Next City explores how the Motor City Mapping project, a citywide effort to create a comprehensive property dashboard in Detroit, is now expanding to Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus. Next City is a nonprofit organization providing daily online coverage of the leaders, policies and innovations driving progress in metropolitan regions across the world.
"The Detroit Land Bank Authority used the data to make decisions about which houses to save versus tear down," Lee Chilcote writes. "Officials also inventoried vacant and occupied properties for the first time, concentrating their efforts on tearing down vacant homes and preventing residents who are behind on their taxes from losing their homes."
The same technology is coming to Ohio thanks to a $1 million grant from JPMorgan Chase to the Western Reserve Land Conservancy that will allow the agency to create property dashboards for Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus. WRLC will work with Detroit-based Loveland Technologies, which developed the Motor City Mapping project.
Loveland founder and CEO Jerry Paffendorf says the technology has been a game changer for Detroit because it's "the most accurate thing that exists as far as getting a look at occupancy, vacancy and condition" of properties.
"With information in a single, easy-to-use interface that is updated in real-time, Detroit residents can get a much more accurate picture of the condition of their neighborhoods," the story says, which will be the same for Cincinnati neighborhoods.
Read the full Next City story
here.
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