Chicagocrime.org has gone the way of the dinosaur. Sadly, it was old technology that did it in. But it’s been reborn, bigger and better.
Introducing EveryBlock / The EveryBlock Blog
“Whats happening in my neighborhood?”For a long time, thats been a tough question to answer. In dense, bustling cities like Chicago, New York and San Francisco, the number of daily media reports, government proceedings and local Internet conversations is staggering. Every day, a wealth of local information is created — officials inspect restaurants, journalists cover fires and Web users post photographs — but who has time to sort through all of that?
Our mission at EveryBlock is to solve that problem. We aim to collect all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and make it simple for you to keep track of news in particular areas. Were a geographic filter — a “news feed” for your neighborhood, or, yes, even your block.
As a journalist, I envied chicagocrime.org. I really wanted to do something similar in my role with the interactive team at the News & Record. The day of hyper-local data where every resident of a town or city can have instant access to information that has been buried in government cabinets and indecipherable or technically challenged Web pages is coming. Then we as residents can make better informed decisions about the people we elect and the services we receive. And we can better participants.
Or not.
It’s just a thought.
