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rose faster than family income (Lichter and Crowley, 2002). Although housing economists at HUD currently track these trends at the national level, tracking at the city and neighborhood levels will provide additional information. Availability and dissemination of local data are key issues in integrating the fine-grained detail of housing market issues within the larger context of national trends. Analysis that integrates data at the local, regional, and national scales is required for the development of urban public policy. Confounding the integration of analysis at various scales is the lack of digital data and GIS expertise at the local and neighborhood levels. The role that HUD can play in promoting the inclusion of local data in national databases is discussed in Chapter 5.
A Spectrum of User Needs
Users of HUD data vary in terms of technical ability and access to resources. Regardless, most people want timely, accurate, and accessible information. People want information about their neighborhood, such as the availability of homes to rent or buy, and the location of social services and transportation routes. More advanced HUD data users want this information in the form of spatially enabled data with accessible metadata to show, find, and explain interesting trends and patterns.
BOX 3.1Colonias: U.S.–Mexico Community-based GIS for Economic Development
HUD defines the colonias as “rural communities and neighborhoods located within 150 miles of the U.S.–Mexican border that lack adequate infrastructure and frequently also lack other basic services.1 Colonias have emerged in rural areas but they are predominantly residential areas for workers and families working in nearby urban centers or in agricultural occupations. Colonias vary in age, size, and composition, but because of their informal nature and recent origin, little is known about the trajectory of their growth. Typically they are unplanned, unregulated settlements with high rates of poverty, which is a factor that compounds the difficulty of developing infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer systems, improved housing, street lighting, and other services.
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