Empower Local Elected Officials With Data

A good elected official personifies his or her district. They know the stories of a place and can use them to effectively care for and improve their community. Traditionally this means that the elected official spends significant time “pressing the flesh” — absorbing the preferences of their constituents through one-on-one conversations.

While this will always be a crucial political tactic, we live in a time when those qualitative efforts can be augmented with quantitative data. Clearly at the federal level campaigns have embraced data as a political tool, but shouldn’t data be more a tool for governing than getting elected?

Wouldn’t it be better to empower elected officials at the local level with the tools they need to truly represent their constituents?

The Challenge

The problem is, the way most demographic data is collected and compiled doesn’t line up with local jurisdictional boundaries. A census tract or block group, for example, doesn’t adhere to a city council district or a school district, so it can be challenging, even impossible, for elected officials in these districts to parse out the data to better understand their constituents.

Fortunately, with a little data science there are ways around this problem. Using weighted block point apportionment (which roughly translates to “grabbing data from one area and applying it to another”), you can force underlying demographics into any old shape you can come up with, like neighborhoods, project boundaries, or city council districts.

As a company, we are focused on providing simple answers to complex questions.

We want to put data in the hands of people who can actually use it.

So the question “Can you give me some data about my constituents?” is a perfect request for us to take on. We can (and have!) built a formula that provides data specific to every city council district in the country.

Our Solution

Let’s take an example from Kansas City.

An elected official’s question might be:

Who lives in my district?

(Interact with the below map here and see how the charts change as you scroll over different city council districts, revealing more about the demographics in that geography.)

Or maybe there are more specific questions like:

How strong is the economy in my district?

Interact with a visualized map by clicking the box below and see how the charts change as you scroll over different city council districts, revealing more about employment in each geography.

How strong is education in my district?

Interact with a visualized map by clicking the box below and see how the charts change as you scroll over different city council districts, revealing more about education in each geography.

How do my constituents get to work?

Interact with a visualized map by clicking the box below and see how the charts change as you scroll over different city council districts, revealing more about transportation in each geography.

The answers to these questions should inform policy in a way that conversations simply can’t.

Making informed governing decisions based on the actual data, the demonstrated need, or the greatest opportunity is now a real possibility. The blending of empathetic understanding of the people in a place with a knowledge about the underlying demographics has the potential to change the way local politics works in the years ahead.

Not a mySidewalk user? Let us know where you need more insight and we’ll make a free, interactive report for you. Submit your request here.

About the Author: Stephen Hardy is the Chief Product Officer responsible for providing the strategic vision for mySidewalk’s team of designers and developers. Before joining mySidewalk, he used the platform as the Director of Planning at BNIM Architects. Stephen is certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners and holds a LEED AP credential.