NeighborhoodBase

NeighborhoodBase is a web-based tool that provides access to a wide array of neighborhood level data for the city of Philadelphia.

Client: Cartographic Modeling Lab, University of Pennsylvania

Challenge: Students, non-profits, and community organizations frequently seek socio-demographic data for research projects, needs assessments, and grant proposals. Though this information is generally available to the public, it can be a complicated undertaking to find and measure it at the appropriate geographic level.

Solution: Avencia created the NeighborhoodBase website to assist community-based planning and development organizations, government agencies, researchers, and concerned individuals in their efforts to analyze, transform, and revitalize Philadelphia neighborhoods. The website allows the user to explore aggregate neighborhood data in a variety of different views – through maps, charts, tables and simple statistics. The information made available through NeighborhoodBase supports programming in many sectors, including community development, public health, urban greening, and arts and culture, helping to build stronger neighborhoods throughout the city.

Outcomes: NeighborhoodBase serves thousands of maps, reports, and analyses each month for over 3,000 stakeholders including government agencies, non-profits, researchers, and students. The uses of NeighborhoodBase information are as varied as the users themselves, ranging from support of nutrition programs through identification of sources of junk food on children’s routes to school to providing key demographic information enabling youth development agencies to track changes in and identify target neighborhoods.

Quote: “Hundreds of users access NeighborhoodBase to get data on their neighborhood that is vital to community-based planning efforts. Avencia has supported our efforts to constantly improve the application based on end-user feedback.” – Marlen Kokaz

Website: http://cml.upenn.edu/nbase/