Federal data specific to your city is now at your fingertips with Data USA.
SUNLIGHTFOUNDATION.COM
Data USA is captivating data nerds everywhere because it uses powerful hard-to-access Federal data sets, crunches the numbers and then displays the information through easy-to-use layouts.
Developed at the MIT Media Lab in partnership with Deloitte, the powerful website is designed specifically so the public better understands the fabric of each city, metro area or region. There are also dashboards for occupations and industries. The site’s curated stories also serve up trends you can only understand through federal data in an unprecedented way.
The point of Data USA is if we can understand what federal data can tell us, we can improve our cities and the lives of our citizens.
Accessible, easy-to-use open government data can have significant economic and societal benefits,” said Dr. Patricia Buckley, director of economics at Deloitte Services LP, in a prepared statement.
“Data USA provides the tools to transform data into millions of stories about America — its people, places, industries, occupations, skill sets and educational institutions — to better understand our populations, visualize critical national issues, and improve how we live and work both today and in the future,” she said.
Open data wonks are positively giddy with the possibilities Data USA has for American democracy.
What’s significant about Data USA is the scope of the data it accesses through its API, the speed at which it operates through leveraging D3 and D3plus, and its potential for the future. That last point is particularly true with respect to expanding the realm of the possible for public servants entrusted with stewarding data and disseminating the knowledge locked up in it. Data buried deep on portals or locked up in PDFs is sad data,” blogs Alex Howard, senior analyst at the Sunlight Foundation.
Use the site to research locations, industries and occupations in a way you could previously only wish for.
