History
From the Michigan Metropolitan Information Center (MIMIC) at Wayne State University, to the Southeast Michigan Information Center at United Way (SEMIC), there have been many initiatives to try to collect and democratize data about Detroit and its neighborhoods. More often than not, the initiatives have failed for lack of funding and/or the support of the agencies that were not willing to share information with the public.
However, as Detroit grappled with a deepening recession in the mid-2000s, several foundations needed current accurate data in order to invest their resources in Detroit wisely. They also wanted to measure the impact of their investments.
In 2008, The Skillman Foundation and The Kresge Foundation awarded City Connect Detroit a $ 1.85 M planning and implementation grant to incubate Data Driven Detroit (originally named the Detroit-Area Community Information System). The charge for the newly-formed agency was to become a nonprofit, independent data center that would promote positive community change by:
- Tracking neighborhood-level social, economic and environmental indicators for the local initiatives of key foundations;
- Creating greater community access to and utilization of community data and information; and
- Building a community data warehouse of comprehensive, reliable, relevant information relating to social, economic and environmental indicators.
Partnerships
Within its first year of operation, D3 was selected by the Urban Institute to become a member of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP). NNIP is a select group of organizations that have built advanced, continuously updated information systems designed to track neighborhood conditions in their cities.
D3 also became quickly involved with data collaborations that broke new ground. In 2008, the New Economy Initiative contracted D3 to help produce the One D Scorecard, a comprehensive look at the status of the region through five key priority areas: Economic Prosperity, Educational Preparedness, Quality of Life, Race Relations and Regional Transit.
D3 partnered with several organizations to form the Detroit Data Collaborative, and in 2009, the group completed the Detroit Residential Parcel Survey, a landmark inventory of the condition of Detroit’s residential property, block by block.
D3 has also engaged in important research to inform social policy, including RightStart_in Detroit 2009: Maternal and Infant Well-Being in the City of Detroit, 2000-2007.
