Democratizing Housing Affordability Data: Open Data and Data Journalism in Charlottesville, VA

Abstract

Charlottesville is an independent city in central Virginia currently undergoing a rezoning process in an attempt to address the local impact of the housing affordability crisis. Restrictive, low-density zoning and gentrification have led to the displacement of many income-constrained Charlottesville residents. Local journalists are the primary information sources for residents about the crisis, but public data quantifying crisis impacts are often inaccessible to the public and to local media due to the technical experience required for data access and analysis. As a result, residents seeking to understand the land-scape of housing in Charlottesville are not taking full advantage of the information contained within public datasets as rezoning discussions take place. The focus of this project is to create a public dashboard in cooperation with local journalists to display and contextualize Charlottesville housing affordability data. Figures included in the dashboard make use of publicly available data from the Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) Project, and Charlottesville Open Data Portal, which have been cleaned, joined, and aggregated for plotting. The dashboard displays maps that geographically visualize home rental and purchase prices and identify the locations of resources such as public transportation and grocery stores, animated bar charts representing historical demographic information from the Census, and line graphs of historical median home prices. Neighborhood development is a central focus. We hope this platform for contextualizing and communicating data through data journalism will support advocacy for affordable housing initiatives and encourage more data scientists to carry out similar projects highlighting trends in their own communities.