Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s administration today launched a new interactive tool for viewing neighborhood-level maps that include police, fire and traffic incidents as well as building permits and other data.
The Open Neighborhood BR platform, at my.brla.gov, takes troves of data from Open Data BR, an online portal of information ranging from sales tax collections to crime, and creates interactive maps. Users can register and search the map for things like 311 requests and crime data.
“With Open Neighborhood BR, we’re taking the next step by leveraging public data sets, technology and innovation to help Baton Rouge residents understand what’s going on in their own neighborhoods, and use that information to work with us to create a better quality of life for our entire community,” Broome says in a statement.
Former mayor Kip Holden unveiled the Open Data BR tool in 2015, and it now includes a host of data sets, including property assessment, adjudicated property and crime incidents. Broome’s new tool uses those data sets along with an interactive map system.
“We’ve always recognized that we need to take the next step from simply publishing our data to making it meaningful for our residents and community,” city-parish Director of Information Services Eric Romero says in a statement.
The platform is part of a pilot partnership between the city-parish and Socrata, a firm specializing in data and cloud applications for government organizations, according to a news release.
