Civic Atlas updates

One of the biggest problems with directories is that they tell you where organisations are registered, not where they're actually working.

That sounds like a small difference. It isn't.

If you want to understand a neighbourhood, plan services or spot gaps, knowing where organisations actually operate matters far more than knowing their postal address.

Version 0.5 is the first step towards solving that problem.

The aim was never to create a big directory – it was to build a picture of civic infrastructure that can answer questions a directory never could.

Before, it let you search all the organisations (currently confined to registered charities in Birmingham), discover what they did and see which wards they were in.

But I really wanted to show you which organisations operated in each ward rather than that they were simply located there.

But I couldn't even tell you that, because I only knew which constituency they were in and which wards were in that constituency – so the Atlas told you the organisation was operating in all of the wards of the constituency it lived in.

v0.5 – Understand organisations

I've now built the first version of an editorial platform that gathers evidence – and lets me review and edit the findings, and record the reasoning before anything is published to the Atlas.

So, now the Atlas can tell you which wards it thinks an organisation is actually working in and why it thinks that.

Editing the organisations will be a gradual process (there's over 2,500 of them) and an ongoing one, but take a look at The Springfield Project for an example of what it means.

Those editorial decisions now become part of the Atlas's own knowledge, so future analysis can build on previous work instead of starting again from scratch.

Next phase: Understand places, not just organisations

The next release will concentrate on the ward pages.

At the moment you can see which parties are in power, the ward-level indices of multiple deprivation, and the registered charities we think are operating there.

v0.6 – Understand Places will improve on that to provide much more useful information and insights about individual wards.

Ward page improvements

Instead of mostly listing organisations, each ward page starts becoming an analysis page.

For example:

• demographic profile
• deprivation
• benefits
• age profile
• health indicators
• community assets
• key strengths
• obvious gaps
• notable organisations
• partnerships already operating there

Essentially:

"Tell me about this place."

rather than

"Here's a list."

Better mapping

For example:

• ward boundary
• neighbouring wards
• physical sites
• community buildings

Better navigation

For example:

• "Similar wards"
• Nearby organisations
• Organisations serving multiple wards
• Constituency links
• Local authority links

See the full current roadmap here.

See you soon!