The Price Center For Social Innovation at USC has partnered with open data solutions provider Socrata to launch the Neighborhood Data for Social Change platform.
According to a statement from USC, the platform is the result of a five year community engagement process and is designed to help residents of Los Angeles and the surrounding metro area provide information and tell stories about their neighborhoods using open data.
The platform provides information on housing and real estate, income and employment, health, public safety, environment, transportation, education, food insecurity, demography, and social connectedness. Data is compiled from the American Community Survey, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, California Department of Education, among other administrative datasets. The platform is free to users and will offer tutorials on data visualization and other methods of data analysis.
The tool was created to help fulfill the mission of the USC Price Center for Social Innovation, which is to develop ideas and illuminate strategies to improve the quality of life for people in low-income urban communities.
The platform will generate an ongoing series of data stories to highlight policy issues in LA County neighborhoods. An initial handful of stories is already on the website examining the impact of rising rents, changing demographics and environmental and health issues in Irwindale, California.
