For more than 20 years, the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance-Jacob French Institute (BNIA-JFI) has been responsible for monitoring changes in Baltimore's neighborhoods and quality of life. As part of that effort, the organization plans to engage local communities in the research process through regular events, reports and a new app.
Amanda Phillips de Lucas has been the director of the University of Baltimore Research Institute since March 2023. She told Technical.ly that in addition to her work at the Cary Ecosystem Institute, she had previously written her doctoral dissertation and dissertation focused on technology related to West Baltimore. . Her highway construction activities inspired her to pursue a role with BNIA-JFI.
Phillips de Lucas told Technical.ly that his predecessor, Seema Iyer, was a city and regional planner focused on providing tools to communities. Now, Phillips de Lucas has a different focus.
“I'm very interested in how communities use data, but also in some of the gaps that exist in our data collection systems,” De Lucas said.
In its more than 20-year history, BNIA-JFI has played a role in strengthening the city's open data portal and has organized annual events such as Baltimore Data Day, which expanded into Baltimore Data Week in 2020. The event is expected to be a one-day event. This year it is July 19th.
Attend Baltimore Data Day and sign up for participant training on data portals, programming languages, or open source software
“Baltimore is a place where people who don't interact can come together and talk not just about data, but also about projects that really interest them.” [and] “I'm passionate about it,” Phillips de Lucas said.
What BNIA-JFI says about 2024 Census data
By the time Baltimore Data Day arrives this summer, BNIA-JFI will have already published updated vital signs reports that provide insight into the neighborhood. Unlike the Decennial Population and Housing Census, which is conducted every 10 years to determine each state's representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, or microdata from censuses like the one reported in March of this year, the BNIA -JFI data is not politically motivated.
“The census is always political,” Phillips de Lucas said. “Counting is somehow a very political act.”
BNIA-JFI's Vital Signs report examines data specific to Baltimore and aligns well with the 21st Century Cities Initiative's Baltimore Regional Study, Phillips de Lucas said. This includes the impact of vacant land restoration on youth health through initiatives such as Project VITAL, a collaboration between BNIA-JFI and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Like the census, local data from partnerships with communities and researchers has its own gaps and limitations.
“I often think that data gaps are unintentional,” Phillips de Lucas said. “But what I think is that we have a system that rewards a lot of different parties who really manage things independently.”
Volatility is a fact of life when it comes to data, according to Phillips de Lucas. She noted that when looking at environmental data across the country or in communities in Baltimore, it's not uncommon to find gaps. Phillips de Lucas said that while Baltimore experienced a large overall population decline, with a 10.9% undercount of children, certain areas, such as downtown, experienced significant population declines between the two censuses. He explained that there was a population increase.
“The growth of the white L and the black butterfly,” Phillips de Lucas said.
However, she believes that comparing neighborhoods is not so simple because of the diversity in neighborhood sizes. To address this, BNIA-JFI uses source compilations to inform how it is reporting at the community statistics level. Information for BNIA-JFI comes from her five-year data from the American Community Survey, Baltimore City Police Department crime statistics, city and state health departments, and other sources such as library card registrations and block party permits. .
Phillips de Lucas said while it was good to see no population decline, the data gap could be due to people simply stretching themselves after the pandemic.
“We’re not getting some data from providers just because of capacity issues,” she said.
A new platform to facilitate community-involved data collection
The alliance is currently working with the University of Maryland and the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance to roll out the Balto app. The platform was built before Phillips de Lucas' tenure and aims to improve the collection of traffic data and understand the commuter experience. Phillips de Lucas, who lives in Northeast Baltimore and takes his 54 or Pink bus depending on the day, said the app was developed with the help of the community.
The app acts as a research mechanism to collect feedback on ride comfort, time spent commuting, and related factors. Initially available only on Android smartphones, efforts are underway to make the app more widely accessible. Although there are challenges, such as navigating the limitations of the Apple App Store, this project aims to provide valuable insight into Baltimore's transportation system and address areas for improvement.
Visit Google Play Store and download the Balto app
Join the conversation!
Find people who share your news, events, work, and interests with Slack, Technical.ly's open community.
technically media