A few weeks ago, The Reinvestment Fund launched one of the cooler internet tools in recent memory: PolicyMap. Those interested in public policy, in mapping, or just procrastinating with a cool diversion are going to have to check this out.

Basically, what Policy Map does is bring data and mapping to the masses. Given its place as a lender and public policy research center, TRF has always accumulated all kinds of data. About a year or so ago, they decided that they were going to try and put that data online, in a way that the general public could see it. And from that, and many (many) hours of development, PolicyMap was born. They mapped something like 4000 pieces of data, and then put it online in a format where anyone can map it. And if they got the data free (ie, Census, etc), they give it away for free too.

Anyway, enough blathering, because check out what you can do in about one minute. These maps are focused on Philly, but, data is available Country-wide:

Let's say you are thinking about the foreclosure crisis, and in trying predict what neighborhoods are going to be hard hit, you want to see what neighborhoods in Philly had the most subprime loans in 2006. After about 45 seconds, you get this:

For those who cannot see the ranges, the darkest purple means that over 50 percent of all loans in 2006 were subprime. Yikes.

Or, lets say a certain section of Philadelphia always seems to be saying that they have too many section 8 renters. (We will call this section of the City, totally hypothetically, the Northeast.) Well, with a couple clicks, we can actually check it out:

Hmm. Check out the ranges. Here, the absolute darkest purple means at least 15% of rental units are section 8. And, except for one spot, it appears that this set of hypothetical complaints really might not be based in reality. In fact, North Philly and parts of NW Philly, along with Southwest Philly appear to be where the rentals are concentrated.

Or, maybe you just want to get good and depressed about the state of Philadelphia. If so, then PolicyMap is the place for you! For example, how about the percentage of Philly families in poverty, versus the surrounding areas?

Of course, that is a general problem with looking at public policy maps of Philly… it can be pretty hard to take.

Those are just some random maps. You can zoom out to a county, state or national level. You can zoom in to census tract levels if the data is there. Bottom line, there is a lot of stuff to screw around with. And, if there are cool data sets out there that you think they should have, you can email them and they will look into it. If the data is free, and they map it, then they give out mapped, for free.

(And in interest of full disclosure: PolicyMap is a product of The Reinvestment Fund (TRF). For those who don’t know about TRF, it is a Philadelphia non-profit that does things like fund affordable housing, childcare, supermarkets in neighborhoods that need them, etc. Additionally, it has a public policy arm that has basically pioneered all kinds of housing and lending research, among other things. They have also had the unfortunate experience of putting me to work on and off for the last 4 years or so.)

Anyway, check it out. With data so available, I might have to start making arguments based on facts. What a pain.