Master Address Points This past October, the City of Charlottesville released the Master Address Points dataset. This may be the most significant dataset released to the public since the start of the Charlottesville Open Data Portal and will be an invaluable resource to any users of city data. The importance of address information cannot be[…]
One Name, Two Parts Charlottesville … the name conjures up images of a beautiful, historical community at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains with iconic features such as Monticello and the Rotunda. Like most place names, people associate the name with visual images of the place, such as the Eiffel Tower for Paris or[…]
Introduction Some of first things that come to mind when we think of open data are tables, charts, and maps, where digital facts and figures are transformed to graphics for printing on paper or visualization on digital screens. This may be true in practice, but it is a limited vision for our data. Our numbers,[…]
A report on Charlottesville arrest data was recently written and released by Bill Mendez. The open dataset shows interesting (read: alarming) disparities in charges between African American and White residents of Charlottesville. Before summarizing the dataset we’d like to go over a few critical caveats: 1. Though the dataset provides the gender and race of[…]
Smart Cville is hosting an Addressing Deep Dive at 7:00 PM on Thursday, 28 March. The deep dive will be hosted at UVA’s Campbell Hall Room 220C, located on Bayly Dr Charlottesville, VA 22903. Deep Dives are unique events combining presentations by local experts with hands-on activities. This would be very useful to anyone working[…]
On October 12, 2018, the New York Times published an article on a remarkable achievement from Microsoft, “A Map of Every Building In America.” The map provides insight on the structure and form of our impact on the environment, as well as the influence of history, geology, and culture on the manmade landscape. In addition[…]
As the Charlottesville Open Data Portal nears its first anniversary, we wanted to take stock of what data is currently on the portal. This analysis reviews the Dataset Listing data set. This dataset provides information on the datasets which are available in the portal. A PDF version of this report is also available. This information[…]
As proponents of good digital government, we’re excited that the City of Charlottesville has finally launched a “311-like” service app called MyCville. This app is powered by Accela and offers basic functionality for users to submit issues, requests, and questions. Most importantly, it seems as if citizens will be able to track responses and follow-ups[…]
Last week, we sent out a newsletter to registrants of the Open Data Bootcamp. I included some great resources sent to us by ESRI that support the city’s new open data portal. I encouraged registrants to review the resources and start thinking about projects for the bootcamp. Since the bootcamp really only offers about 2.5[…]
In conjunction with the City of Charlottesville, Smart Cville has developed a new feature for the city budget visualization. Each quarter the city releases updates on its revenues and expenditures. This allows different constituencies to track quarterly progress in each area. Previously, the city would publish this data within a PDF document. Now, citizens will[…]