December 2009 Updates

It’s been a bustling month, with the launch of new ways to connect people with PolicyMap. We offered subscribers the ability to create web widgets for their own sites and released a library site license so that whole university communities can use the PolicyMap platform. You can find the code for a free national unemployment widget on our blog and visit TRF’s website to see some other widgets in action.

• 2008 HMDA mortgage origination calculations, initially created for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia (under Mortgage Originations)
• Fair Market Rents from HUD for 2010 (under Owners & Renters)
• USPS Residential and Commercial Vacancy Data for the 3rd Quarter of 2009 (under Neighborhood Conditions)
• Food Stamps, just publicly released, for 2007 (under Money & Income)
• Qualified Census Tracts, Designated Development Areas, and GOZones for 2010 (under State & Local)
• Unemployment rates for September and preliminary numbers for October 2009 (under Jobs & Economy). And yes, the free unemployment widget is updated automatically, too!

• “Loan to Income Leverage Ratio 2008”: This ratio of originated loan amount to applicant stated income for all mortgage loans reported in HMDA for 2008 is designed to help you understand where new homebuyers may have taken on more mortgage debt than they can afford. You can find this under the Mortgage Originations tab.
• Baltimore MVA 2008: TRF’s Policy Solutions cluster analysis of markets in the City of Baltimore has been updated and is now available in the State and Local tab.

Read more about these datasets in the coming days on our blog! And follow our blog series on Top-10s. You can create your own with PolicyMap’s ranking feature and find the top-10 for anything you’ve wondered about.

Much more new data and updates coming in January. Look for drive-time statistics, population density, election data and religious affiliation statistics.

Library Licenses! University libraries can now take advantage of PolicyMap’s new library site license to offer students, staff and faculty unlimited access. Learn more.