Harmonizing Data is Hard

Abstract

This chapter investigates data interoperability and the difficulties in harmonizing data across jurisdictions, using Ireland/Northern Ireland and Metropolitan Boston as case studies. In the wake of the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process in Northern Ireland, cooperation between public sector bodies in the North and South had increased enormously. However, there was a dearth of cross-border datasets to formulate policy and inform decision-making. It quickly became apparent why there were few, detailed cross-border data visualizations and maps — it was very difficult to create single, common datasets. What was needed was data harmonization where agencies worked together to create comparable datasets. Metropolitan Boston has 101 local government departments, which means it has 101 data regimes. What this means is that, with the exception of data required for state/federal reporting, it is impossible to join datasets together to create comparable metro-wide datasets. This has a number of consequences, reducing spatial intelligence about the characteristics and performance of the city-region, fostering back-to-back planning, limiting potential data-driven innovations to urban governance and management, and stifling the benefits of open data.