looking to find places that meet a certain criteria or range of a data layer. The Analytics can be used to query a data layer to find any location or locations that meets a specific range. For example, do you want to find all the school districts in Oregon that had over 75% of students participating in a Free and Reduce Lunch program? To create this query:

• Go to Analytics on PolicyMap
• Set Oregon as your location in the Set Location bar
• Load the data under Money & Income > Free and Reduce Lunch
• In the legend, set the range on the left of the map to 75% to 99.59%
• This will show all school districts that have more than 75% of students in the program
• Select the Download Place List option and choose Oregon, and give the list a custom name
• This will generate a list of the 10 school districts that meet the set threshold.  See list of Oregon School Districts

Would you want an example which queries a smaller geography size? How about looking to find tracts that have housing prices within a median home sale range of $150,000 to $175,000 in the Suffolk county Boston area. The Analytics is a quick way to query and find these tracts. To create this query:

• Go to Analytics on PolicyMap
• Set Suffolk, MA (county) as your location
• Load the data under Real Estate Analysis > Home Sale Data > Quarterly > Home Sales
• In the legend, change the default variable from number (or count) to median
• Set the median price range to $150,000 and $175,000
• Select the Download Place List option and select Massachusetts, give the list a custom name
• This list will generate the 4 tracts in Suffolk county that meet the range of median home sale price. See list of homes in Suffolk County

As you can see, the Analytics can be a very unique tool that allows users to find a list of locations that need to meet just one data indicator. In our next blog post on Analytics, we will review how users can use the feature to query addresses that fall into locations that meet an Analytic.

To read a full guide on all features on PolicyMap, please look at our Primer available here. If you wanted to know more about a feature or topic, send your request to info@policymap.com subject “Did you Know…”

Sincerely,
The PolicyMap Team

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 17, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — PolicyMap, the most comprehensive source for place-based data on the web, today announced four new tools to increase the availability and use of geographic data across web applications. They are Data Uploader, Data API, Widget, and Analytics. These new tools were developed in response to demand from PolicyMap’s government, civic, foundation, and for-profit customers looking for more ways to incorporate geographic data into their business and decision-making processes.

PolicyMap offers more than 10,000 indicators, including data on demographics, education, crime, health, real estate, mortgage finance, vacancy, transit, and school performance. All of the data can be visualized in fluid maps, plotted on tables and charts, or analyzed through reports. PolicyMap’s new tools make data and online mapping more relevant while keeping it simple and accessible:

Data Uploader – Organizations can upload their own data, such as investment locations, loans, property surveys, etc. into PolicyMap, share it with the public or select others, cross reference with 10,000+ indicators, and produce custom maps, charts, and tables.

Data API – Clients can incorporate PolicyMap’s data into other web applications, including Google and Bing Map platforms, to produce data rich, fluid, interactive maps for their websites.

Widget – Users can easily embed multi-layer, interactive PolicyMap maps featuring selected data into their websites using a simple iFrame code.

Analytics – PolicyMap identifies geographic areas that meet up to three criteria on a map so clients can identify and explore target markets quickly and easily.

“Organizations need information – good, easy-to-understand, relevant data – to make decisions,” said Maggie McCullough, Director of PolicyMap. “They need to know what is going on in the neighborhoods, counties, and states in which they work and keep track of how life in those places is changing. We’ve long recognized that good data drives smart decisions. The Web 2.0 world gives organizations and governments a multitude of ways to find information. Our goal is to make it accurate, simple and accessible.”

High-profile organizations already using PolicyMap’s new tools include the National Association of Realtors, the MacArthur Foundation, the Brookings Institution, Comcast, Federal Reserve Banks across the nation, and Dan Rather Reports. Much of PolicyMap’s data and visualization tools are available to users without charge. The four new tools and proprietary data are available by subscription or with a license.

About PolicyMap

PolicyMap is a fully web-based Geographic Information System created by The Reinvestment Fund. It was developed to help decision-makers access, evaluate, and analyze the most accurate data available. PolicyMap is fast, efficient, and captures data in visually powerful ways through custom demographic maps, tables, reports, and analytics. Available data includes demographics, home sale statistics, health data, mortgage trends, school performance scores, labor data, crime statistics and city crime rates. More information can be found at www.PolicyMap.com.

About The Reinvestment Fund

TRF, a national leader in the financing of neighborhood revitalization, has invested $1 billion in Mid-Atlantic communities since 1985. A CDFI, TRF finances housing, community facilities, supermarkets, and commercial projects. It also provides public policy expertise by helping clients create actionable solutions and by sharing data and analyses via its online data and mapping tool at www.PolicyMap.com. More information about TRF at www.trfund.com.

With the release of this new homepage, comes something even more important for us – the release of the first phase of our Data Loader. This release will allow you to begin uploading point level data on your own! There is more like a new Data API, expanded use of the Widgets, and more examples of Analytics at work.

We’ll be writing more tomorrow and in the days to come so stay tuned!

Click here to see the Analytic live on PolicyMap find places around your area that meet the above criteria.

At this week’s PA Chapter of the American Planning Association’s Annual Conference, we presented our approach of using GIS to target funds through HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP).  Ira Goldstein, Director of Policy and Information Services, discussed his work with communities across the country in NSP activities.  Elizabeth Nash, of PolicyMap, demonstrated how to use PolicyMap’s Analytics tool to identify neighborhoods for directing NSP funds to achieve additional policy objectives.

Here is our presentation:

Check out Policy Map 2.0.

This is yet another step forward in data transparency and availability … and we all benefit. Particularly those relocating who ask those questions that Realtors cannot answer.

I noted Policy Maps’ usefulness last year,

In many ways similar, if not a competitor to (as far as I can tell) to Geo Commons’ products. They have data layers for Real Estate Analysis, Neighborhood Conditions, Mortgage Originations, Education, Money & Income, Demographics, Owners and Renters, Jobs, Energy (wind and solar aren’t options – yet) – and dozens of subsets under each respective data layer.

This is all information that today’s real estate consumer wants (and needs) to know. Buyers relocating to new areas should find this kind of data invaluable.

The possibilities and uses for this tool are remarkable.

Unfortunately, some of the first data sets I pulled – vacancy rates for one – are using data from the 2000 Census, which is irrelevant at best, and dangerous at the worst should someone choose to draw substantive conclusions from that data.

The City of Charlottesville has “insufficient data” when inquiring about Aggravated Assaults (as much as I’d like to think Charlottesville is assault-free, I’m pretty sure we’re not).

I’m fond of the “Percent of all people who were White in 2000″ but just for the grammar; I wonder how many of those people were still White in 2009.

Looking for an older home? You may want to target your search in areas with housing stock built before 1939.

Want to live around other people who are under the age of 55?

Check out the video at Policy Map’s blog.

More discussion at Read Write Web.

Click here to read this article by the Jim Duncan which appeared on Real Central VA on May 12, 2009.

Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / May 12, 2009

Databases. They’re not just for those with specialized skills anymore. Want to know what kinds of insights into the world everyday people can find when the right tools are available to process plenty of data? Check out this example below.

One year ago we wrote about a fascinating service called PolicyMap, a website where users can view more than 4000 different data sets laid out on a map down to the city street level. I found which parts of my neighborhood donated more money to John McCain than to Barack Obama, and vice versa. Today PolicyMap launched a new feature for subscribers that allows up to three points of data to be cross-referenced. You may or may not be interested in subscribing to PolicyMap, but anyone can see from the screencast below just how much potential technologies like this have.

There’s a button to view this video full screen in the bottom-right corner of the player.

This is pretty interesting stuff, is it not? The ability to cross-reference different sets of data with factors like geographic location is really exciting. Extrapolate from this, if you will, by imagining what kind of things could be made possible if programmatic access to data from Facebook could be layered into systems like this. Or any other large data set that’s hording it. Anonymous aggregate data made available to developers who can build interfaces that allow end users to analyze that data is likely to be an even more important resource in the near future than it is today.

Click here to read this article by the Marshal Kirkpatrick which appeared on ReadWriteWeb on May 12, 2009.