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The Census Bureau Made An App That Can Tell You Where to Live
http://nextcity.org/sharedcity/entry/where-the-census-bureau-thinks-you-should-live
The Census Bureau Made An App That Can Tell You Where to Live
11/27/2013 Nancy Scola | Next City
Noted app-maker the U.S. Census Bureau is out with its latest creation, called dwellr, a mobile tool for helping people figure out the best place in America’s vastness for them to live.
<snip>
The dwellr app rests on the premise that users have a rough understanding of the sort of environment that suits them, and simply need helping sorting through the data. Tap quickly through eleven screens — Are you male or female? Do you like small towns or big cities? What’s the educational level of the people with whom you tend to run? — and it comes up with the best places for you. (A small-scale user test: I got New York City; I live, happily, in Brooklyn.)
<snip>
There’s also the acknowledged fact that dwellr is proof of concept, and a way of building out the open-data-driven digital government push that the Obama administration has talked about making a priority. The census’ demography survey has, not without controversy, been around in some form for more than 150 years. But "what good are data," writes the bureau, "if nobody but the experts can easily access them?" And on that front, they want help:
Diving a bit more deeply on that point, the app is also an exploration of the belief whose popular origins can be traced to Nudge, the book co-authored by former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein that suggests that people can be gently, well, nudged toward making better decisions. It’s a concept that the White House has talked about as "Smart Disclosure" (that, that gets capitalized) and also informs projects like the new Location Affordability Portal, a joint venture of the U.S. Department of Transportation and HUD.
<snip>
The Census Bureau Made An App That Can Tell You Where to Live
11/27/2013 Nancy Scola | Next City
Noted app-maker the U.S. Census Bureau is out with its latest creation, called dwellr, a mobile tool for helping people figure out the best place in America’s vastness for them to live.
<snip>
The dwellr app rests on the premise that users have a rough understanding of the sort of environment that suits them, and simply need helping sorting through the data. Tap quickly through eleven screens — Are you male or female? Do you like small towns or big cities? What’s the educational level of the people with whom you tend to run? — and it comes up with the best places for you. (A small-scale user test: I got New York City; I live, happily, in Brooklyn.)
<snip>
There’s also the acknowledged fact that dwellr is proof of concept, and a way of building out the open-data-driven digital government push that the Obama administration has talked about making a priority. The census’ demography survey has, not without controversy, been around in some form for more than 150 years. But "what good are data," writes the bureau, "if nobody but the experts can easily access them?" And on that front, they want help:
Imagine if an app matched your preferences with restaurant reviews, places with museums or most visited parks. With the Census Bureau’s application programming interface, developers can take the same statistics found in dwellr and apply them to any app they can imagine. We are eager to see new applications of these American Community Survey statistics that help people learn more about their communities using the same information businesses use to plan investments and services.
Diving a bit more deeply on that point, the app is also an exploration of the belief whose popular origins can be traced to Nudge, the book co-authored by former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein that suggests that people can be gently, well, nudged toward making better decisions. It’s a concept that the White House has talked about as "Smart Disclosure" (that, that gets capitalized) and also informs projects like the new Location Affordability Portal, a joint venture of the U.S. Department of Transportation and HUD.
<snip>
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