Stories

NNIP stories describe partner initiatives that helped their communities use data to improve neighborhoods and the well-being of residents.

Using Data to Embed Equity into Selecting Future Regional Trails in the Columbus, Ohio, Area Recent research shows trail networks help achieve climate resilience, improve public health, and increase economic prosperity. The Mid-Ohio... November 26, 2024 read more	Decreasing Social and Economic Disparities in San Antonio and Bexar County, Texas Community... September 9, 2024 read more
Baltimore Data Day: Building Connections for Community Action Neighborhood data counts. Neighborhood data counts people. It counts the places that our communities hold dear, and it counts the tragedies... September 9, 2024 read more	It’s About the People: Cocreating Antidisplacement Strategies in the Twin Cities The Blue Line Extension, which will expand the light rail northwest from downtown Minneapolis to North Minneapolis, Robbinsdale, Crystal, and... June 7, 2024 read more
Advancing Racial Equity and Improving Communities in Connecticut with DataHaven’s Unique Survey Imagine if every town knew what share of their residents felt safe in their neighborhoods, were getting the medical care they need, or were... November 27, 2023 read more	Supporting Baltimore Neighborhoods with Actionable Local Data Baltimore lost 5.7 percent of their population between 2010 and 2020, resulting in the city’s lowest population in a century. The Baltimore... October 17, 2023 read more
The New Generation of Data Tools: Metro Atlanta Racial Equity Atlas The Metro Atlanta Racial Equity Atlas (MAREA) is a new data tool that focuses on how systemic racism affects... August 22, 2023 read more	Improving Homeless Services for Youth in Cuyahoga County The number of youth and young adults experiencing homelessness continues to increase in Cleveland and across the country due to personal... June 15, 2023 read more
New Policies to Preserve Two-to-Four-Unit Housing in Chicago Two- to four-unit residential buildings account for a quarter of Chicago’s housing units and compose a substantial share of unsubsidized... June 5, 2023 read more	Informing Racially Equitable COVID-19 Responses across Seattle Neighborhoods Black, Indigenous, and people of color experience worse social, economic, and health outcomes in King County, Washington. A long history and... September 23, 2022 read more
Directing the Economic Influence of a Regional Business Community toward Racial Equity Projects Regional businesses have an important role in advancing racial equity in their communities. A group of chief executives and business leaders in... August 29, 2022 read more	Dreaming Up New Ways to Support the Reentry and Housing of People Involved in the Justice System into Their Communities The lack of support from the criminal legal system and the stigma associated with having a criminal record create challenging barriers for people... August 29, 2022 read more
Increasing the Accountability and Equity of Investments in the Atlanta Beltline The Atlanta BeltLine is a 22-mile railroad corridor that is designed to improve greenspace, housing, economic... August 24, 2022 read more	Helping Memphis and Shelby County Address Housing Instability through Data Services Housing instability has long been a concern in Shelby County, Tennessee, with... May 31, 2022 read more
Institute for Housing Studies Guides Local Policies to Preserve Two-to-Four-Unit Housing The Institute for Housing Studies (IHS) provided timely analysis and... December 9, 2021 read more	Equitable, Not Equal, Distribution of Public Safety Funds in Indianapolis Interested in redressing existing racial, economic, educational, and health inequities, the Indianapolis City-County Council explored how to more... August 17, 2021 read more
Arming Philadelphia Organizations with Data to Change Lives What happens when quality data are put in the hands of changemakers? As Amy... July 22, 2021 read more	Collaborating with the Atlanta Government towards more Equitable Economic Development Cities across the US have become especially interested in building economic... July 22, 2021 read more
Black Equity Coalition Deploys Data to Reduce COVID-19’s Impact on the Black Community in Allegheny County Harnessing interdisciplinary expertise and perspectives, the Black Equity Coalition (... May 27, 2021 read more	Using Data to Advocate for Safer Walking Conditions in Houston Between 2010 and 2017, ... December 1, 2020 read more
Using an Equity Lens to Track Capital Investments in Baltimore Baltimore, known for being the birthplace of racially restrictive zoning, continues to be one of the most segregated cities in the United States.... August 15, 2020 read more	Aligning Investments with Needs of Atlanta’s Children and Families In recent years, Neighborhood Nexus has developed and maintained an innovative measure: the... July 13, 2020 read more
Residents Inform Priorities of Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention Thanks to community-driven research conducted by the Urban Strategies Council (The Council), the new director of the City of Oakland’s Department... May 11, 2020 read more	Tracking the Well-Being of San Antonio's Children and Families Community Information Now (CI:Now, the NNIP partner for San Antonio) is supporting United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County as it leads the... February 1, 2020 read more
Milwaukee’s Amani Neighborhood Uses Data to Target Traffic Safety and Build Trust People in Milwaukee’s Amani neighborhood are using data to identify safety issues and build relationships with the police. It’s a story of... January 10, 2020 read more	Building Youth Job Readiness and Self-Efficacy through Health Impact Assessments In summer 2019, a hundred Philadelphia youth learned the power of data through a piloted summer learning experience by the Urban Health... October 30, 2019 read more
Utilizing Youth Voice to Inform Local Health Planning in Austin In 2018–19, 20 high school students identified the assets of and health needs for their Del Valle community, which directly informed the... September 8, 2019 read more	Training Dallas’s Youth to Make Change in their Communities “Youth inherit a world with a lot of policies that affect them. They don’t necessarily have the tools to make those... August 30, 2019 read more
IHS Helps Shape Key Chicago Housing Plan In 2019, the City of Chicago embarked on a new... July 24, 2019 read more	Understanding Domestic Violence in Marion County 8,956 women. 1,840 men. 10,797 total survivors of domestic violence reported in Marion County, Indiana... July 23, 2019 read more
Moving from Data to Action on Evictions in Mecklenburg County Evictions have... June 10, 2019 read more	Building Place and Equity into Health Planning in San Antonio Children don't get to choose where they are born. But in Bexar County, Texas, where San Antonio is located, current death data shows that children... January 2, 2019 read more
The Kinder Institute Helps Houston’s Vulnerable Populations Get Harvey Relief When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in August 2017, the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice... June 1, 2018 read more	Groundbreaking Studies Help Prevent Lead Exposure for Children in Cleveland New evidence developed by the Center on... June 1, 2018 read more
Powering Community Participation in Planning for Indianapolis' Future Thanks to IndyVitals – an award-winning online data tool – residents and organizations can... December 20, 2017 read more	Study Catalyzes Action to Improve Earnings for New Orleans’ Working Poor Despite the economic resurgence post-Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans metropolitan area, many workers remain stuck in low-wage jobs. The Data... December 19, 2017 read more
Holding Investors Accountable in Oakland Following the foreclosure crisis, Oakland faced a serious problem of an increasing number of vacant... December 11, 2017 read more	Property Data Proves Key to Realistic Planning for Mixed-Income Communities in Detroit As the national narrative around Detroit has shifted from a story of blight to one of revitalization and resurgence, challenges and responses have... December 4, 2017 read more
New Data Spurs Action on Local Hiring in New Haven The right data, in the right hands, can help advance action on tough issues like under-employment. For 25 years,... September 3, 2017 read more	Making Capital Improvement Planning More Equitable in St. Paul Do cities distribute their capital improvement funds equitably across neighborhoods? It is hard to find a good answer to that question anywhere.... June 15, 2017 read more
Stark Disparities Between Neighborhoods: A Wake-up Call for Dallas’ Civic Leaders For a more complete case study of this experience, see Chapter 6 of Strengthening... June 1, 2017 read more	Mapping Childhood Obesity in Austin Motivates Understanding and Action For a more complete case study of this experience, see Chapter 6 of Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data, by G. Thomas Kingsley,... June 1, 2017 read more
Data Opens the Door for Reform in Kansas City’s Regional Development Process For a more complete case study of this experience, see... June 1, 2017 read more	NeighborhoodInfo DC Addresses the Foreclosure Crisis in Prince George's County, Maryland Prince George’s County, Maryland, has been hard-hit by the housing crisis.... December 13, 2012 read more
Boys and Girls Club Use Data to Determine Whether to Expand Services The Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee are in the process of re-assessing their current Club locations, as well as programs offered within... August 29, 2011 read more	Service Utilization and Population Data Used to Geographically Target Services The Children’s Trust of Miami-Dade County funds out-of-school time programs to reduce the number of children spending their out-of-school hours... August 29, 2011 read more
User-Centered Approach to Mapping Technology Enable Local Alliances to Better Plan Services The Greater New Orleans Data Center worked to increase the effective use of data in decisionmaking among member agencies of the Literacy Alliance... August 29, 2011 read more	Data Used to Streamline Recreation Services Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) used data and maps provided by the Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee (NPCM) to redistrict their recreation programming... August 29, 2011 read more
Community Data System Plays Key Role in Planning Recovery from Hurricane Katrina In post-Katrina New Orleans, the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (GNOCDC) has been a central resource of data and information about New... August 29, 2011 read more	Congregations Use Data to Target Services When the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis began a strategic planning process in 2005, the task force soon raised questions regarding... August 29, 2011 read more
Analysis of Incidence of Childhood Obesity by Neighborhood Provides Base for Local Policies In 2002, the Polis Center at Indiana-Purdue University, in conjunction with the Children’s Health Services Research Program in the Department of... August 29, 2011 read more	Maps of Changes in Patterns of High-Lead Tests Shows Neighborhood Group Where to Focus House-To-House Investigations Since 1998, the Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee (NPCM) has been tracking the progress of lead abatement programs by analyzing lead testing results... August 29, 2011 read more
Reports Highlighting Health Disparities Capture Attention of Policy-Makers Based on data in the Health of King County 2006 and Communities Count 2005 reports from the County public health department (... August 29, 2011 read more	Analysis of Crime Patterns, and Police Strategy in Response, Helps Convince Vendor to Relocate Business In Fall 2003, a developer working in Providence’s Olneyville neighborhood was looking for tenants for a renovated property known as the Old Mill... August 29, 2011 read more
Local Analysis Demystifies National Crime Data Report In November 2005, for the second consecutive year, Camden, NJ was named the Most Dangerous City in the United States by the Morgan-Quitno Press.... August 29, 2011 read more	Research on Formerly Incarcerated People Spurs Action to Improve Reentry Outcomes Two major reports from the Child and Family Policy Center (CFPC) in Des Moines have helped to describe the challenges of prisoner reentry in Des... August 29, 2011 read more
Linking Police Reports to Community Data System Assists Programs to Reduce Crime The Memphis Police Department is working with the Center for Community Criminology and Research (C3R) at the University of Memphis on reducing... August 29, 2011 read more	Education on Impacts of Incarceration and Reentry Influences Legislators In Providence, a partnership between The Providence Plan and the Rhode Island Family Life Center formed around a common interest in using... August 29, 2011 read more
Reports on Formerly Incarcerated Individuals Changes the Debate In February 2005, the Urban Strategies Council released a report entitled “Homicides in Oakland, 2002-2004,” that presented data from the Oakland... August 29, 2011 read more	Data on Literacy Rates and Frequency of Parents Reading to Kids Motivates Launch of Program to Get More Books to Families In the 2000 Communities Count Report, South King County residents were found to have read to their children less than residents in other parts of... August 29, 2011 read more
Data Helps to Determine Location of New Schools New charter schools in Baltimore relied heavily on data provided by BNIA to develop their school proposals. A group in the Patterson Park... August 29, 2011 read more	Measuring School Readiness at the Community Level Helps Support Numerous groups and initiatives in Seattle-King County have focused on improving school readiness and engaging parents, early childhood educators... August 29, 2011 read more
Data Drives Development of Reading Initiative The Ochs Center, formally known as the Community Research Council (CRC), in Chattanooga, TN provided support for the development of Hamilton... August 29, 2011 read more	Review of Test Score Data Prompts Changes in Schools The Piton Foundation and the Colorado Children’s Campaign’s analysis of test scores in Denver schools revealed that improvements in schools’ test... August 29, 2011 read more
Children's Report Card Helps Bring Recognition to Sacramento as One of the ‘100 Best Communities for Young People' The Sacramento County Children's Report Card, first published in 2000, was established to show how well the Sacramento community is fulfilling its... August 29, 2011 read more	Data Influences Development of Plan to End Homelessness During 2005 and 2006, Community Link, formerly known as the the Community Services Planning Council (CSPC), worked with a local Leadership... August 26, 2011 read more
Analysis Identifies Properties Eligible to Receive Assistance with Replacing Lead-Based Deteriorated Plumbing Systems In Nashville, the Neighbors Reaching Out (NRO) Neighborhood Association and the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA) worked together... August 26, 2011 read more	Neighborhood Coalition Uses Data to Improve Conditions The Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance (BNIA) tracks data on services provided in city neighborhoods. These data have been useful in the... August 26, 2011 read more
Property Data Used to Develop Targeted Strategies for Neighborhood Improvement In Providence, the web-based urban land information system has been created to help community development corporations, city officials and others... August 26, 2011 read more	Report Prompts City Leaders to Examine Strategies for Improving Access to Goods The Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC) released a report in October 2005 on the disparate access to goods and services for some Chicago... August 26, 2011 read more
Housing Market Data Guides Neighborhood Investment Strategies The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, a research institute housed at Case Western Reserve University's Mandel School of Applied... July 6, 2011 read more	Data Used To Select New Investment Areas For Neighborhoods Initiative The Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance (BNIA) produced a report for the Executive Director of Baltimore’s Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative... July 5, 2011 read more