White House plans to lift communities with open data

"The Obama administration Monday unveiled a new open data portal that melds tools from various federal and local government agencies to help communities find ways to improve their residents' lives ... The project, which is hosted by the Census Bureau at opportunity.census.gov, combines data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Agriculture, and other agencies to give communities information on jobs, housing, transportation, schools and other neighborhood amenities. It was unveiled Monday afternoon at a White House event, where van Noppen and other officials spoke ... In addition, eight cities — Baltimore; Detroit; Kansas City, Mo.; New Orleans; New York City; Philadelphia; San Francisco; and Washington, D.C. — have collaborated with a number of private companies to create tools that combine crime, transportation and schooling data, and measure it against cost of living in various neighborhoods. Officials are also using the White House announcement event as a call to action for communities to build upon the tools released Monday. All of the data sets and services have been posted on open source code management platform GitHub ..."