Primary Data Sources for Geospatial and Non-Geospatial Data

I am often asked, ‘where can I find good data for my research?’ which prompted me to put together a list of good data sources for both geospatial and non-geospatial data.

Geography: Chicago

Description: The City of Chicago Data Portal includes more than 250 datasets, both spatial and non-spatial, organized into 16 different categories ranging from transportation and sanitation to education and economic development. Users can visualize the data as maps, graphs and charts, by specifying filtering criteria. Experienced users can download the information as datasets in various formats for further analysis.

URL: https://data.cityofchicago.org/

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Geography: Cook County

Description: Similar to the Chicago’s data portal, the Cook County Open Portal also has an extensive collection of geospatial and non-geospatial datasets. The data is organized into 8 main categories such as courts, economic development, finance and administration, forest preserves, health care, public safety, property tax and GIS/Maps. Users can download the data into various formats or visualize it within the portal, even embedding the visuals into their own sites.

URL: https://datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov/

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Geography: Illinois

Description: The University of Illinois Springfield has compiled a list of data sources related to Illinois and the United States, grouped by 5 different topics, and including both spatial and non-spatial data.

URL: http://www.uis.edu/gis/projects/data/

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Geography: USA

Description:

(1) U.S. Census is the first place to go for data related to population or housing. It provides new census data every 10 years and annual data from the American Community Survey in between its decennial censuses. Two decades of both spatial and non-spatial data are available concerning demographic, socio-economic and housing characteristics for various geographic extents and units of analysis. The information can be downloaded as raw data files or as summary tables, and sometimes as maps.

URL: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml (Raw Data)
http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/ (All other)

(2) Data.gov is the U.S. Government’s open data portal for federal, state and local data including tools and resources to conduct research and design data visualizations. The data is grouped into 14 main industries ranging from agriculture, manufacturing and energy to education, consumer and government. The data comes from hundreds of organizations, including federal and non-federal government agencies.

URL: https://www.data.gov/

(3) The Pew Research Center’s data site consists of a multitude of key national, political, economic and demographic trends gathered over time on issues, attitudes and trends for the U.S. and also world polling/survey data.

URL: http://www.pewresearch.org/data/download-datasets/
http://www.pewresearch.org/data/ (Indicators)

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Geography: World

Description:

(1) The World Bank’s open data site consists of datasets, databases, pre-formatted tables, reports and other resources aggregated by countries, regions or sub-regions over multiple decades. Similar to other data portals, this site also lets users download data, filter it by criteria and/or visualize it.

URL: http://databank.worldbank.org/data/databases.aspx
http://datacatalog.worldbank.org/ (Catalog)
http://data.worldbank.org/ (Reports)

(2) The UN has more than 60 million datasets spanning decades and covering a wide range of topics including agriculture, crime, education, employment, energy, environment, health, HIV/AIDS, human development, industry, population, refugees, tourism and trade, to name just some. The site not only allows downloading data based on filtering criteria, but also provides easy access to country profiles.

URL: http://data.un.org/Explorer.aspx

(3) GISGeography.com put together a list of 10 free, downloadable, geospatial data sources for global data from various reputable sources. The link shows a list of sites, their advantages and categories by data types.

URL: http://gisgeography.com/best-free-gis-data-sources-raster-vector/

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Where else can you find good data?

• http://flowingdata.com/2009/10/01/30-resources-to-find-the-data-you-need/
• http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/find-good-data

Chicago 911 Calls

Wasted 911 Calls
Chicago residents complain about the Chicago Police Department’s lack of efficiency in responding to 911 emergency calls.  But to what extent is the public responsible for these inefficiencies? In 2011, 20.04%—nearly one fifth (1,321,827 calls out of a total of 6,595,105)—of all 911 calls made to CPD were found to be unwarranted. These unwarranted calls flood the system and tie up resources that could have been used to respond to high priority calls. The graph below shows the percentage of all 911 emergency calls deemed illegitimate in 2011, broken down by percentage and type, including hang-ups, misdialing, children playing on the phone, and prank calls.

Number of 911 Calls by Type
Disturbances from barking dogs, loud music or parties, lawn mowers, vehicle alarm or horns and domestic issues topped the list of 911 calls in 2011. Complaints regarding disturbances, traffic violations, assistance with emergency management service, battery (simple, aggravated, sexual, and domestic), and accidents made up the majority of the 911 emergency calls, with at least 220,000 calls recorded in 2011 for each type. The chart below illustrates all types recording more than 10,000 calls in 2011.

Community Concerns in Chicago

Does warm weather automatically spell trouble for the streets of Chicago? Safety concerns surge when warm weather arrives in spring—reports increase when people and crime become more visible. Below is a visualization of all community concerns that the public reported to Chicago police from summer 2011 to spring 2012, summarized by seasons.

Mug Shots: Snapshot of Transgender Prostitution-Related Arrests in Chicago

Click through to see the enlarged image.

Poverty in America

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 46.2 million Americans (15.1%) are living in poverty, the largest number since the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures in 1959. The U.S. poverty rate is the third worst among the developed nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). More than 1 in 5 children under age 18 and 1 in 6 Americans is living under the federal poverty line.

As the number of available jobs shrinks and the number of low-paying or part-time jobs with no benefits increases, the number of people unemployed or under-employed is rising. Low-wage jobs do not cover basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and health care. Fueling this situation, health care costs are rising and crippling families. Currently, nearly 1 in 6 Americans has no health insurance (49.9 million), nearly 10% of whom (7.3 million) are children. Between 2009 and 2010, the poverty rate among seniors rose from 9% to 15.9% due to medical expenses. More than 45% of Americans are doubling-up, living with their parents or friends because they have incomes below the poverty level.

Rising inflation, falling job rates, unlivable wages, rising health care expenses and mounting debts are leading the middle- and lower- classes into poverty.

Where is poverty worst?
The South has been hit hardest by current economic conditions, with 18.8 million people living in poverty in 2010, 1.2 million more than in 2009. Next worst off was the West, with 10.9 million people living below the poverty line. The Northeast and the Midwest were doing relatively better, with 6.92 million and 9.49 million people, respectively, slipping or remaining under the poverty line. Twenty-two states had poverty rates greater than the national rate of 15.1% in 2010. Mississippi was the worst off, with almost one-quarter of its population (22.4%) living in poverty, followed by New Mexico, Kentucky, and Alabama where 1 in every 5 individuals is stricken by poverty. Among the 28 states that had poverty rates lower than the national rate, New Hampshire ranked the best (8.3%), followed by Alaska and Maryland (9.9%), Connecticut (10.1%), New Jersey (10.3%), and Hawaii (10.7%). Illinois wasn’t spared by the recession. It had 17.1 million (13.8%) individuals living below the federal poverty line — the 28th worst state in the nation.