Mapping Tool Enables Housing Action in Detroit and Beyond

In the early stages of developing a housing recovery and blight reduction plan, a grant allowed Loveland Technologies to digitize and map information on every parcel in the city. The resulting web tool, Motor City Mapping, helped the Detroit Land Bank Authority grasp the scale of the crisis by highlighting the number of abandoned and blighted properties.

Now, with help from the Western Reserve Land Conservancy and another grant, Loveland is developing similar dashboards for the cities of Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati.

The company's vision is to digitize information on every parcel in the United States—creating a publicly accessible national parcel data layer.

"By creating a one-stop shop for parcel information, civic leaders have property data at their fingertips that they can use to make smart decisions on development," the Washington Post explains, while public access to the same data creates "a more level field" for residents and neighborhood groups to advocate for community needs.

Residents can also be involved in creating the maps themselves: Loveland invites the public to help survey their city by submitting pictures and information to the dashboard via a smartphone app.

In the past, Loveland founder Jerry Paffendorf sold square-inch 'microplots' for $1 in hopes of encouraging online community engagement.