The Daily Tar Heel’s online editor Sara Gregory has created this excellent tool for visualizing crime in Chapel Hill. This is an example of effectively using low or no cost Internet technologies to serve our community. Some of us on the Town’s now defunct Technology Board wanted to leverage technology like Google Maps to better inform our public.
For all the whizzy appearance of our Town’s new website, we still have a long way to go including tools to track crime, to report on the status of development projects and to allow citizens to log work requests for neighborhood issues (filling potholes, fixing streetlights, etc.) the Town needs to address.
View Chapel Hill Crime in a larger map
I’m contacting both Sara and Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran to see if the Town can expand on what Sara has started. I’ll report back soon….
Will,
I’m really glad you like the map. It’s been something we’ve been talking about doing for years, and I’m happy we finally were able to do so. We have an agreement with the town to get monthly spreadsheets of police data, and that’s what we’re building the map with. It’s low-key technology, but like you said, incredibly useful. Eventually we’d like to expand to include on campus incident reports and those from Carrboro. I’d love to hear any ideas you have about ways we could make it better!
Sara
Sara, I’ve passed this on to the Chief and he’s having Police Information Officer Kevin Gunter review what you’ve done with an eye towards using it.
Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you extend the tool (I’ve got 30+ years of experience).
Also check out http://www.nccrime.us to look up incidents and arrests since 2003 as well as neighborhood crime comparisons.