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2. Ensuring the Availability, Accuracy, and Relevance of Urban and Housing Data
Pages 29-50

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From page 29...
... THE SPATIAL DATA CHALLENGE Access to reliable spatial data is essential for research, analysis, and policy development on numerous urban and housing issues. Such data are fundamental building blocks for all agencies and organizations that have iThe NSDI is defined as the technologies, policies, and people necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data throughout all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and the academic community (~.
From page 30...
... Of NSDI's many activities, three have significant implications and direct applicability to the development of spatial data and GIS technology at HUD. They are the development of data standards, the development of framework data and the geospatial data clearinghouse, and the establishment of partnerships with state, local, private sectors, and local communities.
From page 31...
... The goals of the NSDI are to reduce duplication of effort among agencies; improve quality and reduce costs related to geographic information; make geographic data more accessible to the public; increase the benefits of using available data; and establish key partnerships with states, counties, cities, tribal nations, academia, and the private sector to increase data availability. TABLE 2.1 Vanous Responsibilities for Data Layers of the NSD!
From page 32...
... Moreover, through the National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse (a distributed, electronically connected network of geospatial data producers, managers, and users2, additional data can be accessed that is layered on top of the framework data. The appropriateness of the various spatial data can then be determined from their metadata descriptions, which are required for all datasets included in the Cleannghouse.
From page 33...
... SOURCE: NSGIC and FGDC, nd. The success of data development activities depends on partnerships with state and local governmental and non-governmental organizations to continue building data and enriching the NSDI Clearinghouse.
From page 34...
... The Digital Earth concept,8 embraced by the research community in the late 1990s, refers to a multi-resolution, three-dimensional representation of the planet where vast quantities of geospatial data are embedded. Promoted by Vice President Gore in 1998, the Digital Earth concept provides a vision whereby geospatial data, methods, and analyses are combined so that important societal issues such as crime, biodiversity, global change, and food security—can be tackled in a more timely and efficient manner.
From page 35...
... HUD, as a national agency, could play an important role in global housing and habitat studies. The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI)
From page 36...
... These are major challenges for agencies; nevertheless, full and effective participation In mandatory federal data initiatives demands attention to such questions. Efforts that HUD undertakes to meet FGDC standards will also benefit HUD's internal efforts to collect, use, and disseminate information on urban and housing issues.
From page 37...
... other environmental data including air pollution reports, toxic chem.icals data, hazardous waste business and permitting information, trend analyses of hazardous waste generation, and company waste water discharge information. Communities interested in redeveloping abandoned or underused industrial sites can use the data to check for contamination and determine what financial resources exist for redevelopment in the area.
From page 38...
... database contains information on over 16,600 projects and nearly 710,000 housing units placed in service nationwide between 1987 and 1998. Geographic data for each housing project include its address, census tract, city, county, metropolitan area, and state.
From page 39...
... Data are also summarized by local public housing agencies and by individual housing project. The Government-Sponsored Enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)
From page 40...
... Spatial query and analysis tools are provided through LandView. Data available through this software include American Housing survey data, governmentsponsored enterprise and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information, Low-lncome Housing Tax Credit locational data, housing data, data on public housing and project-based program areas, and data reported in the State of Cities publications.
From page 41...
... Local datasets can be a valuable source of accurate and detailed data that is relevant to HUD's local constituents. Recommendation: As a first step, HUD should improve existing housing and related data.
From page 42...
... The information available through the EGIS includes spatially-referenced data on multifamily housing, brownfields tax incentive zones, public housing, hazardous waste and air pollution. Using the EGIS, users can: .
From page 43...
... It should be created and managed within PD&R, but the changes in business practices required will affect all data gathering, storage, analysis, and presentation within the department and local housing agencies. It requires a long-term commitment of financial and human resources within the department and local housing agencies, but will permit, inter alla geographic analysis of the following: · Strength of prior HUD investments; · Effect of HUD investment on the stability of neighborhoods, municipalities, schools, and school districts; · Educational and economic opportunity present in areas of potential HUD investments; and · Future investment decisions that will foster health, education, and economic opportunity, and residential and commercial stability of neighborhoods and regions.
From page 44...
... Similarly, efforts to improve data quality constitute a major investment whose full range of costs and benefits are not known. The incorporation of comparable local data would make data available at multiple scales on a broad range of urban topics including real estate market conditions, neighborhood educational and economic opportunity, crime, the quality of local housing stock, and environmental risk.
From page 45...
... Recommendation: HUD should develop mechanisms to accept and integrate relevant locally derived data and georeference the data for integration in the agency-wide GIS. Specifically, HUD should spatially-enable local data by performing address matching of individual records at the finest scale using geographic coordinates.
From page 46...
... The recommendations outlined in this chapter include full participation in the FGDC and other federal initiatives; ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and completeness of HUD data; creating an internal spatial data infrastructure; and developing ways to integrate and disseminate local data. These goals are encapsulated below in the concept of an Urban Spatial Data Infrastructure (USDI)
From page 47...
... For HUD, as for other federal agencies with responsibility for providing spatial data for national initiatives, carrying out this effort demands significant time and resources. Urban Spatial Data Infrastructure Transportation data Hazardous waste data Surface water, ground water and water quality data \ / / Data: Existing HUD data HUD grantee data Other federal data Local data Spatial AnalysisTools: Generic GIS tools New tools for housing research Capacity-building for spatial analysis People and Partners: HUD programs HUD field offices FGDC State and local agencies HUD data users Researchers \ \ HUD AGENCY MANDATES Housing research Policy development Assisting communities Promoting home ownership Data for internal program evaluation / and policy / development/ FIGURE 2.2 This Venn diagram demonstrates the overlap between the building of a USDI and HUD's agency mandates.
From page 48...
... In particular, HUD can influence the development of standardized procedures for computing land value surfaces, housing price indices, job accessibility measures, and other derived data layers that are finer "rained than census tracts but appropriately aggregated and smoothed compared with parcel maps. HUD could promote data cleaning, interpretation, and statistical analyses needed to develop some of these specialized intermediate layers and play a lead role in making these data a meaningful and reliable component of urban models.
From page 49...
... SUMMARY Developing, maintaining, and disseminating reliable spatial data are major challenges for HUD. HUD's efforts will be more efficient and productive when carried out in coordination with other federal data initiatives, notably the NSDI.
From page 50...
... as a component of the NSDI. The integration of local datasets into HUD's databases can provide relevant, high spatial and temporal resolution data for HUD's internal program analysis and evaluation, and for national data and information needs including the creation of a USDI, resource management and allocation, and other federal data initiatives.


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