Smart Growth for Dallas Phase II

Today the Trust for Public Land, buildingcommunityWORKSHOP, and The Texas Trees Foundation presented the initial results of our Smart Growth for Dallas partnership to the City of Dallas Park and Recreation Board. The innovative program uses computer modeling and community engagement to identify areas where parks can grow the local economy, connect communities, improve public health, and protect the city’s most important natural places.

“Considering the environmental, social, and economic challenges we face as a city, the need for parks in Dallas has never been greater,” said Willis Winters, Director of the Dallas Park and Recreation Department. “Thanks to The Trust for Public Land’s science-based approach, Smart Growth for Dallas is helping build a strategic roadmap for protecting our city’s most important natural places.”

Using sophisticated Geographic Information System (GIS) computer modeling, the Smart Growth for Dallas program has created a series of maps that depict areas of Dallas where parks can cool neighborhoods during summertime heat waves, protect homes from floods, improve the health of nearby residents, build equity in underserved neighborhoods, and connect communities to each other. Through analysis of the data, Smart Growth for Dallas has identified dozens of potential locations across the city for building new parks that can provide these benefits.

“From flood protection to connectivity to health, parks provide a multitude of benefits that directly address Dallas’s biggest economic, social, and environmental challenges. Our mapping and data tools are helping Dallas build smarter parks that realize as many of these benefits as possible,” said Robert Kent, North Texas area director for The Trust for Public Land. “Parks are more than just a nice place to spend a sunny Saturday—they are critical for building a city that is resilient to the challenges of the 21st century.”

The results presented at Thursday’s meeting are the first phase of a two-year effort to develop a new set of strategies to guide future investments in parks, open space, and green infrastructure for Dallas. On Nov. 10, we're launching a series of eight community engagement sessions to hear from Dallas residents about what they want from the city’s park system. The sessions will be held throughout the city.

“Decisions about our parks and open space are so much stronger when they are informed by community members,” says Brent Brown, Founding Director of bcWORKSHOP. “Our community engagement sessions are essential to getting that feedback.”

Over the coming months, the program will expand to include additional data, including results from a landmark new study of the urban heat island effect in Dallas being conducted by The Texas Trees Foundation. “Understanding the relationship between tree canopy, open space, and the urban heat island effect is crucial for building resilience in Dallas,” says Matt Grubisich of the Texas Trees Foundation. “The data we generate in the next six months will provide valuable guidance to the city for how to combat the urban island effect in the neighborhoods where it’s needed most.”

Once complete in 2018, Smart Growth for Dallas will represent the largest and most comprehensive data analysis of the city’s park system every conducted. Results from the program will be available to city staff, public officials, non-profit partners, neighborhood associations, and Dallas residents through an interactive website. The website will feature maps, data visualizations, and storytelling about the important role parks play in building a city that is resilient to the challenges of the 21st century.

In advance of the November 10th launch of the community engagement sessions, the public is encouraged to take an online survey about Dallas’s parks system and signup for the Smart Growth for Dallas email list to receive project updates or visit www.SmartGrowthForDallas.org.

The Trust for Public Land creates parks and protects land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come. Millions of people live within a ten-minute walk of a Trust for Public Land park, garden, or natural area, and millions more visit these sites every year. To support The Trust for Public Land and share why nature matters to you, visit www.tpl.org.

Texas Trees Foundation is a private nonprofit dedicated to creating healthy communities by protecting and enhancing the urban forest while investing in people. Established in 1982, the Mission of the Texas Trees Foundation is (i) to preserve, beautify and expand parks and other public natural green spaces, and (ii) to beautify our public streets, boulevards and rights-of-way by planting trees and encouraging others to do the same through educational programs that focus on the importance of building and protecting the “urban forest” today as a legacy for generations to come. www.texastrees.org

Data Ecosystem Project - Report Released

See more posts about bcANALYTICS. 

Stakeholders from across North Texas identified opportunities and challenges at Data Ecosystem Lab #1 in January 2016. 

Stakeholders from across North Texas identified opportunities and challenges at Data Ecosystem Lab #1 in January 2016. 

bcANALYTICS recently wrapped up The Data Ecosystem Project, a two-year project to reimagine the way data is collected, shared, and used across Dallas and North Texas. 

Executive Summary

Read the full Data Ecosystem Project report and Appendices here!

North Texas faces a myriad of challenges as it moves through the second decade of the 21st Century. Affordable housing, rapid growth, aging infrastructure, poverty alleviation, children’s health, and urban blight are just some of the many complex, interconnected problems that require an unprecedented amount of long-term action, cross-sector coordination, and development of a common agenda to address. Cities across the world have recognized that data is central to both understanding and acting on these complex issues and that the importance of making data accessible to a greater population is key to reaching these goals. A number of different strategies for achieving these goals have been adopted across the country, with each offering unique strengths and benefits.

The Data Ecosystem Project, sponsored by Communities Foundation of Texas, has worked with a diverse group of stakeholders to identify a system that can revolutionize the ways we collect, share, access, and use data in Dallas. Through research on national best practices, the Dallas Data Ecosystem Survey, and local stakeholder engagement the Data Ecosystem Project has identified an approach that organizations in Dallas and North Texas can work towards to improve the health and vitality of the regional data ecosystem.

The wealth of motivated organizations and individuals already working in Dallas and North Texas lends itself to collaborative solutions that benefit from the existing skills and expertise of the data ecosystem. The single greatest need is a centralized data catalog, library, or portal - where data from a variety of organizations, topics, and scales can be accessed by anyone and everyone. To do this, a mix of ancillary activities must also occur, from the creation of a governing body and governance structure to the development of topic specific cohort groups that encourage collaboration and participation between and across different parts of the ecosystem. 

The Data Ecosystem Project has identified a data ecosystem model built around a number of primary and second functions. To implement these practices across the ecosystem, we recommend the following activities take place by Fall 2017: 

  1. Acquiring preliminary funding to carry out a set of initial work items with oversight from a preliminary advisory team.
  2. Recruiting advocates from a variety of sectors and backgrounds to act as champions of the data ecosystem.
  3. Forming an advisory team to help guide the development of the data ecosystem’s final structure. 
  4. Conducting a data inventory to better understand the extent of publicly available data in North Texas.
  5. Developing case studies that help demonstrate the value and potential of enhanced data accessibility.
  6. Creating a business plan and securing multi-year funding for implementation.

Moving forward with these steps will support the successful implementation of a more robust data ecosystem. Whether the advisory team recommends and builds the case for a collaborative effort or the development of a university-driven data hub, taking the steps to make data more accessible will better enable the region to tackle the problems it faces. By maintaining the status quo, organizations must work harder and less efficiently to understand themselves, their communities, and make well-informed decisions.

Data Social Hour 3

Learn more about bcANALYTICS!

Join [bc] and other members of Dallas’ data ecosystem on Wednesday, January 20th, 2016 for the 3rd Data Social Hour. This month, we’re looking for 4-5 of our data-inspired peers to give short, 5-minute presentations on a data-related subject of their choosing.

Are you stuck on a project because you can’t find the right data? Do you have a favorite dataset that gets overlooked by others in your field? Do you want to share your love of data visualization with others?

If you answered yes and would liked to share your work with others, fill out this form and tell us what you would like to talk about by January 14th. We’ll let you know if you’re chosen by January 15th and announce our speakers that same day.

Please RSVP if you’re interested in attending. Appetizers and drinks will be provided.

Upcoming Data Social Hours:
Data Social Hour #4: February 17th, 2016
Data Social Hour #5: March 23rd, 2016
Data Social Hour #6: April 20th, 2016

 

 

Data Social Hour 2

Learn more about bcANALYTICS.

datasocialhour.jpg

Join us on Wednesday, December 9th from 6:30-7:30pm for a discussion of neighborhood-level data in Dallas with members of the local data community. Meet others interested in using data to improve their communities and learn more about [bc]'s work defining and embracing the city's many unique neighborhoods.

Appetizers and drinks will be provided.

CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

Geography of Food Security

Learn more about bcANALYTICS

bcANALYTICS_Crossroads.jpg

[Note: The data and report presented here are for informational purposes only. This report does not represent the current strategy and operations of CCS.]

Crossroads Community Services (CCS) works to ensure that all people in Dallas County have ready access to nourishing foods and to provide life-skills education to help reduce obesity in impoverished areas. To help serve those in need, CCS participated in the 2013 - 2014 class of the Data Driven Decision-Making (D3) Institute hosted by the Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT). The D3 Institute works to give organizations the skills and tools necessary to incorporate data into their work serving low-income working families.

Following their participation in the D3 Institute, D3 participants were eligible to submit letters of interest to receive an analytics package from bcANALYTICS sponsored by CFT. In their LOI, CCS sought to identify small areas of Dallas County most at risk of food insecurity for possible expansion of their network of Community Distribution Partners (CDPs). bcANALYTICS staff worked with CCS to refine the research needs into a data driven, actionable research question and a work plan to answer the question in three months.

The three month project was split between four main phases – Connect, Discover, Analyze, and Deliver -- in order to perform a literature review, data collection, analysis, and compilation of a final report sharing contextual information and recommendations for CCS’s expansion strategy. This project required a considerable amount of background research on food deserts, food insecurity, and CCS’ client base in order to understand the myriad issues relating to the food landscape in Dallas County.

Ultimately, the report produced estimates of food insecurity at the Census Tract level and used geospatial techniques to identify areas underserved by grocery stores and food pantries. The intersection of food insecurity and food deserts was the starting point in identifying specific neighborhoods in Dallas County where CCS could focus on expanding the CDP network. Five neighborhoods were selected and explored at a more fine-grained level: the Los Encinos and Westhaven neighborhoods in far west Dallas; and parts of Pleasant Grove, Pleasant Mound, and Pemberton Hills in southeast Dallas.

Selected findings from the report:

  • 34% of food distributed by CCS to CDP sites flows to southeastern Dallas County. 
  • Children under 19 make up 31% of the overall population in Dallas County, but this same age group makes up 46% of CCS clients between 2012 and 2014. 
  • Roughly ¼ of the food insecure population in Dallas County, 133,00 people, live in areas of concentrated food insecurity (Census Tracts with food insecurity rates greater than or equal to 20%).
  • Much of Dallas County’s food insecure population live in areas that have low accessibility to grocery stores and food pantries. 

Celebrating Local Heroes

Learn more about our MLK Day of Service projects here.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged us to build a more perfect union and taught us that everyone has a role to play in that effort. For our 2015 service project in his honor, [bc] set out to recognize some of those who serve their communities by releasing the Second Edition of buildingcommunityHEROES trading cards.  By creating a fun, tactile, and pocketable way to learn about those working to improve our communities, we hope to encourage those of all ages to honor their heroes and engage in the causes that speak to them.

We put out the call for local hero nominations at the beginning of January and received just over 100 nominations for those working tirelessly in Dallas, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley.  Nominations included selfless family members, state senators, founders of schools, advocacy group members and fearless neighborhood leaders.  It was not easy, but from here we researched and curated the nominations to get a final group of heroes with a diverse range of causes, ages, backgrounds and levels of impact.  After the final selections were made, the cards were printed, sorted, packaged and ready for a January 19 distribution.

We distributed the cards on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and throughout the week in Dallas, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley.  We hope that the stories of these 24 heroes will inspire people to be more active in their communities.  We also hope that the cards will encourage people to think about and honor their local heroes.  If you were not able to pick up a pack, check out all 24 heroes plus 2014's at www.buildingcommunityheroes.org.

 

Who is your hero?  Share them on social media at #bcHEROES2015 and nominate them for the third edition of trading cards!

Announcing bcANALYTICS

Watch for future posts about bcANALYTICS here.

Overcoming the major economic and social issues in the city that affect the working poor - jobs, housing, health, child care, and more - requires coordinated data gathering and analysis. Currently, Dallas significantly trails behind its peer cities in this work. Access to reliable, intelligible, and current data can reveal, and help coordinate, the related work of local government, non-profit organizations, business, neighborhood groups, universities, and foundations to improve local decision-making for the advancement of social and physical change in the city. Facilitating the use of data by city and community leaders leads to more targeted and thoughtful response strategies to individual issues, in service to comprehensive strategies.

bcANALYTICS, in partnership with the Communities Foundation of Texas, continues to work with nonprofits of the Data Driven Decision-Making Institute (D3) to deliver tailored analytics reports to fit organizational needs. While these reports answer organization-specific questions, they also address issues shared throughout the region and help guide strategic decision-making for many organizations.

The bcANALYTICS team also works to develop a potential model and implementation proposal to guide Dallas’ incubation of a robust effort to use advanced and continuously updated data to target and inform urban issues affecting the working poor. Research on national best practices will inform this work and help situate Dallas within the national context of organizations using data for community benefit. The project will ultimately evaluate how municipal government, universities, non-profit organizations, consulting agencies, foundations, and others might contribute to a model, and will explore possibilities to advance data sharing and access to address key challenges facing the working poor.

bcANALYTICS also supports other research being undertaken at [bc].