Let's Talk Data. / Community & Environmental Development

Environmental Justice For All: Developing equitable places with data-driven plans

Being in a position to make change is certainly no small task. As community leaders, developers, planners, city managers, and beyond, you wield the power to shape the places you care about the most for the better.

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The Perfect Fit: HUD Low-Mod Data in mySidewalk

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mySidewalk added HUD Low- and Moderate-Income data to our platform. This data is a critical component of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) applications, and helps housing and community development practitioners see where low- and moderate-income populations are located in their …

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Preserving Affordable Housing Starts With A Plan. Here’s How To Begin.

How NLIHC and PAHRC are using mySidewalk to help communities preserve affordable housing. It is no secret that low-income families and households are struggling to find affordable housing options in their neighborhoods all over the United States. If you are reading this, it is likely …

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Every Child Thrives With A Safe Place to Play: Introducing the Playspace Partnership Assessment

How KABOOM! and MySidewalk are using data to end playspace inequity in the United States. Playtime is a critical part of every child’s growth and development. In addition to boosting a kid’s emotional and social wellbeing, physical activity throughout childhood lays the foundation for …

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Locate Your Community's Affordable Housing with Data from the NHPD

NEW: National Housing Preservation Database (NHPD) indicators are now available to all mySidewalk subscribers.

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The Case For Affordable Housing In Every Community: Introducing the Housing Affordability Report

The United States is experiencing an affordable housing crisis. This crisis stems from a widespread and acute lack of affordable low income, and supportive housing across the United States in all communities - urban, suburban, and rural. The lack of access to affordable, low income an …

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5 Eye-opening Data Lessons after a Year of Sheltering at Home

5 Eye-opening Data Lessons after a Year of Sheltering at Home

We believe that data in the right hands can make a better world. This has never been more apparent to us than in the past 12 months. That’s because data has done some incredible things this year. Here are just a few examples: We have sheltered at home watching Covid cases rise and fal …

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Why The New HUD Rule Change Is a Mission Critical Problem

Why The New HUD Rule Change Is a Mission Critical Problem

On July 23rd, 2020, HUD Secretary Ben Carson terminated the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) assessment rule. This rule helped ensure people of all protected classes had access to quality, affordable homes by requiring HUD applicants to complete fair housing assessmen …

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5 Reasons Your City Needs Realistic Peers

5 Reasons Your City Needs Realistic Peers

Peer cities can be a powerful framework for understanding progress in your community. Yet the process of identifying peers is complicated, because it involves underlying value judgments about what you think matters to a community. There are inevitably temptations to compare your commu …

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Disaster Recovery Means You Never Go Back to Normal

Disaster Recovery Means You Never Go Back to Normal

He walks into the office wearing a baseball cap and is laughing within 10 minutes. That’s how I think of Stephen Hardy, mySidewalk’s CEO. When I met him, I remember thinking how much his exuberance was a rare (but welcome) departure from the traditional stiff CEO. For example, right a …

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mySidewalk Introduces Drawing Tools

Starting today, you can create a custom boundary directly in mySidewalk using our Drawing Tool feature. When we asked our customers what more they want from mySidewalk, they said that they wanted to be able to draw their own boundaries on a map. We took that feedback and created a dra …

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