The City of Grand Rapids, one of the fastest-growing U.S. cities with a robust economy and a 4.4% employment growth in 2016, faced significant economic, housing, health, and development inequalities. In her 2017 State of the City address, Mayor Rosalynn Bliss highlighted the city's commitment to addressing these disparities, particularly those affecting minority communities, through a focus on racial equity. She emphasized the economic instability and high unemployment in diverse neighborhoods, asserting that prosperity was unattainable without racial equity. To tackle these issues, Grand Rapids partnered with the Center for Government Excellence (GovEx) as part of the What Works Cities initiative. Serving as the Senior Advisor, we began working with Grand Rapids in November 201 to analyze the state of equity through data management to inform decision-making, improve equity, enhance quality of life, and connect with the community.

 

Grand Rapids established a 36-member data governance committee, including staff from various departments and external community stakeholders, to set foundational data management practices focused on equity. The committee's initial meeting laid the groundwork for addressing data management, assessing data quality, prioritizing equity datasets for release, and engaging stakeholders. This committee played a key role in Grand Rapids' plan to use data strategically for decision-making, efficient service delivery, and advanced data practices.

 

Grand Rapids assessed data availability in the equity priority area by conducting a pilot data inventory with select departments and subsequently expanding it city-wide. The initial data inventory successfully collected over 100 datasets. The team also evaluated the quality of these datasets through a data quality survey, gaining insight into the state of both internal and external data systems. By the end of the engagement, 21 datasets passed a data quality check for publishing on the open data portal.

 

The data inventory and quality survey initiated discussions with internal staff about recurring data collection issues, overall data quality, and data availability. This enabled the data governance team to begin planning city-wide data standards to reduce quality issues and engage partner departments to increase data availability and streamline processes through training. Approximately 50 city employees, representing 21 out of 41 departments, were trained in the data quality review process. Additionally, the Grand Rapids team conducted a Business Intelligence & Open Data presentation to the City Commission to foster leadership buy-in and support.

 

In February 2018, during the engagement, Grand Rapids launched its first Open Data Portal, GRDATA. Since then, 16 datasets have been published, with about 4,500 users accessing the data. The team also launched the Housing NOW! Dashboard, which maps areas of inequality and is used to address proposed changes to the Zoning Ordinance and increase housing supply. The dashboard has increased resident engagement and knowledge about zoning ordinance recommendations, creating a more informed community. So far, there have been about 1,650 unique visitors and 5,300 views on the Housing NOW! Story map.