Data Driven Systems: Model Practices & Policies for Strategic Code Enforcement

Abstract

As more American cities launch citywide blight elimination campaigns, reform outdated policies, and rebuild dysfunctional nuisance abatement programs, they are literally counting on data. Working together, local governments and community-based organizations are sending residents and staff out into neighborhoods with mobile devices to conduct comprehensive inventories of property conditions and neighborhood characteristics. This policy brief describes practices and policies of leading adopters of integrated data systems that aggregate real property data from an array of official and unofficial sources so that all of it can be accessed on the internet at a single site by identified users. The data integrated into the facility can be delivered onto spreadsheets and searched, sorted, mapped, graphed and charted. It supports investigations and research critical for data-driven analysis, planning, monitoring and assessing code enforcement policies and practices. Technology is constantly being developed to help make data-driven decisions and actions more efficient and effective. Code enforcement cannot be effective today without access to a more complete array of property data.