Quality Of Life At A Finer Grain: The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership

This is a chapter in the edited volume Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Cases V.  This chapter describes the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP), a network of “information intermediaries” in 34 cities that develop and maintain neighborhood-level data warehouses. Their common mission is to make the data broadly available and help local stakeholders, particularly the residents of distressed neighborhoods, use the data themselves to achieve their goals more effectively. The chapter first reviews the types of NNIP institutions (primarily civic groups and university centers) and the range of their local administrative data. It then discusses how NNIP data are used to advance community interests by 1) comprehensively reviewing the well-being of the community, (2) addressing strategic issues, (3) and serving as the basis for program evaluation. It illustrates these themes by providing brief case studies from three NNIP partners in New Orleans, Cleveland, and Providence. The chapter concludes by describing the work of the partnership as a whole and implications for national policy.